This is a great article from Jennifer Hartline at Catholic Online:
With our government on the verge of passing health care legislation that, absent explicit language placed within it prohibiting Federal funds from being used for abortion, will mandate abortion coverage paid for by you and me, I figure now’s a good time for a radical discussion about sex. We’ll never change the way we view abortion until we change our attitudes about sex. It’s time for a sexual counter-revolution.
The sanctity of human life from the moment of conception throughout all of life up to and including a natural death is the only foundation our society will ever be able to stand upon if we hope to flourish as a truly free people. It’s quite obvious our foundation is crumbling. To repair it, we must go back to square one and correct our ideas about sex. Unless we give sexual intercourse its due reverence, we’ll never give human life its due reverence. The two can never be separated, as Pope Paul VI tried to tell the world in his prophetic encyclical, Humanae Vitae. If we don’t regard all life as sacred – and thus the creative act of sex—then we will always find ways to rationalize and justify the murder of a child as a “right.”
I’m not naively suggesting that prior to 1973 people were all living chaste and faithful lives and that sex was held in the highest esteem by all, to be expressed within the bond of marriage. I am saying that the decision to legalize the killing of our preborn children cemented a poisonous shift in our mentality, and that poison has corroded every aspect of our society, especially our treatment of sex. We replaced responsibility with “rights” and it’s been a downhill race toward insatiable debauchery ever since. …
…There is a solution to the problem of nearly all unwanted and unexpected pregnancies, but it’s the only one that nobody wants to talk about or consider seriously….
Sex isn’t a right; it’s a profound gift that serves a profound purpose. It isn’t just a healthy, human activity; it’s also the ultimate expression of love and selflessness. It’s not a recreational pastime with no strings attached. Sex comes with some huge responsibilities, and if we’re not willing to accept ALL those responsibilities, we have no business having sex. It’s that simple.
Read the rest, pass it along and let’s get this revolution going!!
How many times have I said this? People did not wake up one day and decide they wanted to have the right to kill their unborn children, but they did progressively decide it was their right to have sex without meaning, limit or consequence. If we are going to have any impact on abortion, we must encourage people to live out their sexuality as God intended, in a way that respects the dignity of the human person, the sanctity of the marital act and the “great mystery” that it symbolizes.
Over at TOB 4 U I have compiled a pretty good list of Theology of the Body resources and links to TOB websites and blogs. All great stuff to read, listen to and pass along to help spread this wonderful message which George Weigel called a kind of “theological time bomb…that would explode within the Church at some indeterminate point in the future” that would reshape the way we see our sexuality and our embodiedness as male and female.
One Comment on “TOB Tuesday: Time for a Sexual Counter Revolution!”
I recently read that 75% of American men are addicted to internet pornography. That number is simply astounding. It is just one more product of sex devoid of the mystery it is intended to reflect.
Sharon Olds wrote a poem that starts with the line…
“How do they do it? The ones who make love without love.” I would like to know the same.
I’m an Anglo-Catholic, likely soon to be a Roman, and one of the things that irritates me is how few people seem to care that the Liturgy for marriage very clearly states that the first reason for marriage (and sex) is the pro-creation of children. Until Christians, let alone non-Christians, realize this truth, we will only be contributing, even if somewhat indirectly, to the culture of death.