The most terrifying aspect of living out Catholic sexuality is that it requires us to unflinchingly kill an entire world of potentials. In this world of dreamers, it can be very difficult to commit oneself to a given way of life simply because it entails giving up all other ways of life. It can be […]
As the concept of gender grows ever more fluid (you can pick any one of 58 gender options on Facebook), it’s worth asking why God created humans as male and female. Bacteria have no gender and reproduce mostly by dividing their cells. Some species of fish are sequentially hermaphroditic, changing genders throughout their lifetime. Angels, […]
Ave Maria Press recently published two books on chastity. While the books come to the same conclusions, the authors do so from very different viewpoints. The first, Chastity is for Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin, by Arleen Spenceley, is by a twenty-nine year old woman who is still looking for Mr. Right. She […]
Remember the scene in the movie The Passion of the Christ when the androgynous, almost-beautiful-but-not-quite Satan character is carrying a baby, and when the face of the baby is revealed, it turns out to be old, ugly, and creepy rather than a sweet baby face? This was confusing for a lot of viewers, and when […]
When was the last time you heard a priest give a homily that mentioned Natural Family Planning? If you are like me, the answer is never. Admittedly, it isn’t necessarily a topic that I would want discussed at a Mass where younger children are present, but there are many times when it would be appropriate, […]
But when sex is divorced from love there is a feeling that one has been stopped at the vestibule of the castle of pleasure; that the heart has been denied the city after crossing the bridge. Sadness and melancholy result from such a frustration of destiny, for it is the nature of man to be […]
The Archdiocese of New York has published three handy booklets for parents, providing suggestions and examples on how to talk to their kids about the gift and responsibility of human sexuality. Each booklet focuses on a particular age group: primary grades, middle schoolers and teens. Fathers for Good spoke to Kimberly Quatela, chastity education coordinator […]
“I just don’t even want to talk about it.” A mom confided she’d buried her head in the sand. Yes, her daughter could reasonably expect her period sometime in the next few years. But Mom just wasn’t ready yet. Moms and Dads: We have to get ready. It is our job to teach our children […]
As soon as the men of the world perceive that you seek the devout life, they will launch forth all their raillery and slander against you; the most ill-natured will pronounce your altered ways to be hypocrisy, affection, or bigotry; they will assert that the world having slighted you, rejected by it, you turn to […]
Dustin, before we get started talking about the conjugal act of marital intercourse, why don’t you introduce yourself for a moment. Are you married? How many kids do you have? How do you bring home the bacon? What is Engaged Marriage? DR: Thanks for having me! I’m 33-year-old Midwestern who’s been married to my high […]
Editor’s Note: This article was written for a secular audience and therefore does not approach this issue from a moral standpoint – that premarital sex is wrong. Still, it offers some good ideas for talking with your teens about sex. Whether your teenager’s health classes at school take an abstinence-only approach to sexual education or […]
Imagine my surprise when a friend who works with the parish youth group asked me to give a chastity talk to the middle and high school aged girls. “Who, me?” I said, raising an eyebrow suspiciously. I thought, Why not someone who has actually lived chastely her whole life? Me? I did it all wrong. […]
Concerning the question of sending American women into combat, we have thus far looked at the trajectory of the feminist movement, specifically how it went from advocating basic equality between the sexes to perverting and deconstructing sexuality altogether. There have been two distinct and deliberate effects of this radical feminism: the first being a blurring […]
On February 26, 2013, the Denver Post ran an article that contained the following: Colorado parents of transgender 1st-grader file complaint over restroom ban The parents of a transgender 6-year-old have filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division because Eagleside Elementary School in Fountain banned the first-grader from using the girls’ restroom. The […]
“And so I take (my wife) not for any lustful motive, but I do it in singleness of heart. Be kind enough to…bring us to old age together.” Tobit 8:7 “..Now, gird up your loins and arise…” Jer: 1:17 Which scripture verse more accurately describes how a couple should prepare for the conjugal embrace? Praying […]
There is something about teaching one’s children about the facts of life that inspires fear in the hearts of parents everywhere. When that day came for my boys and me, I nervously searched my local library for an appropriate book (many I found were clearly not appropriate from a moral standpoint), sat down on the […]
Shopping for dresses for my seven-year-old daughter is as epically frustrating as trying to find cell phone service in an elevator. Everything is too short, too skimpy, too adult, too sexy, too much! The fashion industry apparently thinks seven-year-olds should start dressing like Victoria’s Secret catalogue model-wannabes. Like me at 20 years old! Yes, (*strike […]
A while back, we began a 4-part exploration of the four marks of God’s love (Free, Total, Faithful, Fruitful) as explained in Humanae Vitae, and, for me anyway, it has been a good experience. We’ve explored the true fulfillment of hippy love. We’ve brushed up on our Latin and, consequently, our swag. We’ve even taken […]
Recently, I noticed that our editor had put out a call to some of our female columnists to address a newly released study by the Archdiocese of Baltimore about Catholic women and contraception. Suffice it to say that the survey of Church-going Catholic women found that a substantial minority were in agreement with the Church’s […]
A new study just out from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, shows that girls as young as six are being conditioned by secular media to view themselves as sex objects. Yes, you read that right sex objects. At a time when they should be learning to read and exploring their artistic creativity, they are instead taking […]
I remember one night, not too long ago, when our 8-year-old’s homework assignment was to read a chapter from his religion book. As Quinn and I finished the section about patron saints, we chatted about the patron of ‘this and that’ and he mentioned St. Benedict—his favorite since learning about him in first grade. Quinn: What’s […]
Why have an article on marriage law appear in a journal dedicated to economics? Surely the “purely” private domestic arrangements of a cohabiting couple are of no consequence to economic policy, or wider economic principles? While these questions may well represent a typical response to an article of this kind, we distributists, of course, know […]
Those pushing the redefinition of marriage insist that all they want is equality. After all, aren’t persons with same-sex attraction equal as human beings to those without. Why should they be discriminated against? Of course they are human beings with all the rights of other human beings. The problem is not that the people aren’t […]
I have joked for years that MTV is destroying civilization as we know it. Then, the network gave us “Jersey Shore,” and proved my joke wasn’t funny, it was true. Now, I’m convinced the people at MTV actually sit around a conference table and ponder the question: How can we exploit and corrupt the innocence […]
