Being Contra-Contraception

Edith's post on the pope, the media, and condoms is so good, and one that I need to respond to at length. There has been so much discussion on this in and out of the Church. My students, colleagues, friends, and friends on Facebook (huge distinction...topic for another time) all have been buzzing about it. All that I can think to ask is, "Does anyone feel like they don't want to hear the word 'condom' anymore?"

However, the issue of contracpetion rang a little closer to home this holiday weekend, and kind of pierced my heart. I think it's a safe wager that I might be one of the the only members of my family, both immediate and extended, who supports the magisterial teaching on contraception. And it's a hard place to be in, as my friends begin to have children and as (though I'm not currently in a serious relationship), my family asks me things about how I would have children should I be in that position. There are comments passed because my friends are having their third or fourth child, or how it will probably be difficult for me to settle down with a man if I don't compromise on the birth control issue, which, though stated out of ignorance and out of love, still cuts to the heart of who I am as a Catholic woman, faithful to our beliefs out of joyful obedience and a rich understanding of why we believe what we do.

I know this issue was a huge issue to grapple with for my parents' generation, who was poorly catechized and who had to navigate their way through the sexual revolution, the implementation of Vatican II teachings, and of course, their own relationships and sexual experiences. And since the beauty of this teaching was not really made clear (in my theological opinion) in a way paralleled to the Theology of the Body at the end of the last century, moral confusion and cloudy judgments about assent of our mind and will abound. I try to be cheerful and joyful when explaining the why and the what of our beliefs, but it's not always met with understanding. Sometimes I wonder if my parents or my sibling or my cousins will ever fully understand who I am. Maybe that is the real question I'm asking: How much of a 'cause of division' is the Lord even within family members who all profess belief? How do I avoid the sin of pride or the passing of judgment on others close to me, who have a very deep faith and relationship with the Lord, too?

Dont' get me wrong; I don't walk around with a book charting who believes what in my family. I just feel a little bit of a sting when it's suggested that I'm too rigid or uncompromising when it comes to certain doctrines. I can't pull out theological discourse on the subject (this one has one of the best explanations of Humane vitae, in my opinion) at the dinner table. I suppose I can only witness it in my own life. And since I am not now in a position to be open to new life, I'd better find other ways to demonstrate what this looks like for the single woman.

One of the Best Marriages on TV

Stop what you are doing now and go rent (or watch online) every season of Friday Night Lights that you can get your hands on. I have not watched such a tremendous show in a long time (okay, since Lost finished). I started watching the show this summer after my brother had been recommending it for a few years, and I'm so glad that I did start watching. I love football, and I appreciate (to a certain extent), what it's like to live and breathe the experience of the team as my older brother, who I idolized (and still do) played for four years at our competitive regional high school. The performances of nearly every cast member are convincing and emotionally-charged with subtlety in glances, pauses, and delivery that make you invest in their well-being and good. My heart is tugged by every episode.

Now, in full disclosure, the show chronicles very wounded men, women, and teenagers, who are not always able to live out the Christian morality they hear preached in their southern Texas churches on Sunday. However, I am prepared to stand behind the statement that the marriage of the characters Coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tami is one of the best marriages that I've ever seen portrayed on the small or the large screen. The show films all aspects of a marriage that is (at least) 15 or so years in....what solid, daily communication looks like, what issues are important and not so important, what it's like to put the other person's good ahead of your own in real situations and decision-making, how difficult but vital it is to keep the fires burning, what it looks like to walk with someone in joy and sorrow, what it's like to parent (and to parent well) a teenager, etc. I really can't stress how impressed I am with the writing, acting, and overall portrayal of two people still very much in love and who work with all of their might to stay that way. It's really the most beautiful witness I've seen in awhile, and one that I haven't seen written about in Christian circles.

If you watch it, let me know if you agree. Sometimes it's just nice to have and to celebrate little glimmers of light in the media that model in a realistic fashion the culture of life and the practical application of the theology of the body.

On the Legitimacy of Sex

No, this isn't a Thomistic argument. It's a rant. So, consider yourself forewarned.

Last week I was up on campus picking up something from my classroom when I ran into a middle-aged colleague. We chatted about why we found ourselves inside the gates of the school and realized we were both recipients of grants to write lessons for the summer. After being asked, I divulged that I had been given a grant to write two major units on the Theology of the Body for the sophomore and senior religion classes. The teacher was unfamiliar with what the TOB was, so I took the opportunity to *briefly* explain it as John Paul II's theology of what it means to be an embodied soul and how important the body and all of its actions, including sexual encounters and relationships, are as they have a baring on who we are and who we are becoming.

"So, you're still teaching that sex is only legitimate in marriage?" she said with a demeaning scowl.

I didn't know how to respond other than to get ticked. "Well, yes, I'm not sure why I wouldn't be teaching that at a Catholic school of this caliber. I'm also not sure that 'legitimate' is the best word choice though in explaining what the Church teaches." I wanted to walk away, but I stayed and defended the teaching a bit more, although I was met with even more eye-rolling, raised eyebrows, and a very real judgment in the air of being behind the times. I could just see the steam coming out of her eyes that yet another young person was repressed by the antiquated, oppressive Catholic Church.

Okay, maybe I'm embellishing. But I did feel judged. Legitimate? Do people have legitimate sex? What does that even mean? Are people around the world able to have sex outside of marriage? Why yes, I'm pretty convinced that people all over the globe are able to "legitimately" accomplish the deed. I'm also sure that it's legitimately pleasurable for them. And I'd even go as far to say that I *understand* that she is implying that sex is something good and communicates something between two people who love each other.

I should have responded, "Well, if you actually mean to say when you say "legitimate" is that sex is most sacramental, most an expression of the love between the persons of the Trinity when it's faithful, fruitful, exclusive, and total, then yes, it's only really legitimate in the sacrament of marriage."

Sometimes I think I should be presenting this material to my colleagues in addition to my students. A little seminar on the "legitimacy" of the Church's sexual theology couldn't hurt.

Babies, the Pill, and Infertility Response

Well, Edith, I think I like your theory. Now, I'm no medical doctor. My training is in theological ethics. But I find it really difficult to believe, even after only an undergraduate course in biology, that prolonged (probably around the time you're suggesting...ten years or so), use of the birth control pill wouldn't mess with one's fertility. Even if one stops taking the pill and so begins again to ovulate, it seems to me that it would take awhile for the body to bounce back to regulating itself. So, if my students at age 15 or 16 begin to use the pill, ten years later would mean that they are my age...

I'm also a little frightened at the "mini-pill" which suppresses ovulation and thickens cervical mucus (like the mainstream pill), but is taken for 12 weeks at a time...so you have about 4 periods a year. Call me old-fashioned, but this seems really weird.

What I find most fascinating is the increased rate of infertility in men, possibly linked the "anti-androgen" elements of the pill that are released into water sources.

The question then is: what are we doing??? We are inhibiting our bodies' natural functions to prevent pregnancy, supplementing our bodies with hormones that we should not really need after we get off the pill to get pregnant, risking the fertility of men...all for what...license to have sex?

The most effective way to get from point A to point B is a straight line. Instead we are running circles in our own lives to figure out where we are going.

A Feminism for Generations Y and Z

Just last week I began to introduce my sophomores to some of JPII's "new feminism." We've been exploring the role of the laity in the Church and their specific calling to holiness. The holiness of the lay person doesn't look like the holiness of the priest or the religious insofar as the means to achieving sanctity are quite different. I watched quite a few girls have "a-ha" moments when they realized that they could grow in sanctity precisely by being virtuous students, friends, daughters and siblings.

I figured that I could smoothly transition into growing in holiness through femininity, since all of my students are female. So far, not so good! I've noticed a few trends in their answers, which seems to indicate that they need to be exposed to very different images at any earlier age than they have been.

Many of my students are convinced that gender is something that is relative, subjective, and conditioned. While they are willing to recognize biological differences between men and women, they do not, for their lives, want to associate biology with gender. They don't want to name anything essential to masculinity or femininity. I think this still stems from a fear of being pigeon-holed into pursuing certain careers or having limitations put on their dreams.

Now, it's really difficult for me to teach the anthropology and philosophy of John Paul II, Edith Stein, and Benedict XVI (another blog post on his writings on femininity is forthcoming!) to fifteen-year-olds. They can't yet think abstractly enough, and their experiences are still limited.

Has anyone attempted to break this down for this age group and been successful? Any thoughts on a helpful approach to helping young woman see their femininity as a privilege, opportunity, and blessed responsibility?

Re-Thinking TOB

In reply to Julian's recent post, I'd like to say a little something. Back a couple months ago, when I was taking my marriage prep classes, I wrote that I was so sick of hearing about the Theology of the Body. And I was. But I'm really not. I got sick of hearing those catch words like 'Self-donation,' and 'complementarity' without any serious reflection of what they mean for us in our lives. They sounded so flowery in our prep classes. And I'm sure the fault was my own. After all, who expects to have a step by step outline of how to implement this very complex and beautiful theology in life? That would be a bit reductionary, I think.

BUT YET - aren't we supposed to do this very thing?? Isn't that what our lives are all about - in any vocation? Everyone automatically thinks of marriage with the Theology of the Body, but the beauty of John Paul II's work is that it is not meant to apply only to married people and sexuality, but it is meant to apply to all people in every vocation. It is that - a theology of our bodies - as male and female. What does it mean that God created us as male and female in His image? What is the theology behind our physicality? Since we are all human - created as male and female, this applies to all. That is what I love about it. And I think my flaw here is that I began to think of it in a very cerebral way, forgetting the complex simplicity of John Paul II's work here to be lived in each and every human life. And Julian so eloquently reminds us of that:

JPII wrote it between 1979 and 1984, when some of the repercussions of the sexual revolution were really beginning to rear their ugly heads. But what kind of meditation do we need now in 2010? We are a few generations past this historical context, and are in need of an address about our sexuality that pertains to a hyper-sexualization of nearly every human activity in culture and daily life as well as an idealizing of human sexuality within the Church itself (or how some of the readers of the TOB are leading us to believe). My fear is that young Catholics are going to be again left disappointed in the theological but also practical use of their sexuality both before and within marriage. I don't really have the answer, other than to say that we could use some young theologians, alongside the "wisdom of our fathers" to seek the Truth today.

I think the answer for Julian is that we need not only a serious study of the TOB, but also a dedication of people living in a culture imbued by this ancient and new wisdom. And with respect to the Fathers of the Church - I could not help but think of our St. Augustine when he writes in the Confessions:

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

I believe Augustine's witness touches on the ever perennial questions that John Paul II seeks to refresh in his Theology of the Body. So let's plunge into it with them!

Let's Talk About Sex...in its Historical Context

This past week, Dawn Eden, author of The Thrill of the Chaste, wrote an article for Headline Bistro in which she defends John Paul II's Theology of the Body as something that is not "new" or "radical," but rather exactly what the pontiff said himself -- a meditation on Humane Vitae and 2000 years of the deposit of faith. In my opinion, this is a really critical insight by Miss Eden, one that no doubt other theologians share:

Truth be told, there is something “new” about John Paul II’s teachings on marriage and sexuality, but it is not the newness of radicalism, revolution, drama, or daring. To borrow the words of G.K. Chesterton, the theology of the body is new because it is part of a Catholic faith whose “very antiquity preserves an attitude of novelty.” Its newness is that of ancient truths shining ever bright in the face of a world that is “passing away” (1 John 2:17). And it is very much needed in this age—because we have forgotten the wisdom of our fathers.

As Eden reminds us, if our view of human sexuality weren't there from the beginning, then it is merely something that was recently "discovered," and is therefore up for question as legitimate a claim of faith. Perhaps this is one of JPII's hidden gifts to us -- while we go back to Genesis to find the roots of our sexuality, we can tap into a more recent 2000 year-old meditation in Christ's Church on the use of the gift of sexual intercourse.

Eden's article got me thinking on the importance of examining the TOB not only in light of documents and catechesis on human sexuality prior to JPII's audiences, but the context in which he was writing it. JPII wrote it between 1979 and 1984, when some of the repercussions of the sexual revolution were really beginning to rear their ugly heads. But what kind of meditation do we need now in 2010? We are a few generations past this historical context, and are in need of an address about our sexuality that pertains to a hyper-sexualization of nearly every human activity in culture and daily life as well as an idealizing of human sexuality within the Church itself (or how some of the readers of the TOB are leading us to believe). My fear is that young Catholics are going to be again left disappointed in the theological but also practical use of their sexuality both before and within marriage. I don't really have the answer, other than to say that we could use some young theologians, alongside the "wisdom of our fathers" to seek the Truth today.

The Priest, the Nun and the Playmate

It really does sound like the begining of a bad joke. But Ed Mechmann's recent post about an unusual encounter in an elevator is really a lovely meditation on the interesction of Theology of the Body and our daily life:

Last week, Sr. Lucy of the Sisters of Life and I were invited to appear on a radio show that is broadcast on the Catholic Channel of Sirius Satellite Radio. The show is called Word to Life, and it's hosted by Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P. ...When we arrived at the building where the radio station is located, Sr. Lucy and I were greeted by Fr. Aquinas, and while we were standing at the security checkpoint, we encountered a very glamorous, shapely young woman who looked like a model.

One couldn't help but notice that her health was in very grave risk, because her blouse was suffering from a serious shortage of fabric. That's putting it mildly. But she was dressed for the occasion, since she was a Playboy Playmate, on her way to appear on a radio show run by a "men's magazine". Being a normal male human being, I found this all very, very distracting. Every other man in the vicinity certainly did, too, because she was the center of attention, to say the least.

What happened next taught me the lesson.

We went to the elevator to go upstairs to the studio, and all got on the same car. Sr. Lucy and Fr. Aquinas were standing on either side of the young lady. So here we were: a priest, a sister, a Playboy Playmate, and a married man who was struggling to maintain custody of his eyes and thoughts, and who was thinking about what an odd collection of people he was with. The elevator stopped, and a man got on. He was taken aback by this scene, and immediately remarked, "You're not going to the same place".

Read the rest of the story here. Mechmman works in the Family/Respect Life Office of the Archdiocese of Washington (HT)

ToB and the Single Life

Julian, thank you so much for your follow-up on Christopher West--I think the questions you raise are essential, and really reach at the heart of why I wanted to start this blog. In the small Catholic world, especially among college age kids, I saw time and again young woman who idealized sex and marriage because of a (I think faulty) reading of Theology of the Body, largely fostered by JPII Lite. They idealized marriage and sex, talking about it in such lofty theological terms, that nothing could live up to their expectations. This always bothered me; their romanticism was toxic--perhaps it was not perverse sexual fantasy, but it was still fantasy.

I always wanted to hit them on the head and say: Sex is messy; marriage is messy and full of pain (and wonderful in spite of that!); life is messy. If you are lucky, you will marry the best man you have ever known, and he will be your Christ-bearer--bringing you closer to Christ. But you won't marry St. Joseph, and if you expect him to be St. Joseph, you are setting yourself up for disaster.

It struck me as an odd point of view because Theology of the Body isn't really about sex and marriage. Ok, it is--but it is about sex and marriage because they are part of a much deeper inquiry, and inquiry into what it means to be a human, and to live out your vocation, and what that vocation might be based on. These questions are fundamental, regardless of whether you are married or not. And this is what we single girls must take away from ToB: how do I live a good life, and answer the "universal call to holiness." And then we have to go out and live those messy uncertain blessed lives that God has planned for us.