The “right to privacy,” invented by the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut (which was argued in March 1965 and decided in June 1965) is a cleverly woven fig leaf for immorality. It transferred moral judgment from the objective to the subjective realm, and, in doing so, it nullified the government’s former role of prohibiting certain vices by law. With this so-called right having jurisdiction, consenting adults could do whatever they desired behind closed doors; there no longer were externally imposed limits on their sexual proclivities.
Sixty years later, privacy and subjectivity not only still rule moral and legal discourse, but they also have seeped into the culture that young people absorb. They regularly see non-marital and same-sex couples streaming across their screens, couples who are wealthy, influential, or both, and who seem quite happy to the casual observer. Their lifestyles, widely condemned before Griswold as immoral, now appear normal, harmless—even good.
Can a case plausibly be made today, as was done for centuries before Griswold, that these non-marital sexual relationships are, in fact, wrong?
If so, it has to withstand subjectivist claims that deny objective moral truth—at least when it comes to consensual sex.
To begin, two preliminary points must be cleared. First, outward appearances do not provide windows into a person’s interior life. There is no way to discern whether a person who is successful in public suffers in private from his vices or immorality.
Second, when a person sins in private, he does not get struck by lightning. Immediate, external ramifications rarely follow. Hence, once the sinner rationalizes his action to absolve himself of guilt, it becomes easier to repeat.
What, then, is the harm of such behavior?
Vice and immorality wear down a person the way that poor diet wears down the body. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, poor diet changes the body for the worse: weight accumulates, cholesterol rises, arteries harden, muscles atrophy. Eventually, intervention is needed: a change in diet, exercise, medication to manage blood pressure or other problems. Without intervention, trouble looms: heart attacks, strokes, GI issues, diabetes, and the dreaded fate: premature death. At multiple points among this downward spiral that can be crawled for decades, a person can declare himself “fine” and “feeling good,” despite the mounting medical evidence to the contrary.
In the case of sexual immorality, a similarly slow degradation of the body follows. Just as nature teaches us which foods are healthy and which are harmful by how our bodies react, so does sex: the more unnatural the act, the higher the risk of sexually transmitted infections. In relations between men and women, there is the “hook up” practice rampant on college campuses and other places where young adults frequent, risks of STIs, pregnancy, and abortion loom. Even in the case of a cohabiting man and woman, health risks remain: hormonal contraception can generate multiple health issues, to say nothing of the physical pain following elective sterilization.
The body and the soul are inseparably linked, so it is not surprising that spiritual degradation coincides with the physical. Pornography use kindles multiple psychological and behavioral problems, as even the New York Times has reluctantly acknowledged. Cohabiting couples live with fear of abandonment by their partners. Botched abortions can render women sterile, and the guilt after them, though it can be suppressed for decades, eventually surfaces and wreaks havoc.
Partisans of private immorality claim that no one can judge their actions. But in the case of these sexual activities now socially accepted, it is nature who judges in the manner of a pagan god, doling out pain to punish those who disobey its norms.
If it is nature who judges with a steady prescription of pain, it seems that sexual morality is, in fact, the property of an objective moral order—a natural law—not determined by men, but by God who created the world to function in particular ways. In regulating other activities, such as diet, human beings make moral judgments that conform to the realities of nature. Given the natural harms that follow from sexual immorality—and the lack of harms when sex is confined within a monogamous marriage—we cannot help but conclude that it is nature who invades privacy and rips off its fig leaf.
It’s no surprise that partisans of immorality, like the ill-fated Oedipus the King, have tried to avoid nature’s destiny by declaring war on it. In the first wave, they fought with artificial birth control, abortion, sterilization, medication, and vaccination (the Gardasil vaccine). Their weapons have since grown more outlandish, striking at nature’s source: puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, “sex change” operations.
Yet the very fact that they are working so hard to counter nature signals its supremacy. If a person “needs protection” to engage in an act, then the act is inherently harmful—that is, not healthy and not good. If a person must spend thousands of dollars to morph into his “true self,” then nature mocks his self-delusion all the way to the bank.
Nature exposes the “right to privacy” for the charade that it is. Nature is normative, and it is destiny; should men and women contradict it, they suffer the consequences in their bodies and souls. This returns us to objective morality, which is stamped in nature, passed on by tradition, and revealed by God as the proper basis for determining right and wrong—in public and in private.
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“. . . [A]nd the lack of harms when sex is confined within a monogamous marriage . . .”
Including a monogamous contraceptive marriage?
The Pill harms women, also embryos. The estrogens in the pill are more stable that the real stuff that women make naturally and can get into the water ways.
Condoms, often made of latex, can eventually caused latex allergies, and end up in landfills.
If there is no right to privacy, I would like a complete list of every medical issue the author of this article has ever experienced as well as a list of all of the medications he is currently taking. In addition I would like his social security number, his mother’s maiden name, a full list naming every woman he has ever slept with, as well as the names and birthdates of his spouse and all of his children as well as their home addresses and social security numbers. I will also need their complete medical histories as well as a full list of every medication they have ever taken.
I have every right to have this information. It is immoral if you do not give it to me.
Wow, did you miss the point!
l initially had a similar reaction when lnread the title of this article. the obvious dangers of a literal interpretation of his premise are demonstrated by your response but l found myself wondering How do we return Objective norms of Morality to the legal forum without forfeiting authentic privacy… any thoughhts?
Outside of fornication that you mentioned, is anything else on the list you provided a vice? Thank you.
Michael you have missed the point…I agree maybe clarity on specifically the issue of sexual activity was not clarified….he is not talking about privacy of all personal information…..we now see the societal results of unfettered sexual behavior and it is not good….
Michael V., I’m afraid you have misunderstood Griswold and been misled by the so-called right to privacy. First, there is the surface issue: a person does not have a “right” to do in private what the state has ruled to be illegal. Before Griswold, contraception was illegal in most states. The “right to privacy” was invented as a clever way to overturn then-existing laws prohibiting contraception. (As an aside, contrary to the propaganda of birth control advocates, such laws were enforced by preventing the sale of contraceptive devices, not by monitoring couples’ bedrooms.) Second, according to your logic, which follows from Griswold’s overreach, it is the task of the government to declare what is private and what is public. To say that doing so is part of a government securing the common good, which is the Catholic understanding of government’s role, is a stretch at best. Third, the opposite of “private” is not “must be made open to all on the public domain” as you suggest. What is proper to a person’s life that need not be known by others should not be known by others. There is no need for inventing a right for what should pertain to ordinary, commonsense, humane living.
Apart from the alchemy and textual legalism–“right to privacy”–there’s the broader and downstream reality check of the natural law…
Contraception = promiscuity = abortion = homosexuality = court mandated gay “marriage” = politicized LGBTQ ideology = intellectualized gender theory = surgically federalized transgenderism. The really unseemly “seamless garment”…
We now await the clarity of an Executive Order asserting that at high noon, when there are no clouds, that the sky is blue! How many will protest with a straight face (so to speak!) the constitutional “right to choose” otherwise?
Michael, I can understand your frustration if you interpret the author meaning nothing should be allowed to be private. I believe he means that older Americans remember a time when laws protected us from behaviors that likely were self destructive in harder to measure ways. They protected us from vice & immorality (a term seldom used today) that was not as drastic as murder, but reflected Judeo-Christian principles that other religions also recognize. The Catholic Church also has given that same guidance like a mother guiding her children toward what is true & good for them. Like teenagers, it seems our society has rebelled saying, “I know what’s best for me as an individual & don’t need you telling me what to do!” It’s unfortunate & has led to some sad consequences for our society. No matter your political perspective, most agree we are not in a good place as a culture..nor is the world. Why? Social media has also not protected your privacy as you respond to things at 4:11 AM. I wish you well & a good night’s sleep.
AMEN! Wish everyone could read and understand.
Adam and Eve proved this point, as did other Biblical and otherwise historical figures through the history of man. However, two points: While official government must sustain natural law to be beneficially effective, it most often reflects the will (or lack of )in those governed. Still, offenses against God’s right and just laws tend to drive people to shame regardless of their religious background–psychopathic personalities perhaps excluded. Like a squeezed ballon, the air will eventually burst through the skin. So, the volatile rebellion we are experiencing is actually that raging explosion from the dark recesses of the revolutionaries consciences. On some level, those who reject God in thought, word, and deed still know they are committing sin. Therefore, regardless of “Supreme” Court decisions, deep down, we all know that sin is never “private” or only involving the sinner.
Second, we will never have perfect governance in this world, but we could have better or good government if we again publicly surrender to God in truth.
Second, no government can force any individual to behave morally. It may only construct laws and impose penalties for offenses, but even then, imperfect justice will prevail. Our best hope for virtuous, and therefore, optimum governance, starts with self. Today our government would best focus on rewarding citizens who act responsibly–morally–to build solid families, neighborhoods, and so forth. For those who “cost” society by their adverse “private” behavior, government may best leave alone but neither condone nor sustain such it in any way. (Though, it may offer a pathway back for the repentant violator.)This may seem cruel to some, but I would remind everyone that government revenue is collected for the common public good, not to sustain private lawlessness.
So are you advocating banning contraception, even for married couples? Is sexual behavior of married couples even your business? This is Puritanism on steroids.
If contraception’s intrinsically wrong how would marriage make it right?
I don’t think it’s wrong for married couples. Don’t try to force your views on others.
She didn’t, she asked a question to which you responded with a demand.
Can you explain how something wrong becomes a right in marriage? Thank you.
Contraception is NOT intrinsically wrong for married couples. I refuse to accept medieval thinking from busybodies obsessed with other people’s sex lives. Case closed.
Obsessive “busybodies” being Popes, bishops, the Magisterium, and the entire Catholic Tradition? Good to know.
Thank you for taking the time to reply William, but I’m still unsure whether you believe contraception in and of itself is wrong. Or is it situational?
Catholic teaching as I understand it doesn’t make what’s intrinsically wrong ok for those who are married. It remains wrong.
If you believe contraception is ok then that’s certainly your right in a free country and you have plenty of company in that. But it’s not our Catholic teaching.
William,
Are you Catholic?
Are you familiar with the Lambeth Conference?
Yes and yes.
Which Lambeth Conference was that, 1930, or this remark by some Anglican members at a later conference in 1948?
““It is, to say the least, suspicious that the age in which contraception has won its way is not one which has been conspicuously successful in managing its sexual life. Is it possible that, by claiming the right to manipulate his physical processes in this manner, man may, without knowing it, be stepping over the boundary between the world of Christian marriage and what one might call the world of Aphrodite, the world of sterile eroticism?” (Cited in Wright, “Reflections on the Third Anniversary of a Controverted Encyclical,” St. Louis: Central Bureau Press, 1971).
the “world of Aphrodite” now seen as contraception/ abortion/ homosexuality/ gay “marriage”/ gender theory/ and transgenderism as probably inspired by LEGO and transformer toys.
The Lambeth Conference of 1930 represented the first time a major Christian denomination condoned the use of contraception by married couples. One bishop Woods steered the resolution; his position was rooted in eugenics; he argued that lower class persons would likely adopt the practice, while higher birth rates among upper and middle classes would ensue. The approval of contraception led to moral subversion of any other ‘moral’ teaching the bishops subsequently posed.
As to real consequences, see The Catholic Thing article of 2020: http://www.thecatholicthing.org/2020/09/01/lambeth-90-years-later/
The article curiously references a 1931 Washington Post editorial on the consequences posited “…the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be ‘careful and restrained’ is preposterous.” (Mar 22, 1931)
Exactly. What has followed? Increased rates of divorce and abortion; increased rates of single persons cohabitating/fornicating with a concomitant increased number of lifetime sexual partners. These trends implicate increased social dissonance, deviance, maladjustment, and increasingly serious psychological problems in relationship; downward spiraling of birth rates, increased rates of STDs, increased use of drugs and alcohol, etc., as well as increased loneliness and uncharity of large swaths of the population.
One may as well argue that lying, cheating, murdering, and stealing should likewise be approved. One sin leads to another. One cannot rightly imagine or adequately account for the degree of societal breakdown consequent upon a Christian religion’s resolution to permit birth control–by married couples.
Jesus warned that a married man lusting, in thought, a woman not his wife was adultery in deed. Church-approved contraception made lust and adultery more convenient and easy. A ‘Catholic’ who doesn’t see this should pray, read Humanae Vitae, pray more and consider the final mortal consequences of sins of the flesh.
Does Williams belief violate church teaching ? And if so is thus one of those things that the church teaches if you do that and no repent hell awaits? No need to be Willy nillly. Fell free to educate me
Sorry, but you gave your opinion with no backing except for the fact it came from your own glorious and exalted self. THAT is not trying to force an opinion on anyone else, eh? But anyone ELSE having the temerity to contradict you is beyond the pale!
You had no answer to Mrs. Cracker’s objection other than to reiterate your unsupported opinion. To quote Willy Wonka, “You lose! Good day, sir!”
Yes and yes.
I cannot change your mind and you cannot change mine. If you choose. To eschew contraception, fine and dandy. Just don’t try to force others into your mindset. 90+% of the laity and many Priests agree with me.
In the 17th century the Church was obsessed with astronomy. And they were wrong. Today they are obsessed with gynecology. And they are wrong again.
William that you “think it’s ok within Marriage” shows a grave and willful ignorance of Moral law. comparing the science of astromony and the ethics of moral behavior is a head scratching device of self deception. the first law of charity is salvation of souls – you don’t have a right to be wrong when it endangers your eternal soul, but you do have free will, no one is forced to save their soul..
“Is sexual behavior of married couples even your business?” When it affects the common good, certainly. Are you aware that across the westernized world we have what could succinctly be called a severe baby shortage? Whatever the motives for so many people having so few babies, the means are definitely contraception. The result is that public officials are staring down a coming demographic crisis in which way too few young, strong working people will someday have to take care of a much larger number of elderly who can no longer contribute. The imbalance will reach an unworkable level. Politicians are so worried, that some have been going public with their concerns. (Google “France needs babies.”) Don’t you think that eventually, politicians will be forced to restrict or even ban contraception outright in order to deal with a consequence that nobody saw coming way back in the mid-20th century?
So a few questions here.
1. Is there reason to think that a Christian autocracy, in practice, would be any less vicious than any other kind of autocracy? Or is it perhaps better to limit the scope of government on principle, given the frequent viciousness of those who seek to rule?
2. Is it virtue to be virtuous for fear of the police?
3. Is it conducive to the health of the Church, and to the care of souls, that people should look upon the Church as they look upon the government?
The province of Quebec in Canada was effectively ruled by the Church for decades, and when Church rule was broken at last, the churches emptied and stand empty still.
In the past people hoped to be tried by ecclesiastical courts rather than secular ones. So yes, but do you actually think that might become a reality some day?
That applied in the Middle Ages, not since. The courts run by the Witch-Bishops of the Rhine in the 17th C were not exactly noted for leniency.
For Christian autocracy, the favorite historic example is Calvin’s Geneva. There was no privacy there because neighbors were encouraged to spy on neighbors and report them to the grim authorities. I think there are Catholic Integrists who would love to be able to exercise such control. The heavy hand of the Church on French Canada and Ireland led to today’s bitter hostility.
A whip for a horse, and a snaffle for an ass, and a rod for the back of fools.
Brilliantly succinct: “The body and the soul are inseparably linked, so it is not surprising that spiritual degradation coincides with the physical.”
Moreover, it’s almost as if the Ultimate Reality is actually Triune and personally incarnational(!): “Through Him, with Him, and in Him [!], in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours…” Reflected in the gifted mystery and unity of our own personal body and soul.
Don’t eat forbidden apples, or yellow snow.
Mr Beaulieu, the last sentence of your comment above was hilarious.
Abusus non tollit usum. EVERY right can produce bad results — every right acknowledged in American law and every right acknowledged in canon law.
It is true that, in an absolute sense, we have no rights. We have no rights against God. Maybe Bonagura’s next article can be about how people should shut up about the fictitious “Right to Life”. I doubt it, though. Maybe it is wisdom, maybe it is cowardice, maybe some combination of the two, but I suspect he would not attempt to publish an argument against the right to life, or even (maybe) freedom of speech or freedom of religion.
Outis, clever response, but too clever by half. Yes, we have no rights against God. Our lives are His gifts to us; we were not owed them. Rights exists between men in society. It is in this sphere that the right to life makes perfect sense: no other human being has a claim over my life or yours. So there is no need for an article there. That not very religious Thomas Jefferson thought the same about the right to life 250 years ago.
In terms of other rights enumerated in the Constitution (you mentioned those of the First Amendment), these pertain to the government’s relationship with the individual, specifically, what the government cannot take from the individual, for these actions are inherent to human and humane living.
It has been fashionable in recent decades for the government or other individuals to claim a right to something in order to justify getting what they want. To be legitimate, rights have to be in accord with justice, which is to give to a person what is due to him. There is no right to break the law nor to do as one pleases in an absolute sense.
Is it JUST that a man guilty of crime should not have to incriminate himself? Or is it PRUDENT?
Rights are there mostly because the governing authorities are of limited knowledge, limited wisdom, and limited goodness.
William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
― Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts
Interesting that you quote a work of fiction. Do you have evidence that More actually alluded to or believed something similar to what Bolt wrote?
Well, there’s More’s “Utopia” which is framed as the best that can be achieved under the natural law absent the grace of Christian revelation. So, pertaining more or less to human laws, More at least wrote this:
“Suppose wrong opinions cannot be plucked up by the root, and you cannot cure, as you would wish, vices of long standing, yet you must not on that account abandon ship of state and desert it in a storm, because you cannot control the winds. BUT neither must you impress upon them new and strange language, which you know will carry no weight with those of opposite conviction, BUT by indirect approach and covert suggestion you must endeavor and strive to the best of your power to handle all well, and what you cannot turn to good, you must make as little bad as you can” (“Utopia,” cited in E.E. Reynolds, St. Thomas More, Image, 1958).
Sounds a bit like Bolt condensed this passage into “benefit of the law.”
Well, there’s More’s “Utopia” which is framed as the best that can be achieved under the natural law absent the grace of Christian revelation. So, pertaining more or less to human laws, More at least wrote this:
“Suppose wrong opinions cannot be plucked up by the root, and you cannot cure, as you would wish, vices of long standing, yet you must not on that account abandon ship of state and desert it in a storm, because you cannot control the winds. BUT neither must you impress upon them new and strange language, which you know will carry no weight with those of opposite conviction, BUT by indirect approach and covert suggestion you must endeavor and strive to the best of your power to handle all well, and what you cannot turn to good, you must make as little bad as you can” (“Utopia,” cited in E.E. Reynolds, St. Thomas More, Image, 1958).
Sounds a bit like Bolt condensed this passage into “benefit of the law.”
Consider this situation. A state has secretly bugged the confessional in a Catholic church. A man enters the confessional and confesses the sexual abuse of a child. He is arrested, and his confession is used to convict him and sentence him to a long stay in prison.
1. Is his conviction just?
2. Is there good reason to forbid the bugging of confessionals, even if it would protect the public from violent criminals? Don’t tell me that the Catholic Church forbids breaking the Seal of the Confessional — is there a GOOD REASON for the Seal itself?
A right to privacy was the basis of the argument for Roe [Norma McCorvey] against DA Wade 1973. The court recognized a right to privacy as fundamental and should be protected with “strict scrutiny”. SC Chief Justice Rehnquist in Casey v Planned Parenthood 1992 argued that there is no right to privacy that should allow the taking of a human life, although the Court awarded the case to Planned Parenthood. The Supreme Court 2022 argued that no such right is explicitly found in the Constitution.
Bonagura reasons well in identifying a right to privacy as subjectivism and the many evils that follow when morality is subject to a person’s subjective opinion, in the instance of sexuality intemperate desire. Sexuality is a social good when practiced within its naturally ordered end. When strictly personalized as subject to a right to privacy it leads to disordered acts and the fragmentation of a society, whereas the society that finds cohesion in love is realized in mutual commitment rather than an impersonal private love. Ordered, sensual love, seeks the good of the other and of the community as a body.
A right to privacy is nevertheless recognized as reasonable and lawful within specific ethical parameters, for example what two adults may practice in the privacy of their home, or when seeking privacy from intrusion. Although what two persons may do in private has moral consequences before God.
In the USA, “Conservative” legal scholars generally uphold and promote an absolute right to privacy concerning private property.
This property-related right to privacy mirrors the right to privacy that the “Progressive” justices on the Supreme Court developed to apply to matters of sex and reproduction related to the human body.
Thus, I think is sound to say that in the USA there is a right-wing “right to privacy” doctrine and a left-wing “right to privacy” doctrine, and that both of these are false doctrines that permit more powerful citizens to transgress the moral law and thereby to do great harm to less powerful people.
The harm done by abortion and doctor-assisted suicide/euthanasia is the gravest, but also serious is the social and spiritual disorder caused by legalized birth control, legalized gay sex and marriage, and by laws that implement a doctrine absolute private right to control private property with no consideration of the common good.
Some scholars have even argued that the property-related right to privacy and the body-related right to privacy developed together, support each other, and have a common philosophical, theological, political, and historical origin.
The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (approved by Pope John Paul II) states in paragraph 177: “Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute and untouchable: ‘On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone’.”
Contraception is one of those “overlaps”, it offends both Natural Law and Divine Law.
The spouses insult one another with it and the family God wants from them; and they insult the Almighty. They know this from Adam and without having to be converted in Christ.
About privacy, Catechism also speaks on subjects like defaming, boasting, prudence in the management of one’s affairs, shielding the eyes and so on, which are to do with nobility and respect as well as privacy and modesty.
Comparably, one can find many ways in which the common law defends privacy which also has flowed into statutes. Some things in in common law jurisdictions can be an excess of privacy in which people are yoked to situations not of their making. I am thinking of things like inter vivos settlements of marital property versus outright gift.
The idea claimed in Roe -the McCorvey case- is a corruption of privacy and of law; in that the claim for privacy would be nullified by the criminal act actual or intended and that you can not set up criminal enterprise and invoke rights to defend the activity whether because there is consent or some other collocation. In criminal law justification is a technical-specific term and there is no justification for abortion. Chief Justice Burger adapted the word privacy /allowed the word privacy to be adapted, so as to avoid the jurisprudence. A charade with many moments of tongue-in-cheek.
I am always fascinated with the profound nature of Roman Catholic arguments on social issues in contemporary society. However, I am also taken back by what is not mentioned in these arguments.
Jesus died on the cross to save us from the wages of our sins. He bore our sins in His body on the tree. We are justified by faith. This is why the gospel is preached – that men be saved from the wrath which is to come. Men are saved from God’s just wrath because Jesus died on the cross to save sinners – save sinners from God’s wrath. In all the above arguments, I didn’t see any mention of this. Perverse sexual acts will receive their just reward – there will be hell to pay. People that perform them are not justified in God’s sight. Here is the profoundest of deterrents to sin in society. Jesus said a lustful look alone has the potential to sentence a man to the place where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.
Antinomianism?
See the last paragraph of meiron’s comment of 1/22, at 9:48. “Jesus warned that a married man lusting, in thought, a woman not his wife was adultery in deed….A ‘Catholic’…should pray, read Humanae Vitae, pray more and consider the final mortal consequences of sins of the flesh.”
If God’s judgment is not frequently mentioned here, rest assured that Catholics teach and are taught to believe the words they profess in the Creed during Mass every Sunday: “I believe in Jesus Christ,….He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there shall be no end….I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look forward to the resurrection of the dead. And the life of the world to come.”
Finally, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that adultery and contraception in their very nature are sins of grave matter. Serious sins committed with intent, deliberate consent, and full knowledge of their serious nature cause a person’s separation from Christ with loss of His sanctifying grace in one’s soul, or loss of God’s life in the soul. That is mortal sin. Mortal sin condemns one to hell if a person dies without repenting, confessing, and rendering satisfaction. This is Catholic teaching taught routinely to Catholics prior to their initial receipt of the Church’s sacraments.
There has been a breakdown of social accepted sexual norms since the advent of contraception. I never thought I would say that but there we are.”Old fashioned” sexual moral standards have been destroyed, replaced by no standards at all. We have gone from contraception availability to the social acceptability of couples sleeping with anyone they wish at any time; long considered a sin. Virginity until marriage is sadly considered a joke in many quarters. Then we introduce the “necessity” of available abortion, again for any reason at any time.(Result: babies killed, and no babies available for those who would give their life to adopt one of them, a double tragedy.) The last few years there has been an explosion of public drag queen performances ( often paid for with taxpayer money), transgender butchery of children, and men in womens sports and formerly private locker rooms. And some in the church who should know better even egging on for gay marriages. This is all now considered by most of society to be socially acceptable. So, society was sold a bill of goods that contraception was strictly for married couples and that would be the end of it, no harm done. But it didnt work out that way. It was downhill from there. Here we are, with the entire world turned upside down sexually, and NONE of it is “private”, unfortunately. It all spills over onto the rest of us without OUR consent. The beauty of sexuality as created by God has been obliterated, to be replaced by disgusting and obscene things indulged in by humans who whine, “it’s my body!” As if that is somehow justification for immorality and sexual license.
Well said LJ. Sobering evaluation.
I am almost fully aware of the Catholic Church’s position on SEX. It’s continually on the lips of our clerics. The only concern for me was that my devout parents were too timid to discuss it with me. Consequently, I was left to my own devices. The Church’s focus on the right to privacy has been almost exclusively relegated to the sins of sexuality, and there are many.
Excerpt: “First, outward appearances do not provide windows into a person’s interior life. There is no way to discern whether a successful person in society suffers in private from HIS vices or immorality.” Mr. Bonagura has broken the shell. but has not retrieved the yoke. An ACTION PLAN. A challenge to evangelism? Seems so.
“It’s continually on the lips of our clerics.”
It is? Seriously?