"Conservatism" vs. (small 'o') orthodoxy

 

I caught a little of the interview Matt Fradd had with Dennis Prager on Pints With Aquinas the other day. It was a bizarre exchange, I thought, in which Mr. Prager was purporting the "conservative" position on pornography through a Jewish lens (which, albeit, was uniquely his), and Matt was defending the orthodox Catholic position. I noticed Ben Shapiro has been trying to enlighten the Daily Wire audience on Jewish belief and thought in recent weeks, and it is, as Mr Prager reiterates, distinctly different from that of Christianity. A.J. Jacob in his book, The Year of Living Biblically lays it out well: 

"Judaism has a slogan:," he writes, "'deed over creed.' There's an emphasis on behavior; follow the rules of the Torah, and you'll eventually come to believe." 

(see my post The Wager for more insight, here)

Prager puts forth the same maxim, downplaying the words of Jesus concerning "lusting with the heart" in Mt 5:28 and saying as a Jew he is more concerned with actions/deeds over thoughts/creeds. Matt seemed to do a good job of upholding the Catholic understanding of correct (orthodox) teaching on sexual morality. 

As Catholics, we find ourselves among various allies in the culture war: fervent Protestants who may not have an issue with contraception but who are staunchly anti-abortion; Libertarians, who advocate for minimal government interference in the lives of Americans; Muslim parents who push back forcefully against LGBT indoctrination at schools. While differing with these populations on the nuances of theological matters, we can nonetheless find common ground on the 'big stones'. In our own 'camp,' though, we can often be our own worst enemy.

In "Navigating the Catholic Culture War," I wrote:

Somewhere along the line, the whole COVID anti-masking thing became conflated with traditionalism, and the social media conjecturing became for some a parrot of leftist virtue signaling (posting photos in masks, photos of one getting the vaccine, etc). Which gets a little confusing I imagine if your in that Venn-intersection of points. Most of the traditionalists I know are also staunchly against masking as a matter of principal. It would be strange, really, at least in my sphere, if someone was adamantly pro-mask and a traditional Catholic, kind of like a non-sequitur. This may tie in with the idea of a globalist New World Order in which mandatory masking is part of the overall global agenda to vaccinate and depopulate, and that to participate in it makes one complicit in ultimately undermining liberty and personal autonomy.

Once again, I find myself just right of center on the issue: I reluctantly mask when I have to (though using it as a chin cup whenever I can) because I think they are disgusting and for the most part ineffective, and never really for extended periods of time thankfully. I hate that I can't see people's smiles or expressions. Am I willing to go to jail over it? Probably not. Call me unprincipled. 

But does it undermine my Catholicism? Not that I was ever in da club the first place, but does traditionalism extend beyond the liturgy into these peripheral spheres, I wonder. Does one gain something from a traditionalist's standpoint for not wearing a mask or choosing not to get vaccinated? Or if something the Pope does is given a sympathetic gesture, does it undermine their street-cred? Is traditionalism about traditional worship and living out the virtues, or the principled peripheral items that determine one's standing? How does one make these determinations for themselves, and what if they come to a conclusion that goes against these cultural norms?

The thing is, even though I probably am one, I never really refer to myself as a "conservative" American or a "conservative" Catholic. I compost and drive a Prius because it's a good cheap car and I don't care what people think of me. I reluctantly register/vote as a Republican, though I could care less about politics. I don't fit well in a pre-assigned box. But I uphold and live everything the Church teaches.

"Conservative Catholic" is a redundant term. True Catholicism is, by nature, inherently conservative--slow to change, founded on traditional moral norms, wedded to deference to rightful authority.  Sure, there are so-called "progressive" Catholics who seek to undermine these values, but they are dissidents rather than an equally weighted faction of Catholicism. If you are a true Catholic, you are de-facto "conservative" by nature. 

We cannot divest ourselves as Catholics from participation in the political process. But we should also resist the temptation to hitch our wagon to political parties or nationalistic ideologies. In the Venn diagram of "conservatism" you could be, say, a gay pro-2A MAGA Catholic, or some other combination of seemingly conflicting ideologies. 

Unfortunately, we need qualifiers such as 'orthodox' these days because of the legion of James Martin-type Catholics who obfuscate what it means to be Catholic in belief and practice. We often do this subtly through tribal feelers like when we meet a new believer by dropping little breadcrumbs indicating 'where we stand' on moral, political, or social matters. It's unfortunate, because today just because you identify as Catholic that doesn't mean you believe in what the Church teaches, and just because you are a "conservative" doesn't mean you assent to faith or Judeo-Christian belief. 

I find it more helpful when it comes to matters of faith and in talking with new believers to stay focused in the realm of religious orthodoxy rather than conflating faith with politics, vax-status, or levels of patriotism. "Orthodox" means "right belief" and that is what we should be concerning ourselves with as Catholics, because unlike "deed over creed" Judaism, for instance, what we believe determines how we act; it's important. As Christians, right belief feeds right worship, and right worship leads to right action. Being politically, economically, or socially "conservative" is a secondary concern, and not part and parcel necessary to being a good Catholic unless aligning oneself otherwise puts you at odds with Church teaching. 

So, as much as it is unfortunate we need qualifying labels on what should be stand-alone Catholicism, let's concern ourselves more with right belief (orthodoxy) than being "on the Right" as a matter of identity. Our identify is in Christ, who is timeless and the model of integrity, and who leaves to Caesar what is Caesar's.

The Tired Revolution

 

A few years ago Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse reached out to me to see if I would be willing to write a review of her book The Sexual State: How Elite Ideologies Are Destroying Lives and Why The Church Was Right All Along. I was happy to do so, as my eyes had been unwittingly opened and moistened with the tear drops of grace a few years prior to sitting down to read and review her book. Figures like Janet Smith and Christopher West dragged me kicking and screaming into the light of Truth--Dr. Smith through humor and common sense reasoning, Christopher West by way of the book Good News About Sex and Marriage (which I threw across the room; read here). 

In my review of her book, I highlighted the premise of Dr. Morse's thesis: the Sexual Revolution did not just “happen” as a social phenomenon. Rather, it was engineered by cultural elites, enabled and underwritten by the State, codified into law, and accepted as normative in the culture as a deliberate matter of course. In other words, she doesn't just lay out the what and the why of the sexual "revolution" but the who and the how.

After harvesting the fruits of the sexual "revolution" most of my life, I had never gave it a thought to second-guess the contraceptive mindset, even as a Catholic. To do otherwise would be like a fish questioning the source of the water it swims in. Part of that was because I didn't have an alternative to look to: we were only acquainted with nominal and left-leaning Catholics who played the "primacy of conscience" card, and faithful Protestants who didn't think twice about utilizing contraception. That changed over the years as God began planting faithful Catholic families in our life one by one, to make it visible to us what is possible when you live by faith and the Church's teaching on human sexuality. 

I guess I was hoping for a little bit of new material when I went to hear Mary Eberstadt speak at our local campus Oratory this evening. Her books include How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization; Adam and Eve after the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution; and Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics. From her website: "Her social commentary draws from fields including anthropology, intellectual history, philosophy, popular culture, sociology, and theology.  Central to her diverse interests are questions concerning the philosophy and culture of Western civilization and the fate and aspirations of post-modern man."

I wasn't well acquainted with her body of work, but the particular talk she delivered this evening seemed to be an amalgamation of generalized themes: Humanae Vitae was prophetic, sexually "liberated" individuals today are not happy, porn is rampant, etc etc. Now, perhaps she had meant to deliver it to students and tailored it as such--indeed there were some students present. It wasn't anything new and it had all been said and highlighted before, but to a student that may be hearing it for the first time, it WAS new and potentially eye-opening. So my intention is not to disparage, only to say I was underwhelmed and saw a bit of a lost opportunity. As a friend also present shared with me, "it's not like this hasn't been happening for the past sixty years." The Sexual "Revolution" may be a distant memory for those of Mrs. Eberstadt's generation--but for the younger generation (and my own), it's something for the history books. The damage and fallout is irrefutable--we know we're not happy and we are less free, but we don't know HOW to get out from under this old blanket. 

Which is why I wanted to press Mrs. Eberstadt a little. I posed the question, but in an abridged format. I share it here in writing only because I wrote it down so as to be able to articulate it during the Q&A:  

"Upon first glance, there seem to be at least three areas in society which it is very difficult and (not without major repercussions) to "put the genie back in the bottle" so to speak. These are:

1) full-time women in the workforce

2) a consumer economy

3) contraception and abortion

In other words, we can't imagine a society in which women were suddenly taken out of the full-time workforce; we can't imagine an economic system that isn't founded on people feeding it with material consumption; and we can't imagine a society in which contraception and abortion were not an available option. 

And these three things seem inter-related as well. Women accounted for 52 percent of all workers employed in management, professional, and related occupations and comprised 47 percent total employment. (BLS).  In other words, in an ideal "conservative" world, women would stay home, abortion would be unthinkable, and consumer spending would not account for more than two thirds of economic activity in the U.S. But were any one to take away or reverse these three things, there would be an implosion because these systems are designed, built and predicated upon one another's existence: 

a) the workforce depends on women working

b) women working depends on limiting family size and/or abortion

c) the economy is dependent on consumer activity, which feeds the perceived need for two-income households, which bids up the cost of housing, etc, 

Rinse and repeat. We stop spending, the economy tanks; women stop working, productivity falters; abortion is eradicated, babies are born.

Of course most of the women and families in our particular circle have "opted out" of this narrative--they are staying home, having babies, raising families, etc. And they seem very happy doing so; So my question is, how do you advocate for these positive 'right-sizing' changes based upon conservative/traditional values when such a proposition seems to threaten the very foundation of the economic and social model the U.S. has adopted in a post-Roe world? It is no wonder why they are resisted so vehemently, and why even questioning the good of those assumptions is almost unfathomable today. "

I don't quite remember the extent of her answer, and that is my fault, but it was, like the talk-- underwhelming, with a few Weigelian accents here and there, and seemed to take the 'dourness' (as my same friend also called it) of Church teaching as a scholastic given rather than the dynamism of unscripted fecundity lived out in real time. There is no living "Revolution", there are no hippies--there are only washouts and their fallout from their failed social utopia that people my age and older now have to sift and live through, with no good solutions. Yes, have faith and have all the babies because kids are the best. But that can be a tough pitch unless you are traditionally minded, an orthodox Christian, or a counter-revolutionary breeder. 

As Dr. Morse maintains, the State has become sexual not because it believes in "free love" but because it operates by way of coercion. And how does one coerce? By fear: fear of pregnancy, fear of children, fear of overpopulation, fear of genetic abnormalities, fear of financial "irresponsibility." The State is a major player here, and they are not in the game for the benefit of the public good (at least not as Catholics understand it). Whatever the agenda is, you can place bets that it is most likely at odds with Catholic teaching which liberates the human person rather than subjugates, and gives hope rather than instills fear. When we get stuck in highlighting the "bad fruit" of the so-called sexual "revolution" and not moving beyond that, we miss a huge opportunity to give hope to the next generation that they don't have to make the same mistakes, aren't subject to the same fate--if they take a different route.  As Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

Let's be honest: the "revolution" is no longer novel and the effects of its rotten fruit is straightforward. But figuring out how to live a fruitful life in the shadow of that shell can present challenges that demand creativity, courage, and unconventional faith. We can be guided by the teachings of the Church and inspired by holy families, but ultimately we need to live it out ourselves in real time. We don't need more Weigalian scholastic talks or TOB in a vacuum. What we need is witness. Fruitfulness. Living saints. A casting off of the shackles of sin. A revolution of the home. We need to do it because others need to see not so much how it is done, but simply that it is possible. They will find their way, aided by grace, from there, as long as we are all doing our part one by one, home by home, marriage by marriage, baby by baby, family by family.

"Everything I Count As Joy"

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time nare not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." 

(Rom 8:18)

 

This afternoon I called a friend, and was given a great gift in exchange: the gift of joy in witnessing the reception of Truth. My friend, who identifies as a Protestant Christian, went to a Latin High Mass with his two kids at our local FSSP parish out of curiosity (he told me that when he heard some Latin Mass communities were being monitored by the FBI, "I had to check it out." I got a kick out of that). He said he was blown away, and moved to tears. "That's the real deal, man," he told me. "It just felt...holy." His kids were riveted as well. Even more surprisingly, he relayed that he is all in and inquiring about coming into the Church. As soon as possible.

If that seems rash and impetuous, please allow me the liberty to tease this out a little, as there are a number of layers to peel back in this story. It begins with an impromptu exposure to the Mass of the Ages, but it doesn't end there and is not the focal point; in fact, that is just the beginning. But I promise you--hope and joy is at the center of it all. 

My friend (who is my age) has a stubborn and aggressive form of bladder cancer. He gets it removed, it comes back; more tumors taken out, more come back. At this point, due to a series of delays in treatment for various reasons, it has moved to some of his muscle, and so the prospect of having to have his bladder removed is on the table. This is his life, but he carries it as a manageable reality. After all, dinner still needs to be made, kids need to be attended to, house maintenance needs to be done; life doesn't stop when you are sick. 

He's hopeful and enthusiastic about alternative treatments, but also realizing their limitations, I think. Physicians can treat the body, but not the soul. He and his family are essentially homeless nomads, spiritually speaking. They don't have a regular church, and he recognizes that many of the Protestant congregations they have visited don't have the substance to sustain a dark night like the one he may soon be entering with his upcoming surgery. My friend is a voracious consumer of information, and I think he is realizing that in fact the Catholic Church, the church founded by Christ, is "the real deal." 

He was out shopping for suits for his son and himself tonight so they can be well dressed for Mass when I called. When he got home, I drove over and brought him a "starter pack" arsenal to begin his journey with: A book on the Latin Mass for beginners, a detailed Examination of Conscience put out by the FSSP, a copy of the Baltimore Catechism, and an anthology of saints. I also included blessed and exorcised salt, a bottle of Epiphany Water, a Miraculous Medal and St. Benedict medal on a chain, and a rosary. 

It's hard not to overwhelm people with Catholic "stuff," because you share in their excitement and enthusiasm for their newfound discovering of the faith. You want to dive right in with them straight away. But we don't eat a lifetime of meals in one sitting, nor are we expected to. We have to pump the brakes and learn the hard virtues of prudence and temperance, even with spiritual things (I think the NC Register had a good article on that recently here). 

But it's good to have these kinds of resources on hand for these kinds of occasions. As I mentioned, nothing gives me greater joy than witnessing people come to faith, witnessing conversion flowering and grace flowing like a river. It doesn't always pan out or blossom, but that is God's prerogative. As the saying goes, we are simply beggars telling other hungry beggars where to find bread--a great privelege.

Part of my friend's sense of urgency too, though, is the realization that his mortal body is in a vulnerable and fragile state. Most of us really do take our health for granted; that is, until you're not healthy. Even though our body is not all there is to our person, we can't live without it. And so, we are tasked with taking care of it as a temple of the Holy Spirit as best we can. Health is not an absolute; it is not even a pre-requisite when it comes to living a fruitful spiritual life. Many of the greatest saints in the history of the Church battled with infirmity, and some (like St. Ignatius) found faith while injured/incapacitated and confined to bed.

What's so cool about being a Catholic is you are often afforded behind the scenes footage of the stories unfolding--you don't know how they are going to end, but you know the Divine Director has everything under control. You are right where you need to be and where He has you placed at this moment in time, and not a moment sooner. The same applies to my friend. 

But it's also exciting because while faith is blossoming in his spirit, and God is orchestrating the details and setting the stage for a masterpiece to be written, we really don't know what direction the story is going to go. 

On the one hand, I have faith in the power of grace, and the intercession of the saints. Personally, I am praying and asking for the intercession of Servant of God Francis Houle to heal my friend of his bladder cancer (I have written about SOG Francis Houle, who was a grandfather and stigmatist and whose son we had Thanksgiving dinner with before, here). Francis' son relayed to us that crowds of people would come to their home so that his father could lay hands on them; in once instance, his son found him sick in the backroom throwing up, as he had taken on the toxic effects of chemotherapy to himself from someone who had come to him seeking healing. If I can make a request, I would ask you join me in prayer in asking for his intercession in this case--for the healing of my friend, but also for the glory of God that a literal miracle might take place leading to Francis' formal canonization.  

On the other hand, God is sovereign in Heaven, and He does as He pleases (Ps 115:3). The healing of the body comes secondary to the elevation of the spirit, and if God chooses not to heal my friend, but by way of his cancer bring him to salvation through His Son and His Bride, the Church, then that too is an outcome worthy of joy. For as Christians, we do not fear those who want to kill the body...for they cannot kill the soul. Instead, we should fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul (Mt 10:28). In this, my friend is preparing himself spiritually through the inculcation of unmerited grace, bolstered by the prayers of mine and yours, to prepare his temple. Whether it is preserved in this life, or destroyed and raised up again in the next, is God's will and concern. 

Can He heal him? Yes, He can. God is a big God--nothing is too big or difficult or beyond hope for Him--Christ His son the worker of miracles for those who believe (1 Cor 2:9). Should He chose to do so, we must be sure not to waste the opportunity afforded us to give his holy name glory for the conversion of others.

Can He use his illness for that same glory? Yes, He can. For Christ is preparing a place for my friend, for He has many mansions and He goes ahead to prepare a place for him (Jn 14:2-6)--whether next week, or twenty years from now. The time and hour is not important or our concern when we live by faith; what is our concern--and what my friend has right--is that we prepare our own hearts to accept him, repent, and believe with a sober urgency. This is grace moving the will, and is not accidental. 

As Christians, we participate in Christ's death through suffering, and offering it up redemptively; we can do this for ourselves, as well as others. But because we are composed of both body and spirit, we are called to serve in charity the corporal needs of widows, orphans, the hungry, the imprisoned, and the infirmed. It can be as simple as bringing someone a meal or offering to rake their leaves, or it can be to hold a hand to comfort during a time of need. Our hidden sacrifices we can offer as an oblation on behalf of others; they are not meaningless, not wasted. This is how we witness to our faith in joy--a joy that should be a contagion, not a lab specimen. For we are people of hope--the hope of the resurrection of the dead, and faith without works is dead (James 2:26); 1 Thes 4:13-18). 

I am so excited to see what God has in store for my friend, and am privileged to witness it. If I died tonight, I could die happy, if only knowing I was able to participate in it for even a short time. Please, reader, pray for my friend, his wife and children, his healing if it be God's will, and his eternal salvation. And in all things, to God be the glory.

Film Review: Nefarious (2023)

 

I didn't have a whole lot of expectations when I took a trip to the theater this evening to see Nefarious this evening. I'm not big into the 'horror' genre but after seeing some positive recommendations and that there was no graphic violence or other lewd turnoffs, and that it was a compelling and accurate portrayal of demonic possession I figured to give it a go.

I am a bit of a film snob, though, which can make it hard to enjoy a movie sometimes. The first thing I'll say is that I give the producers (who are apparently devout Catholics from what I heard) an A for effort. The general plot is that a man is being sentenced to death for murder, but claims he is a demon taking up residence in the man's body. A young atheist psychiatrist is called in to determine whether or not the prisoner is insane and thus not able to be executed under state law. The inmate is in fact clearly possessed, and what ensues over the next hour and a half is less psychological and more of a 'spiritual thriller.' Or at least it attempts to be. I wouldn’t classify it as a horror film.

The film largely rests on monologues and sparse scenery from inside the prison. It's clear it's not a high-budget film, but I'm okay with making do with less. The acting, apart from the inmate himself (which was well acted) clearly reflects that. I like subtlety and appreciate when themes can be teased out and make you think and question. Nefarious doesn't do that; it feels more like a pre-packaged MRE. If I was an unsuspecting non-believer going into it, I may be inclined to feel a little cheated from a bait and switch, the way you might hide aspirin in applesauce for your kids. 

The theology and demonology is for the part solidly orthodox. But I couldn't help feeling like this is the Catholic version of God's Not Dead meets Screwtape Letters with less rah-rah but the same forced feeding of the message rather than having it teased out. If Taylor Marshall and Kennedy Hall switched from TradTube to making a movie together, this would be it. 

Some people like being spoon-fed though, and have no preference for subtlety, and I won't fault them for that. If that's you, you may enjoy the movie because it gives a clear takeaway with minimal questioning; it tells you what to think rather than makes you think, but maybe that’s my perspective as a well-informed Catholic—it might have a positive opposite affect for a non believer or Protestant. I had a "ah, I see what you did there" moment when the possessed tells the psychiatrist ominously "before you leave here you will have committed three murders" and then brings up the fact that the psychiatrist euthanized his mother and encouraged his girlfriend to get an abortion. Kind of clever, but the moralizing was blatant. Which again, some people like--what you see is what you get. Maybe the idea is a kind of guerrilla-evangelizing and riding the wave of the exorcist-theme popularity we see going around online today. I did like when they brought the liberal priest in and showed how impotent post-modern theology is against the demonic.

I wouldn't dissuade people from going to see Nefarious, but like I said, I just have different standards by which I judge a film, and it takes a lot of box checking for me to be satisfied with a movie--Nefarious didn't do it for me, personally, but it might for you. Curiously, I did find myself praying to my guardian angel on the drive home, something I don't do enough of. Evil exists, the Devil is real, and we need to be wearing the amour of God by remaining in a state of grace and belief.

"You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet": The Alarming Ascent of TransPorn

When I can't fall asleep, there are two things that usually do the trick and make my eyes go heavy: praying the rosary, and reading any kind of statistical data. 

But every now and again, a particular statistic will make me sit up and do a double take, and that was certainly the case when I heard that pornography under the "transgender" category (aka, TransPorn) increased in popularity by 75% over the past year. That makes it the 7th most popular category worldwide and the 3rd most popular in the U.S. Like Planned Parenthood's research arm (the Guttermacher Institute, which reports abortion data), this comes straight from the proverbial horse's mouth--PornHub, the Amazon of Porn.

I'm going to write that again, because it didn't quite sink in for me the first time and made it hard to fall back asleep:

Pornography under the "transgender" (aka, TransPorn) category increased in popularity by 75% over the past year. That makes it the 7th most popular category worldwide and the 3rd most popular in the U.S. 

We used to think the nuclear family (married mother and father with children) was normal, and that while there were exceptions (divorced parents, second marriages, widowed spouses, etc), this was the norm. Now, in the general populace, the nuclear family is the exception and minority. Sadly, you are an anomaly if you live in such an arrangement. 

You could make a similar case (in a twisted kind of way, if you'll allow me the liberty) with porn. Vanilla, straight, male on female intercourse was largely the meat and potatoes of the porn industry a few decades ago. Pornography is not good, but in terms of the natural appetite, this orientation was more or less "normal." Sure, there were always kinky sub-genres, but they were just that. 

Now, if you're into straight, vanilla, missionary style porn and that's what you order exclusively from the menu, you're like the kid from the nuclear family--a complete anomaly among the general populace of porn viewers. 

With the commercialization of pornography, studios have had to diversify their portfolio and respond to changing tastes and market data. It's like the cereal companies that keep having to add NEW! and NOW WITH MORE MARSHMALLOWS! marketing slogans to the boxes to keep sales up. Porn is a moral epidemic, a public health contagion, and a sinful misuse of our sexual nature. But we can't forget that it is also a product, designed in a free market for public consumption. 

But this acceleration of inversion (and perversion) of the "normal" sexual appetite--a 75% increase in popularity in the last year alone--is simply staggering, not to mention disconcertingly unnerving. And here's another crazy stat: while men viewed porn tagged as "trans" 22% more than women, women on “straight” Pornhub viewed the “trans male” sub-category 115% more than men. 

Folks, this is not normal, and it is certainly not of the God above.

If pornography is the commodification and exploitation of genitalia removed from the human person, then wouldn't it make sense that we have been reduced to such animalistic sexual reductionism? What does it matter if the breasts you are seeing belong naturally on a woman or are artificially constructed on a man? As long as you are able to rub off according to the porn-du-jour, isn't that what matters in the end? Porn producers use Alinsky-type tactics to exploit the good and natural, God-given human appetite for sex as such:

ISOLATE IT

OBJECTIFY IT

USE IT

DISCARD IT

Rinse and repeat.

Of course, this has been happening since the beginning of time with prostitution, pimps and madames, and the Romans were no strangers to sexual perversion (which they normalized in their culture). But like the advent of the internet, the speed with which this pandemic has metastasized and warped the minds (and bodies) or our culture is simply astounding.  

For porn companies, the capitalization on the trans-tsunami is simply catching the wave while it is at its crest. As big-business, they are concerned with expanding market share. After all, why limit yourself to 50% of the populace (men) when there are untapped markets (women) who may be open to exploration? Another interesting thing to note is that these sub-genres are not competitors in the way K-Mart might compete with Sears or Boscovs. It's all porn, albeit in different flavors. 

No, the only competitor in this marketplace of degradation is Chastity--and she is vastly outnumbered. Those who refuse to be a consumer and chose abstinence instead are fighting on multiple fronts--against their own appetites and concupiscence; against the cultural tide; against their peers; and against the spamming porn peddlers themselves. To succeed, they must be intentional, day in and day out, and must also rely on (and be disposed towards) grace in addition to the exercise of the will. 

As a product-variant, the trans phenomenon is an effective multiplier. Combined with fetishes and a dizzying combination of "gender-fluid" and FtM/MtF scenarios, you are suddenly not limited to "gay porn" and "inter-racial" porn and "MILF" porn, but an infinite cocktail of every conceivable combination.

This is so beyond the Emperor not wearing any clothes. 

If you think all of this is completely nefarious, you are not off base. But it is only because you have the eyes to see the physical and spiritual reality, while the rest of the world is completely blind and will suffer for it. What a perversion is today becomes simply a different flavor tomorrow. 

The Father of Lies sows the seeds of confusion, and as many an exorcist has noted, his reign is coming to a close so he is throwing everything at us all at once in a last ditch effort to drag as many souls to Hell with him as he can in the short time he has left. Things will probably get worse before they get better, but let's face it--things are pretty bad now. This may explain, from a spiritual perspective, this acceleration and normalization of something that is completely not normal, not healthy, and not good. Those qualities have Satan's handiwork written all over them. As a conniving and supremely intelligent entity, he too is looking to expand his market share--to the young, the innocent, and to the Church herself--and will use anything at his disposal to confuse, corrupt, and condemn as many souls as he can to make them eternal consumers in Hell. As Fr. John Hardon was fond of saying,

"Ordinary Catholic families cannot survive. They must be extra-ordinary families. They must be heroic Catholic families. Ordinary Catholic families are no match for the devil as he uses the media of communication to secularize and desacralize modern society. No less than ordinary individual Catholics can survive, so ordinary Catholic families cannot survive. They have no choice. They must either be holy -- which means sanctified -- or they will disappear."

The scary thing is, this stuff is hard to walk back from. As I wrote in The Healing of Memory, God can restore us by grace even when we have fallen victim to pornography use by our own volition, if we are firm and committed in wanting to live lives of virtue and chastity. But apart from the miraculous, you don't just wake up one day from a year of watching trans porn and suddenly know how to have a normal, healthy sexual relationship. The extent to which one's mind can be warped and sexual response affected by this digital refuse should not be underestimated. 

The only real response to porn--trans or otherwise--is simply to opt out and refuse to be a consumer. It's not a social boycott or a social-media outrage campaign that will force the hand of the porn execs, but a spiritual commitment to chastity. Starve the beast. Refuse to play the game. Focus your sexual energy exclusively on your spouse, and do so in a way that does not use them for selfish ends. Don't be like a dumb ox led to slaughter. Remember: this is not normal. 

Related:

The Walls of the Playground: In Defense of Vanilla Sex

Porn And The New Spiritual Health Crisis

Throw Her Out

Happy Are The Ignorant

As a child I remember having a weary thought of being forced to eat all the food I would eat in my lifetime in one sitting. A nauseating notion.

There is a reason alcoholics and those in recovery need to take things "one day at a time" (or sometimes one hour or one minute at a time). There is a reason why we pray in the Lord's Prayer "give us our daily bread." Some things are not meant to be known, and we are better off left seeing through a glass darkly (1 Cor 13:12). 

Thomas Kempis tells the story of a man who doubted whether he was in a state of grace and prayed to know whether he would persevere in virtue to the end of his life. The Lord answered him:

"What would you do now if you knew you should persevere? Do now as you would do then and you will be saved."

We are not called to know...we are called to trust. Knowing implies certainty based on data, while trust involves itself with love based in faith. Thankfully, in our lives of faith, we are given little tastes of both--knowing that God exists undeniably when we encounter Him in moments of grace, and trusting Him when He removes Himself from our purview. 

But even when He removes Himself, it is for our ultimate good, for the blinding white of transfiguration burns the human eye. He places himself under guise of bread to build up our faith. He visits us under guise of the poor to test and increase our charity. He conceals the hand of Providence while supplying our need. He hides his motives and reasons for seeming misfortune because "such knowledge is too wonderful for me;" it is high, and we cannot reach it (Ps 139:6). 

I often get very discouraged in writing. Though I do it for the Kingdom (and so as not to bury my talents that I have been charged with, lest I suffer the consequences), nothing seems to make a difference; it's pointless; the labor is hard, the harvest great, and the workers few. Like Job, I lament:

“Why do the wicked still live,

Continue on, also become very powerful?

“Their descendants are established with them in their sight,

And their offspring before their eyes,

Their houses are safe from fear,

And the rod of God is not on them." (Job 21:7-8)

At the heart of it, I want to know. I want to know that I am making a difference. I want to know I am doing the right thing. I want to know I am pleasing God. I want to know I will be saved. 

And yet, what if I did know? The Lord gives the answer:

Do now as you would do then and you will be saved."

We are called to be like the virgins staying awake with oil in their lamps (Mt 25); like the faithful servants who work not knowing when their master will return (Lk 12:45). If the angels in Heaven don't even know the day or hour when the end of days will occur (Mt 24:36), why should we expect to? 

God made our bodies for a reason to be used in accordance with their nature. He gave us our intellect and reason to be used within its confines. He gave us the longing for Heaven and the limits of friendship to draw us closer to Him. There is nothing created or made by accident--and that includes the finitude of our knowledge of heavenly things. 

Knowledge is a good and gift of the Holy Spirit, but not an absolute. Willful ignorance, likewise, is not a virtue; but neither is curiosity or presumption. We are called as a work of mercy to instruct the ignorant when it involves the truth of things. 

But no more can you force a five year old to start driving, or a teenager to know all there is about death and taxes, can you contain all the multitudes of heaven and grace in a single sitting. We are portioned it for our good, kept in the dark when need be (which is most of the time), refined and tested by fire so that we might become as gold. We may not understand the purgations we go through, or comprehend our blurred vision of the heavenly realm now...but maybe it is because we are not supposed to. 

God has us set at this time and place to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, and His ways are a mystery to us for good reason. If I knew my reach, and if you knew yours, we may be met with a darker fate steeped in pride and presumption. I'll take ignorance in that case--not the willful kind that refuses to see the truth and be held to account for it, but the kind that is content with a bag of mystery steeped in the tea of unknowing.

The Last Word

 

Hope is a human need. From Harvey Milk's famous quote "you gotta give em hope," to the title of Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, even secular non-believers recognize this. 

Like justice and peace, faith and hope are kindred brothers enmeshed as twins in the womb in an eternal embrace. For faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see (Heb 11:1). When you don't have faith, you don't have hope. 

But we are people of faith, and as a result we have hope as our reward. It is always darkest before dawn, when the light of faith is bordering on being extinguished and at its dimmest point. Faith is inoculated for three days in the stew of limbo. We can sometimes forget the wellspring of emotions that must have occurred for the disciples during this time who weren't sure if they had cast their bets on a losing horse. We have the benefit of knowing how this race is won, and can find ourselves sauntering over to the tomb for the finale even before the pool of blood beneath the cross has dried.

Our faith is assured, because while Christ will return again, he will not die again, for he has conquered death by death (Rom 6:9).Death's reign has come to an end, and we now live in the expectant hope of reunion and restoration. But that dawn is still on the distant horizon, while darkness in the world seems to reign.

While we have the historical assurance of the Resurrection, we can sometimes doubt the promises of Christ to return when things are simply so bad and so longstanding that it seems he has forgotten us. God is angry with the wicked every day (Ps 7:11)...but he doesn't seem to be doing much about it.

This is the melee in which we must marinate, our proverbial three days of darkness before the light of dawn. The faith and hope of the disciples is that he would rise after death...our faith and hope is that he will return. Our responsibility, then, is that we are not found sleeping, but standing watch and doing the work while the Master is away. Our historical Easter is celebrated today, but the Easter of our particular epoch for which we await has not yet come.

But it will--this is an element of faith that gives hope and meaning to our lives as Christians, why we believe what we believe and live as we do. How do we know? Well, we don't--that's faith. But we believe that he who rose from the dead in fulfillment of his word does not speak falsehood when he said he will return to judge the living and the dead. 

Your judgement awaits, and your faith will be tested in the darkest hours of the night. During those times, even the elect will be deceived and many will fall away as love grows cold (Mt 24:24). But today, you are given an empty tomb of memorial to bolster your hope for your future in eternity. You are given the company of believers, the Church, to rejoice and celebrate with. You are given his flesh to sustain you, and his blood to wash you. Satan thought he has won the battle, but he will lose the war. For Christ will have the last word.

Happy Easter. He is risen indeed!

You Are The Man

 

When our oldest son was born, my wife and I chose as his namesake two men who I always felt a close affinity to: David, from the Old Testament, and Peter, from the New Testament. Both men had a burning love for God that is intimate and shamelessly authentic; both were chosen and anointed by God for a special mission. Both were great men but also fell victim to great sin, and the fact that these two things were not in contradiction was not lost on me.  

As we head into Good Friday and the final few days of Holy Week, I am just always struck, year after year, with the story of Peter's denial of Christ. I will confess that I struggle with a degree of "Catholic self-worth" which usually comes up in proximity to the other Catholics in our circle--the ones who seem to have the liturgical seasons down pat, their kids on a good catechized schedule, their lives in order, and who just exemplify what it is to be a good Catholic. I feel like a scandal to my own self, unworthy of emulation because of my bad example. I am full of strong bravado that blows up in the first few miles of the marathon and then leaves me limping the remaining miles, or taking shortcuts. I have gone from embracing my cross to now trying to shirk it off at every turn.  I eat in the middle of the night. I find excuses not to pray. I indulge in this or that excess. 

Of course I am not above human weakness more than the next man. The burning shame I feel when what I do (and don't do) does not square with what I profess seems to be amplified by that fact that I truly love the Lord, and yet I can't back up that love with action worthy of its degree. I don't understand it.

But then all I have to do is look at Peter.

Just as David's murderous plot, adultery, and cover up was grave, Peter's sin is nothing to sneeze at either:

He lies.

He curses and swears an oath.

He betrays the confidence of his closest friend.

He denies God.

As Christ falls carrying his own cross three times on the way to Calvary, Peter seeks to get out from under his not once, not twice, but three times. Feeding his denial is a sensitivity to the outlook and talk of others. We see in Paul's letter to the Galatians that this does not completely leave him either after the Resurrection, since Paul accuses Peter of not eating with the Gentiles because they are uncircumsized, even though he knows it is not right to do so. 

But like David, who is shown his sin by the prophet Nathan and is brought to recognition and repentance with the words "You are the man!," Peter is cut to the heart with sorrow when he hears the cock crow and recalls the prophetic words of his friend and Savior foretelling his denial. He, as well, is the man--not "the man" that everyone wants to be, but the man who stands accused and has no more room to deny. 

When he realizes this and the shadow of shame is cast over him, he weeps bitterly. Like Judas, in a way, Peter has traded in his closest friend for pieces of silver--the silver of blending in with the crowd, of not being a standout, of the world. But unlike Judas, Peter lets the glance from the Lord in that moment cut through him with love. Though he is taken out at the knees and brought low, he does not abandon or forsake his love for Jesus. He will recover his name, and his weakness will be perfected in strength...but now is the time for tears.

Lent is an utter humiliation for me, and typically nearing the end of it I am reminded of how much Christ endured...and how little I have. As he takes flog after flog at the pillar, I complain about a blister on my heel. As he staggers with exhaustion under the tree from which he will hang,  I snack on crumpets and count down to my next meal. As he bears the weight of sin, I continue to stack my own on his shoulders. When being a disciple is worthy of praise I'm all about it--when it becomes the scorn of the crowd, I, like Peter, look to instead join a winning team. I am a worm and no man. 

But I am, in fact, the man. The man who denies Christ to his face to save face myself. The man who chooses comfort and good name again and again over being maligned and counted as one of his disciples. The man who is not a good friend, who is a liar, who swears and curses and abandons. And as I stagger out of the courtyard during these final hours of Lent, all I can do is lower my head and say, God, be merciful to me a sinner! 

Adultery Is Just Another Word For Narcissism

A few weeks ago I woke up from a dream that bordered on a nightmare. 

I only dream a handful of times a year, but when I do they are typically very vivid and detailed, though I try not to put too much stock in dreams either. In this particular dream I was in a situation in which I was tempted towards adultery with someone I knew. 

In the dream, the other person equally struggled with the same temptation. Both of us were in happy marriages; neither of us wanted to damage them or inflict harm upon our spouses. Nothing physical happened in the dream, as it never got to that point, but the feeling of having stepped into a riptide of attraction remained for hours even after I woke up. I was relieved it was just a dream.

The reality in my real life is that in thirteen years of marriage, I have never once been in a situation in which I was tempted to be unfaithful. That's not to say it can't happen, only that it hasn't so far. 

I suppose part of that can be attributed to my adoption of the "Pence Approach" of never being alone with a person of the opposite sex (married or not) and having an "open-book" policy with computers, phones, email, texts, etc with my wife. I also (thank God) have never picked up on any "vibes" from any member of the opposite sex I've come into contact with that were flirtatious or suggestive. 

In the past few years I have known or known through association five people who cheated on their spouses. Four were male, one was female:

Person 1 cheated on their spouse with a lower-level associate from work. Divorce ensued. Person 1 is in their mid-fifties.

Person 2 cheated on their spouse with a neighbor, also married with children. Divorce pending. Person 2 is in their mid-forties.

Person 3 cheated on their spouse with a series of prostitutes. Still Married. Person 3 is in their mid-forties.

Person 4 took up a new partner when the spouse was diagnosed with cancer. Person moved in with new partner, but is still legally married. Person 4 is in their mid-sixties. 

Person 5 took up a new partner when the spouse was diagnosed with dementia. Person moved out of state and in with the new partner, but is still legally married. Person 5 is in their mid-seventies.

It's always tough to judge actions while withholding judgment of the individuals. The actions are indeed worthy of condemnation, while it is up to God to judge the people themselves. 

Some cheat because they are unhappy or unfulfilled in their marriage, but not always. One woman who was in a "happy marriage," but who still found herself engaging in an extra-marital affair, found the chasing of fantasy (rather than pure physical appetite), part of the allure:

"Affairs are by definition precarious, elusive, and ambiguous. The indeterminacy, the uncertainty, the not knowing when we’ll see each other again—feelings we would never tolerate in our primary relationship—become kindling for anticipation in a hidden romance. Because we cannot have our lover, we keep wanting. It is this just-out-of-reach quality that lends affairs their erotic mystique and keeps the flame of desire burning. Reinforcing this segregation of the affair from reality is the fact that many, like Priya, choose lovers who either could not or would not become a life partner. By falling for someone from a very different class, culture, or generation, we play with possibilities that we would not entertain as actualities."

It also goes beyond attraction. Tiger Woods was married to a bombshell, but cheated on her with a homely Denny's waitress (among others). It doesn't make rational sense. In fact, the fact he confessed to sleeping with 120 women seems downright compulsive and borderline pathological. 

Affairs often don't "just happen" though; the term "slippery slope" is cliche but apt here. There are often early warning signals and opportunities to shut down the potential towards unfaithfulness. The problem is that individuals who fall into adultery don't often heed these signs and take swift action to flee the situations, but instead entertain and engage them. 

But why? What is it about the seedbed of affairs that blinds us to the dire consequences of such an act of betrayal? It's equally hard to find a common motive among adulterers, but I'm going to try anyway. I think the elusive common denominator (which applies to both men and women, albeit in different manifestations) is attention.

I suspect that for women, there is that innate desire, as Olivia Newton John's famous song expressed, "to want to be wanted." For men, there is a similar reflective quality; men want to be wanted to, but not typically for emotional needs. Instead, when a women sends out signals to a man that she is interested or inviting, it is reflective in the sense that he sees himself in her advances; i.e., "there is something about me that turns this person on." And that is itself the primary turn-on: it strokes the ego in a masturbatory fashion.

This symbiotic feeding of egos is a common thread in adulterous relationships. When we fall in love with our spouses before marriage, there is of course a primal physical attraction that gives us an impetus to marry and carry on the species. Before marriage, this must be resisted not because it is bad, but because it is good. Eventually, that good desire is able to be given its right of place within the context of marriage for the generation of children and the bonding of spouses. As time goes on in a (healthy) marriage, we find that we continue to struggle with selfishness and bruised egos, but that love demands that we forgo such narcissistic tendencies to will the good of the other.  As the love deepens and matures and becomes less preoccupied with itself, we find that we hurt when our spouse hurts, and feel joy when they feel joy. 

There is nothing good about an affair, however, and no self-giving is present. Affairs are, almost by definition, completely self-seeking and egotistic. They are an attempted replacement for something...something that may be tarnished and worn but still of great value and which should have been given pride of place. In a Christian marriage, when one looks in the eyes of their spouse, they should see Christ whom they serve. In an adulterous relationship, one looks in the eyes of their lover and rather than seeing Christ, they see...themselves. 

Affairs always hold the allure of excitement early on. Like all lies, it looks outside the self for validation. Even the excitement that got one into this mess in the first place becomes a trap. Whereas one's ego may be stroked in the partner's desire reflected back to him, eventually you get tired of looking at your own reflection, because sin is not comely, but ugly. And yet sin, like insanity, is doing the same thing and expecting a different result each time. It shouldn't take a hundred and twenty cocktail waitresses as human collateral to realize that the problem is not them, but you. 

Narcissism and adultery are like the peanut butter and jelly in the rotten sandwich of sin. Self-centered, a lack of empathy and concern for the feelings of others, manipulating to achieve what one wants, a need for admiration...scratch a narcissist and you will likely find an adulterer underneath the surface. 

The thing about a healthy marriage, though, is that while the physical can sometimes become commonplace over the decades, the capacity to know the other beyond just the sexual deepens. Adultery is like a plastic kiddie pool of physical pleasure where you splash around for a few weeks or months but in time discover how shallow the water is. 

The marriage bed, by contrast, is like a coral reef where decades of monogamous sexual self-giving has produced a deep bedrock of nuance, colors, and subtlety. The longer you spend there, the more unplumbed it seems to be. What seems 'boring' and common over time has suddenly become bright, mysterious, and teeming with life.

It's a fragile ecosystem though; one act of adultery is like TnT'ing the ocean floor and potentially destroying all the delicate coral and sea creatures in it. Just like any natural disaster can be cleaned up and nursed back to health over time, a marriage can recover and heal from such acts of infidelity with the grace of forgiveness and the hard work of contrite marital penance. 

No one seeks to have an affair because they want to work hard, but because they want to play. One must learn to look in the mirror and seek not the titillating rise of a stroked ego, but the true image of one's sin in contrast to the goodness of Christ, who had no guile in him. One's spouse can help reflect Christ to the other by their own grace and forgiveness, but it is work...and work is an attribute of marriage. 

In the five examples listed at the beginning of this post, none of them really had a happy ending. They may have had different endings that are not yet finished, but a lot was needlessly sacrificed because of the self-seeking gratification that an affair or different partner promised. People got hurt, as tends to happen with sin. The people involved are not necessarily happier, which sin also promises but does not deliver on.

But this is all of us as well. The things we chase that entice us and then vanish into thin air leave us in an unfamiliar cove, cold and alone, because we did not heed the commandments given to keep us from this fate in the first place. Avoid at all costs the fatal blow of adultery. Contrary to what the world teaches, "happily ever after" in faithful monogamy doesn't have to be the unattainable pipe dream it's portrayed as. When love is true, nothing can separate us from it. That true love is God in Christ Jesus, but its reflection is in our spouse, who lives and breathes Christ for us. Marriage is the arena in which we train to perfect this love so that when we meet our natural end, both partners can together wear the crown. 

Related:

Having Sex With A Stranger

"I'm Living the Cliche"--Extra Marital Affairs And The Illusion Of Happiness

Being Present In The Marital Act