Asking Christopher West 10 Questions about Sex

Christopher West Matthew Fred you have thought about sex way more than most people I suppose that is true Australian apologist Frank sheid once said Modern Man practically never thinks about sex he dreams about it he jokes about it no you're right but he doesn't think about I have thought I have pondered I have I have entered into the mystery let's just call it that and your work has blessed so many people thank you God um my wife heard of you back when she was a missionary on net um I heard about you and from you back then as well and I've been tremendously blessed by your work it's good isn't it praise God yeah praise God I I've been doing it for almost 30 years and 30 years in you can see some of the fruit of it yeah people come up to me at talks now and say I heard you 25 years ago and it put my life in a totally different direction and I never would have married this person or we wouldn't have had these many kids and you look back you're like wow thank you Lord that's I mean that's the way it works he he works he chooses whom he chooses and I think it was Scott Han who told me this years ago he said Christopher speak right into the we'll pull it up a little bit so you speak right into the mic yeah I think it was Scott Han who told me this years ago that uh Christopher just remember you are but the I'm keep joking good yeah that's perfect you are but the what do I feel like you about to say ass I think it was Scott Han who told me years ago not editing any of that out get G you are but the ass that Jesus rides into Jerusalem and and I was like screw you Scot no I was like yes that's I'm going to hold on to that one and that that has that's a good place to be yeah but he does he chooses asses to ride into Jerusalem like you yeah no it's B and you know what I was watching a interview the other day with George Cardinal pel back in the day this was probably in the 80s I think and they were asking him to kind of defend contraception to this hostile crowd defend the church's teaching against contraception that's right not to defend Contra that's correct golly I'm glad you're here yes I am here to help thank you see I didn't know that this is what I'm talking about um and you know he he defended it but it's like the Lord has raised up people like yourself and Jason ever and others to help the church articulate and that's something like with all respect I I feel like he didn't have that gift he was Orthodox but it was before people like you and others were able to consume and then regurgitate in a way that made it easier for the rest of us to swallow yeah I think that's probably my particular gift or approach is to take very dense Theology of John Paul II internalize it and then put it in language categories analogies that that make sense hopefully to the average person I mean I would not have believed that the church is teaching on sex before marriage which is one of the questions I have for you would have resonated with me until I heard Jason Everett's talk on it and I was like oh my goodness this is obviously true do you remember the particular Insight or the particular angle that he took that made you go ah so I was chatting with my now wife at net Ministries and she was big into Theology of the Body and she had a CD of one of Jason Everett's talks on Chastity and she had a T-shirt and on the back it said something like call me frigid call me approved call me uptight went down the list and then it said just don't call me for sex until you call me your wife so I did um but but before that I just I was like this girl's cool she's passionate about this topic really passionate about it and so she gave me this CD so I went back to my room and I listened to it and I I was so moved by it I mean one of the things he said was just I mean it sounds so obvious now you know and it may not even be the best way to argue for it but it hit me at the time which was you know if you're dating someone right now that could be somebody else's spouse how and and if your wife's out there somewhere right now she might be dating some dude how far how far want him to go with her yeah yeah like not far at all and that just started to kind of resonate with me and then I started to see the church's genius in that but what was funny is the talk he gave was to a public school and he does this excellent job where he speaks to public school sometimes and doesn't bring into the faith component I remember thinking to the church's shame perhaps this is way too good to be Catholic there's no way this guy's Catholic I wasn't even sure he could be Christian isn't that tragic it's so tragic cuz I was used to hearing kind of cheesy attempts I don't think that's the case anymore there's a lot of amazing there some really good teachers and speakers out there who have I would say internalized the wisdom John Paul II has given us which has been a boon to explaining the church's teaching and that really is the gift of John Paul II he's not changing the church's teaching he's giving us a language that modern human beings can relate to yeah it does need to be translated as a scholarly language but again once his ideas and and insights are translated into a language that normal people can understand it's like that resonates I I know that's true on the inside I remember reading John Paul II for the first time I was 24 years old and I was like how does this guy know me W how does he know my own experience how does he know how to speak to what I have lived see that's wild because a 24 year-old reading dense theology I mean you're I had a philosophical dictionary I had a theological dictionary I had to look up all these words cuz I didn't know what they meant but I I I I I felt it was so personally addressed to me wow because I was in a hell of a lot of pain from all of my Shenanigans as a younger man and and I was desperately looking for answers and the whole seeking you'll find knocking the door will be open really played itself out for me I sought and I sought and in discovering this teaching of John Paul II Theology of the Body and then love and responsibility I felt like I was reading somebody who had read my heart and it wasn't this teaching imposed on me from the outside he said reflect on your own experience and see if it's not confirmed what I'm telling you in your own experience and I was like yes yeah he's speaking right to me yes he's speaking right to yes he's speaking right to me yeah that's amazing well today I want to look I have 10 questions for you about different sexual things uh expressions and would love you to help us answer these questions so uh no particular order what is the church's teaching on masturbation and why do you think it's correct well let's back up to know right and wrong we have to know what something is for right uh look at a hammer it has a design you're not going to get a screw into the wall with a hammer without doing damage to the screw the wall and the hammer right what is The Hammer For What is the screwdriver for there is a design what are our genitals for you have to know what your genitals are for in order to know how to behave rightly with your genitals genitals the root of the word Jen comes from the Greek it's Jen it means to produce to give birth to we see the same word in words like generous generate progeny genealogy gender right our genitals are designed to generate new life that is their natural purpose right if if I were to say let's just put me on I don't know the Ellen show or something some really secular context if I said to Ellen on The Ellen Show Ellen ears are meant for hearing is that a controversial statement No Ellen uh eyes are meant for seeing yeah is that a controversial statement it would be so plain as to be annoying uh lungs are meant for breathing mhm but as soon as I say genitals are meant for generating whoa yeah easy whoa whoa well why why because there is this amazing pleasure connected with the generative function with the genital function there's this amazing intense pleasure connected with the generative function to the extent that we as human beings love to zoom in on that pleasure say give me some of that without that and the church says rightly I believe this is true if you zoom in on the pleasure and separate it from the generative function you are disintegrating yourself because what do we mean disintegration what's the opposite integration Body and Soul coming together if I separate the pleasure from its function I'm doing damage to the way God made me I'm not respecting the design of the artist and there will be damage just like if you use a hammer to try to put a screw into the wall there will be damage what's The Damage Done the generative function of the genitals is not merely that of generating new life but also that of uniting a husband and a wife in a profound lasting Bond when I program my psychosexual development with masturbation what am I doing I am operating I am uh engaging the generative function without any chance of generation without any bond with another person so what am I doing I'm pleasing myself I am programming my sexual functioning psychologically physically just the way I I'm programming and wiring my very sexual being is towards self-gratification if I start masturbating whenever I figure it out 10 12 13 whatever you figure it out as a young person and then for years and years that's the way you understand your genitals please myself please myself please myself yeah then you enter into a relationship what has that other person become now yeah it's an instrument to please me an instrument to please me I have not learned how to be a gift to that person right to masturbate is to invert the sexual desire back upon myself I'm not learning to love I'm not learning to be a gift and the purpose of my being as a sexual being this is the church's Vision I believe it I'm called to learn how to love as God loves and my body is the call to love that way how does God love he takes on on a body and he says to his bride the church this is my body given up for you this Grand Theology of the Body is the invitation to learn how to love divinely self-giving selfs sacrificially for the good of the other and for the good of The Offspring that might result when we understand that as the purpose of sexuality then masturbation becomes the antithesis of that call to give myself it becomes please myself and then bring that pattern into a relationship and you're going to treat the other as just really a thing through which to fulfill your own masturbatory habit as one who fell into that sin as a young person I I needed to be reprogrammed I needed to have the Light of Christ come into that inversion of my sexual desire and reorient it towards self-giving and that's a lifelong journey of conversion and that's that's what we're all called to we shouldn't be beating ourselves up when we discover inverted sexual desire we've all in inherited that through original sin but the invitation of the Gospel itself is the reorienting of our entire Humanity body and soul in the direction of learning to love divinely sometimes people will say 95% of men masturbate the other 5% are liars is that true is there hope is it possible to live life without masturbating I thank you God I am not saying this at all to Pat myself on the back I am saying this to praise God for the work of Grace in my life I'm a 54 year old man the last time I masturbated I was 19 years old praise the Lord uh thank you God thank you God for that Liberation and I remember when I came to Christ at the age of 20 uh it was I was 20 uh not 19 not that it matters no no no no 19 I was 20 um and I remember feeling that I had been programmed with that self-indulgent habit since I was 13 years old and I remember lying in my bed one night I didn't want to do this anymore cuz I knew I was a slave to it and I wanted Liberation and inevitably the desire comes upon you to want to indulge in that selfish way and I remember just lying in my bed one night I'm 20 years old dear God in heaven please please I give this to you I give this urge to go in the wrong direction with my sexual desire to you will you please meet me here and it was the first experience of a Divine encounter in a Temptation I've ever had and it was an invitation Christopher I love you here I'm not here to shame you scold you condemn you I'm here to open a new path to freedom to you but you have to die to that selfishness M St Paul talks about this he says we must allow our sinful passions to be crucified but we all know the crucifixion is not the end of the story that's just the means to a new life to a resurrected life and I remember that night saying hearing that invitation die to that inverted desire and I'll show you something else I'll show you A New Path a new way and I remember I put myself in the shape of a cross in my bed I'm a 21 20 20-year-old young man man put myself in the shape of a cross I said Here I Am Lord man I feel like I'm going to explode inside but I give it to you and I am willing to put this on the altar of sacrifice show me another way show me another way and man it was gut-wrenching there was a death there was a death involved but notice if the temptation to to sin here is masturbation if the Temptation is masturbation this is a very good place to have your hands let's just put it that way I say this to men all the time it's saved my life from this sin put yourself in the shape of a cross and stay there until you make a Passover and I am telling you again not to Pat myself on the back but to give all praise to the Redemptive work of Jesus Christ in my life there is freedom praise God second question has to do with fornication I remember somebody coming up to me uh my wife was a youth minister in Texas and they were wanting to know why it never said anything about not having sex before marriage and the reason she asked this question know the word fornication and the reason she didn't know what the word fornication meant is it seems that the church had stopped teaching or had stopped using using that word and I think ugly words for ugly behaviors are good yeah like we say sleep around or we say cheat as if it's a game right or we say premarital sex exactly which is also a softening uh so what does the church teach on fornication and why should we agree yes let's let's talk about it and I do want to take it from the angle of this expression premarital sex which I don't like I don't like that expression because it makes it sound like premarital versus postmarital right well it's wrong before this time it's fine once you cross this line into married life I think a better angle is non-marital sex versus marital sex and the argument that I learned from John Paul II which I've just carried my whole adult life since I first read it is that sex has a spousal meaning a marital meaning because we are meant to love as God loves uh love one another as I have loved you this is the summary of the entire gospel one of the greatest insights of St John Paul II in his Theology of the Body is that that call to love divinely was chiseled by God right in the sexual difference a man's body makes no sense by itself a woman's body makes no sense by itself seen in light of each other unless we are blind in the modern world is blind to this we'll talk about that later I'm sure unless we are blind we see this design of the creator that man is designed to give himself to woman woman is designed to open to receive that gift and return that gift and in the normal course of events if you receive it as God made it the union of the two leads to a third the entirety of the church's teaching can be understood as follows when you understand the natural reality of sex meaning receive it from the hand of God a penis is made for a vagina and not in isolation but the male person is made for the female person and the female person is made for the male person we go go together in such a way that we are designed to generate New Life hence genitals the entire of the church's teaching could be summarized marriage sex and babies go together end in that order why do we say that the natural reality is that sex leads to babies this is not something to try to x out as the modern world has done it's something to honor and reverence and and to sing God's Praises for because there's nothing as valuable as a human life when we keep fertility in the equation the sexual equation we understand readily that in order for sexual behavior to be responsible the only ones who should be engaging in sexual behavior are those who have committed themselves to raising the child that might result from the Union and that commitment to that responsible engagement in sexual intercourse which can result and often does and is meant to in a new life the commitment to raise that child is called marriage sexual intercourse has a marital meaning right so rather than speaking of premarital and post-marital sex I like to speak of marital and non-marital sex and I'll give you an example okay years ago Wendy and I my wife were we were teaching a marriage prep class and I this is like Sunday after a 3-day weekend into the marriage prep class so the the couples know at this point I love them and I'm not just here to beat them over the head so I can offer a challenge and I'll usually say um ladies if you're having sex with your fiance right now there's one thing you know about him he's willing to have sex with somebody he's not married to is that going to change once you get married uh guys if you're having sex with your fiance there's one thing you know about her she's willing to have sex with somebody he's not married to is is that going to change you have embraced a non-marital understanding of sex by engaging in non-marital sex it is impossible to have marital sex to have it express its true meaning if you are not married but marriage itself is no guarantee that what you will do Between the Sheets has a marital meaning and this is my example here this woman raised her hand she says come on Christopher we're getting married in three weeks what's the difference between us having sex now and us having sex then and I remember it was like one of those aha moments I was like exactly there will be no difference and that's the problem problem yes you're having nonmarital sex right now and you are going to bring that non-marital behavior with which you have trained yourself right into your marriage and there's no sudden magic trick on the wedding night that makes what you're doing marital you have been this is John Paul II's language you've been lying with the language of your body the body has a language inscribed chiseled by God right in the body that says I give myself to you freely I give myself to you totally I give myself to you faithfully and I give myself to you fruitfully if it is God's will let there be life that is the language of the body that is what sexual intercourse means when you let the body tell the full story well guess what a man and a woman commit to at the altar the priest asked them have you come here freely to give yourselves to one another wholeheartedly totally they say yes we have do you promise to be faithful all the days of your life yes we do do you promise to receive children lovingly from God yes we do the very commitment of marriage is then meant to be expressed bodily every time a husband and a wife become one flesh so I'll say to my audience I'll say um whether you're married or not you can answer these questions if you're not married yet maybe one day you hope to be married answer in light of that if you're consecrated celibate you also made vows answer in light of that and I'll say to my audience how many of you want to be faithful to to your wedding vows everybody's hand goes up and I say are you sure yeah even if it demands great sacrifice do you still want to be faithful yeah I mean this is what we want of course and then I say okay you have just accepted everything the Catholic Church teaches about sex and I didn't impose it on you you said you wanted it and you said you wanted it even if it demands great sacrifice and I assure you it will because this is what is at stake Fidelity to the wedding vows every time husband and wife become one flesh they are meant to be expressing and renewing their marital commitment I give myself to you freely totally Faithfully fruitfully they're meant to be renewing and expressing that commitment with the language of their bodies so I say to my groups or my audiences my students I'll say how healthy would a marriage be if a husband and a wife were regularly unfaithful to their wedding vows terrible uh how healthy would a marriage be if a husband and wife regularly renewed their wedding bows and every time they did they were more committed to them on that day than they were the day before that'd be great beautiful marriage how many people want that marriage yeah that's kind of marriage I want you've just accepted everything the Catholic Church teaches about sex because this is what is at stake Fidelity to the marital commitment sexual intercourse when we're just reading the language of the body that God has inscribed right in it has a merital meaning when we understand that everything the Catholic Church teaches about sex yeah clicks begins to make sense you can't you can't express a marital meaning if you're not married right getting married as I said is no guarantee that you will Express a marital meaning right but it's an absolute prere prerequisite okay right so non-marital sex versus marital sex or even let's be honest anti-ar sex marital sex is not something you can try that that leads us into this next one if you don't mind because I think that you'll probably have some things to say under this next question that would also go to the second one is this the cohabitation that's right so Co yeah cohabitation what's interesting is Jordan Peterson just spoke about this in one of his latest books Beyond order is it in that book yes I couldn't I couldn't pick it up for you right now but actually the whole video on this I've heard that priests have shared it with those who are preparing for marriage because he makes the point that you that I that Jason that others have been making forever that you don't try somebody out because this person isn't a bike not a car you don't take him for a test drive okay but let's see I mean I mean what you've just said about fornication kind of excludes cohabitation but let me kind of pose the argument all right I don't want want to get divorced and I therefore think it's makes the most sense to see if me and my husband or my wife are compatible therefore it makes the most sense that we should live together just to see if we are compatible if we are compatible then we can marry what's what's wrong with that yeah well let's look at the euphemisms here um cohabitation and living together these are euphemisms we're we're kind of skirting the issue right there is nothing H hear me rightly here there is nothing inherently wrong with a man and a woman who are not married living under the same roof right there's nothing inherently wrong it's not advisable there's nothing inherently wrong uh the problem with cohabitation it's not it's not that you're living under the same roof again we're we're we're skirting the issue what's happening is unmarried people are living as if they were married but they're pretending they're trying one another out or just to extend that or they're putting themselves in a near occasion of sin which is a serious sure right well I put I put that out there because I think what everything you're about to say will apply to those who are currently engaging in fornication but there will be some who say no I'm all on board with with with not having sex or marriage but we're doing this for financial reasons when really there's that's not advisable yeah it's not advisable but it's also not inherently wrong right uh but it's not advisable good point this is the point that I want to make if sex has a marital meaning and that and the meaning of marriage is I give myself to you totally you can't try that out it's kind of like a flip on a diving board like you got to commit yeah yeah if you half ass it boom you're going to hurt yourself right by the very nature of marriage it's not something you can try you either do it or you don't and what you are training yourself in by having sex with someone you're not married to you are training yourself to lie with the language of your body if you have a reserved Clause I can get out of this yeah you are not training yourself for the marriage commitment in other words living together which is really having sex when you're not married that's what we're talking about fornication this is not preparation for marriage this is preparation for divorce spell that out why is it preparation for divorce because you are training yourself in a not even not only if this gets hard all leave yes the very Act of sex when you're not married is I have an out so you are not giving yourself totally in a sexual act you are training yourself psychosomatically right psychologically and physically you are training yourself to lie you are lying with the language of your body and unless there is a major conversion of your understanding of what marriage is and what sex is you will bring that lying that you have trained yourself in right with you into the marriage and let me point this out uh by way of analogy we will often say you'll hear like in certain parishes or a pastoral practice oh they're living together um let's get them married to make that legitimate let me give you an analogy and we will see through this analogy how absolutely nonsensical that is let's Suppose there is a seminarian he longs to be a priest the analogy is an Engaged couple right they long to be married they're they want to get married they've shown they want to get married yeah the seminarian has shown he wants to become a priest suppose in order to train to be a priest he vested as a priest and he started saying the words of consecration over the bread and the wine to practice to try it out right it would be foolishness for a bishop to say oh my gosh that's a scandal we have this non-ordained man saying the words of consecration in a mock Eucharist let's bring him in here I'll ordain him right away to to to to you know make this legit whoa whoa whoa whoa by the very fact that he is mocking the Eucharist in the mass right so cuz here you're not referring to a seminarian who's in training and learning the words of the mass you're actually talking about someone who's mocking the mass moing the mass by pretending to say the mass when he has no authority to say the mass right this is a mockery of the Holy right it would be foolishness for the for the bishop to say let me ordain him right away uh to make this legit because that seminarian has demonstrated he does not understand what the priesthood is he does not understand what the Eucharist is because he's willing to mock it right a couple who is willfully and stubbornly and I make those distinctions because it's a different case when out of weakness people are falling into disordered Behavior but they regret it that's one thing but when you are stubbornly justifying yeah anti-ar sex yeah uh non-marital anti-ar sex and saying there's no problem here for that person to stand at the altar for that couple to stand at the altar and again God's good graces can cover a multitude of sins but what is needed is a call to conversion to recognize that sexual activity itself has an inherently marital meaning and simply going through the motions of a wedding ceremony when you've been having sex for a long time with this person and you've had sex with with multiple other people you have trained yourself in a non-marital understanding of sex which is really I get my pleasure out of this and you give it to me and I'll just end up marrying the person that I happen to be having sex with when I'm in my mid to late 20s cuz that's kind of expected as to what you do well you're bringing years and years with of of of training in the wrong direction into this marriage and John Paul II says in love and responsibility that the internal problem of every marriage is learning how to express sexual activity in such a way that it will have its true marital meaning a meaning that upholds and honors the true greatness and dignity of the person so that my sexual desire itself becomes this is my body given for you freely totally faith F and if it is God's will let there be new life that's excellent I'm thinking of an analogy here you know often when we help people see that abortion is this terrible crime against The Unborn the key question to get the person to answer is what are The Unborn right cuz if you know what The Unborn are you then know what you should and shouldn't be doing with them and same thing is true here I've got 10 questions for you once you understand what sex is and is for everything else makes sense but if you're try to make sense that of the church is teaching without realizing the kind of sacramental character of the sexual act you can see why people just don't get it don't get they don't get it and and hold this together marriage sex babies go together and in that order right that's what we recognize when we let the body as God designed it speak but the thing that unravels this equation marriage sex babies go together take the fertility out and the whole thing collapses view sex through condom colored glasses and the whole edifice collapses all right well let's let's get to that then this is the next question contraception what's the problem with it uh my understanding was it was at one point illegal in the United States thank God would would it be that we could get to that place again but this is something that non-catholics and Catholics they scratch their heads over yeah what does the Catholic Church teach about contraception and why should we agree with it yeah this is my favorite topic to talk about because if we get this in particular remember I just said remove fertility from that equation and the whole edifice collapses and I think it's really important this is what opened my eyes and and I'll I'll just tell a little my own history here when I came back to the church in the early 90s I was in my early 20s I saw the damage in my own life from premarital sex I saw it I felt it and I came to agree with the church's teaching there I just use the Expression premarital sex that I said earlier I don't like uh I came to embrace the church's teaching on fornication fornication is damaging to me and to everybody else that I've committed it with I was not sold on this contraception thing in fact I remember thinking well once I get married I should be able to have sex with my wife whenever I want without having to worry about 15 or 20 kids anybody recognize a little bit of selfishness in that assertion I should be able to sex with my wife whenever I want uh there's a selfishness but it's also mingled with a desire to have a responsible planning of your marriage isn't there uh not in the way I was approach maybe not in the way you were but I'm just want to give credit to those who are watching because there is this sense in which what I'm not going to bring like absolutely we will get there the church let's just dispel this right away the church is not saying in her teaching against contraception that we should just have as many children as come without yeah any heed or or responsibility here in fact John Paul II says in love and responsibility it may be a marital duty to avoid another pregnancy right it may be a duty so let's hold that sure and then we'll come we'll loop back around but you're AB absolutely right to to raise that issue but you had a selfish I had a self there was a selfishness in me absolutely yeah and I remember it was I think it was 1992 a friend of mine was coming into the Catholic church and I was a cradle Catholic I had left over the contraception issue actually in my teenage years I remember the first time I bought a box of condoms uh I was 17 and I remember putting that box of condoms on the counter at this drugstore I can picture the drug store I can almost picture the clerk and I can certainly remember the sentiment of taking that box of condoms off the shelf and bringing it up and the voice of conscience was kicking in what I it's not like I had some active relationship with the Lord at this point in my life but whatever thread was still there I knew I was cutting it and I put that box of condoms and I said I know I know I'm making a decision here against something and I said screw it I'm doing it anyway cut and that was when I severed my relationship with Christ and his church I know it was in that decision and I still have somewhere in my files a paper I wrote as a junior in high school trying to refute humanite oh wow which is the document that came out in 1968 reasserting always know about it in the west is because of you probably yeah who to th anyway I'm I'm making this long story longer um I should shorten it but that was the severing point 1992 a friend of mine comes into the Catholic church he stands up in front of everybody and he says I believe and profess everything the Catholic Church believes and professes and he was welcomed into communion and then he received communion I was like oh there's a oh when you receive communion you're saying I believe and profess everything the Catholic Church believes and you're saying I'm in communion with the church didn't go to communion that night because I realized I wasn't in communion with the church because of that blasted contraception teaching and I I realized either I need to come to terms with the Catholic teaching on contraception yeah or be honest I'm protesting this teaching so what does that make meh I'm a protest so I said okay I'm going to try to come to terms with this I sought out the priest at my Parish oh don't worry about it some future Pope's going to change the teaching just follow your own conscience shame on him I S out this married couple who had lots of kids and I figured out I figured they must be following the church's teaching they have lots of kids and they said Oh Our priest told us bill could get a vasectomy after number seven so that's what we did I said Can nobody tell me discovering John Paul II's Theology of the Body in 1993 scales come off my eyes because what he did was he gave me a sacramental worldview what does that mean it means physical creation is a sign of divine spiritual realities I'm just I don't mean to make your story any longer cuz you're trying to get through this but it's sort of like how a dog cannot perceive a sacramental reality correct if I point to my dog or if I point at something my dog is likely to come over to me and lick my finger right if I point that way you turn and look the finger is the sign right or Bishop Fulton Sheen he says a horse can hear a joke as well as a human being hears the sounds but only a human being will laugh yes the horse will not laugh words being a Sacrament exactly because words are a kind of Sacrament okay our bodies are a kind of Sacrament the two becoming one flesh marriage is not only a Sacrament John Paul II says marriage is the model and prototype in some way of all of the sacraments why because the goal of all of the sacraments is to unite Christ the bridegroom with the church his bride for what end so that the bride might conceive eternal life within her right our bodies are fertility tell that Divine story hence the expression Theology of the Body our bodies tell the story of God who is God as John Paul II says God is not an eternal Solitude God is an eternal family the father is eternally generating the son not in a sexual way God is Not sexual but in a Divine spiritual way God is eternally generating the Sun why to share with the son the love of the Holy Spirit it is in this image that we are made as male and female the two becoming one flesh the two become one but the two also become in the normal course of events three and we catch a trinitarian image here the two become one one God one Humanity the Two Become Three trinitarian one God three person we see an image of the Trinity God is Not sexual but our sexuality male and female he created them and he blessed them and he said be fertile this is a sacramental mystery that is meant to communicate bodily into this world the mystery hidden in God from all eternity and that mystery is the trinitarian exchange when we understand the sacramental Integrity of creation for sacraments to do what they're meant to do they have to properly the physical reality has to properly symbolize the spiritual mystery it's meant to communicate I shouldn't baptize you with tar boom or boom why sand or yeah because tar is a symbol of making dirty yeah right water is a symbol of cleansing in as much as the water is a physical symbol of cleansing it affects a spiritual cleansing this is the Integrity of the sacramental symbol of water to to do away with that water or to pour I don't know uh motor oil into the water yeah now you're now you're you're you're messing with the sacramental symbol it's now a symbol of making dirty fertility is integral to the sacramental symbol to render the sexual act sterile and that's the key line to render it when we take into our own hands the powers of life in other words we activate the generative power through our genitals but we also thwart it in the very activation of it that is called contraception to do something contrary to the possibility of this act to end in conception M right the church says in every instance to activate the generative power and thwart it is always wrong why because you are changing the sacramental symbol instead of saying what are you meant to be proclaiming with the language of your body you're meant to be proclaiming God is life-giving love what are you saying now with the language of your body when you render it sterile you're blaspheming it's still theological what you're saying but now it's Blasphemous theology because what you are saying is God is not lifegiving love God is sterile God is is is opposed to life no no no no no I have come so that you might have life and have it to the full really and truly the sexual act is meant to communicate the Divine mystery when we change the language of of the sexual act by sterilizing it we we are we are we are now saying Christ doesn't want the church to have life within her and this is Blasphemous theology John Paul II puts it this way he says the language of the body is prophetic what does that mean a prophet is one who's meant to proclaim the truth of God mhm and then he says ah yes but we have to be careful to distinguish between true and false prophets because if we can speak the truth with the language of our bodies we can also speak lies with the language of our bodies so to render the sexual act sterile is again let's go back to marital versus anti-ar sexual behavior MH to render the sexual ex sterile is anti-ar behavior yeah and this is why a contracept contraceptive Act of intercourse cannot consummate a marriage because it is not the marital act wow it is not the marital act it's right in canon law so it could technically be dissolved if in a contracep act if you can demonstrate we have never had a marital act a marital act that marriage can be dissolved not an olded I mean it could be an olded as well but it could be dissolved meaning there may happened there was a marriage there was a marriage but ratum non-c consummatum it was never consummated yeah and if it's never consummated it can be dissolved wow yeah now I just want to say we have a lot of Christian people who watch this show Catholics non-catholics if what we've said here today doesn't convince you fair enough but realize that it wasn't until 1930 that the church first broke away and said this is at the Lambeth conference that there that the contraception could be used in certain circumstances so think about that for a second how is it the case that for 1930 years Christianity had it wrong on this topic that alone should make you pause and do more research so if what we're saying today doesn't necessarily resonate with you that's okay but I think you owe it to yourself to look into this unless you want to say the church got it wrong for that many years and here's tragically why it sometimes doesn't resonate with our Protestant brothers and sisters and even certainly Catholics who I mean let's be honest 95% of Catholics are contracepting or something like that really God have mercy horrible horrible why because we no longer have a sacramental understanding of reality and and uh I I say this delicately and with sensitivity but it's true the very Act of the Reformation Luther was separating himself from the body of Christ and the Very Act of I can go start my own church was an act of spiritualizing the body of Christ you mean sterilizing I mean spiritualizing meaning I'm cut off from the physicality of it I'm cut off from the institutional the concrete this world reality of it it's it's an act of dualism you know what's funny just to pause on this for a moment who the hell wouldn't want to do that it's so messy it's so filled with bumbling idiots like me and others you know you can see the Temptation I'm going to sep myself off from the body right gosh that's a very amazing analogy because seek to do that in our spiritual life as well exact we hate our passions we hate our erections our sweats our aging we hate all of it we would like to be pure Spirit we would we excarnation versus Incarnation I like that seeing the Protestant Revolution and even reform I like to call it the revolution it was didn't reform anything well that's true uh I like to think of the of of and also the Catholics on the on the far right who are breaking communion with Rome are doing the same thing right uh in in uh in cutting themselves yes I remember years ago somebody came to one of my talks and he wrote me an angry letter or an email I forget and he said how dare you insinuate that whether I ejaculate in a condom or in my wife's vagina has anything to do with my spiritual love for my wife it does not matter where I put my seen he said that has no bearing on my spiritual love I'd love to see when you're dead I'd like you to post unnamed letters that you've received think is cuz they must be just hilarious there some good ones and I wrote back to him and I said um May I point out that where you put your seamen has everything to do with whether or not you love your wife because I assure you if you put your seamen in your nextd door neighbor's body your wife would say that's a contradiction of your love for me right we have to return to the and you put your finger on a at the physicality of our spirituality oo nice right have you used that before that's a good that's a good one the physicality of our spirituality unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you absolutely body fluids have everything to do with it here unless you eat my flesh drink my blood you have no life in you you see that the the cop out of spiritualizing that if I spiritualize that if I spir the the Incarnation of the spirit the the the the physicality of our faith the sensuality of it the spiritual through the physical contraception becomes Unthinkable because what you are saying when you render your genitals unable to generate is Christ is sterile yeah no he is not no he is not no he is not he came so that his bride might have life and have it to the full and the sexual act is meant to be a physical participation in that spiritual mystery and when you change the physicality of the fertility you render it sterile you're saying something Blasphemous that's that's that's what opened my eyes yeah and that's when I I knew I was full in because as you said it it was the Catholic Church's teaching on contraception that made me leave when I was a teenager and it was the Catholic Church is teaching on contraception that brought me back because I realized the Catholic church is the only church standing de Lord on this issue and so this has to be the church that Christ promised the holy spirit will lead you into all truth in season and out of season I remember reading Carol VT was love and responsibility after I'd become a Catholic and thought to myself even if I had no good reason to think God existed I would become a Catholic because of how true this is and nobody else is saying it all right so this leads us to another uh question I think some of these answers will be shorter than others this one might be one of them this leads us to vasectomies and having our tubes tied okay so this has to do with contraception so you've said a lot already but what's the problem of getting a vasectomy or getting one's tubes tied um and then is one bound to reverse those procedures had them great question so let's look at the purpose of medicine and medical technology right so the purpose of medicine and technology is to help the human organism to function as it's meant to function right if someone is deaf and medicine and medical technology can give that person hearing praise God ears are me for hearing right eyes are meant for seeing lungs are meant for breathing genitals are meant for generating right if on the other hand we used medical technology to render someone deaf now we are acting in the exact opposite direction right the pill or a tubal liation or a a a condom or a vasectomy we are using a device we're using a medical intervention with the specific goal to render a healthy functioning part of the body unable to function so this is contrary to the health of the organism to take a pill or to have a surgical operation to to render yourself sterile we are now acting against exactly against the healthy functioning of the body so suppose I've had a vasectomy and I come to my senses and I realize oh my gosh I've mutilated my body so I've not only engaged in the Sin of contraception I've also engaged in the Sin of bodily mutilation I like to help people understand what mutilation means by mutilation I mean the destroying of one of the functions of that you know body part and that's why to pierce youra is not to mutilate yourself right uh to pierce youra drum is yes yeah so I like so that's why I think you really can't say it's not a mutilation it is yes if we're going to use language correctly tubal liation visectomy are bodily mutilations let's go with an analogy suppose I just say I don't like my arm I hate my arm I'm going to chop it off it's a bodily mutilation right I am missing an arm there is a moral evil which is the sin of bodily mutil mutilation and there is a physical evil because now I'm missing my arm right I may have to live unless I can reattach my arm I come to my senses I Repent of the sin of bodily mutilation mutil mutilation I go to confession I confess I do my Penance as far as the East is from the West so now is the moral evil from me but the physical evil remains maybe my arm was put on ice and I can restore it if I can I should right let's do the analogy vasectomy or tubal liation I come to my senses not only have I committed the sin of contraception I've committed the sin of bodily mutilation I find a Confessor please find a Confessor who believes what the church teaches God have mercy and I do my Penance part of my Penance might be and could be and even should be if I have the means and I'm not a high-risk medical patient to reverse it it's not absolutely obligatory because I might not have the means if you don't have the means contact me and I will find a donor to get the means for you to have a reverse wow can we put an some sort of email below yes uh info institute.org thank you wow okay I will find a donor to make it happen so that's removed I will I I I have committed that to people and people have taken me up on it and I have always found donors and have said name your next Kid Christopher I have actually had people come up to me and said I named my kid after you that that that's beautiful yeah powerful anyway um here's another analogy suppose I I throw baseball through my neighbor's window and I say oh I'm sorry but I don't repair his window yeah I should repair his window right if you can sure if I can but what if it's a million dooll stained glass window and I don't have the means okay Mo's lawn for a year do something to show your sincere repentance the point you might not have the means you might be a high-risk medical patient you shouldn't go under the Sur to have the surgery there could there could be reasons not not to have the reversal but if it is at all possible do so to restore your own integrity and I've even told men whose wives have died and they're not sexually active with anybody but they had a a vasectomy years ago get a reversal to restore your own integrity and I have men I've had men write to me and say I feel like a man again you you've costed yourself such a terrible thing you have you have neutered yourself yeah yeah all right Matt I want to just I sure sure I just want to say a note not a note I want to speak in to our our merciful god here none of this none of this is said to wag fingers or scold or shame anybody this is said to turn the lights on so we can turn to our God who is rich in Mercy and the Latin here I love Misericordia is Latin for mercy and it means a heart Miser core core means Heart Right Miser Corea a heart that gives itself to those in misery when we buy into this whole contraceptive culture and we neuter ourselves we are robbing ourselves of our sexual identity and we're in misery when we do this look at the world in which we live all of this rotten fruit right uh anybody wants to look at the contraception issue judge the tree by its fruit and all of the chaos we are involved in today the breakdown of culture um fornication uh abortion homosexuality gender confusion all of this was predicted not just by Catholics not just by Christians the chaos we are immersed in today the sexual and gender chaos was predicted in 1930 when the Anglican Church was the first Christian denomination to accept contraception it was all this stuff by wise men and women who understood the power of fertility to orient or remove it and disorient civilization at its very Fountain Head At Its very core right change it here and you're going to have bad fruit man if you love the way the culture has gone over the last 50 60 70 80 00 years you have contraception to thank for it if you're like how did we get in this mess well take a look again at contraception we are in misery because we took upon ourselves we took it upon ourselves to be like God to think we knew better than God to think we could redefine reality and render our genitals unable to generate without consequence yeah our God is rich in Mercy and in this misery he comes to us not to shame us not to scold us not to condemn us he comes to us in our misery to call us into the full glorious splendorous truth of what it means yeah to be a human being made male and female in the image of God yeah good thank you it's a call to Greatness let's talk about uh what what question are we up to now 1 2 3 4 5 6 I wanted to ask you about pornography yes what does the church teach about pornography and why should we agree with it let me start with this the problem with pornography is not that it shows naked bodies the ctin chapel shows naked bodies the problem with pornography is the manner in which it shows the naked body and it shows the naked body with the explicit in intention to arouse in the viewer the desire to use these images of other real human beings to use those human beings as objects for our selfish pleasure right if we really want to understand what's wrong with pornography we have to go back to the question I answered I think it was the initial question in this episode about masturbation uh let's just cut to the chase pornography exists to be sexual fantasy fod for masturbation mhm that's why it exists it's the complete inversion of the sexual desire it's all about pleasing myself right and I am now using other people as a means to my own selfish gratification I am not learning to love I am not learning to be a gift right again there's nothing wrong with the naked human body God looked at everything he made and in the beginning they were naked without shame and he said behold it is very good but when Our intention in viewing the naked body is to arouse in myself this inversion of the sexual urge to gratify myself yeah now I am acting contrary to my own dignity and certainly to the Dignity of these people pictured in pornography put it this way there's a difference between looking at the naked human body and seeing yeah the naked human body yeah I've asked hundreds of thousands of women this question I say ladies you know instinctively intuitively there's a difference between seeing and looking please raise your hand if you prefer to be looked at by a man oh that's good yeah never has a hand gone up hundreds of thousands of women over all these years when I've asked that never has a hand gone on ladies raise your hand if you prefer to be seen every hand goes up so what's the difference looking is Skin Deep seeing you're penetrating into the inner mystery of the person M pornography trains us to look it does not train us to see right if we saw pornography we'd cry boom you would weep you would you would be in convulsions of pain yeah because you would see the Dignity of this person being treated as a thing to be used for people's masturbatory fantasies it would make it would crush you and and again this is not to Pat myself on the on the back but this is to Proclaim what Grace can do in a life 23 years ago maybe I was giving a talk at a secular University and I went into the men's bathroom to use the bathroom and plastered on the wall in the stall were pornographic images very graphic MH at that stage of my life I had probably been 8 10 years into my journey of conversion here opening up all of my lusts to the Holy Spirit to be untwisted to see more rightly I hadn't seen images like that since I was a teenager and I was probably 30 at this point and uh I remember like this there was like a sword in in my heart it was not like oh I get a free Peak nobody's going to know it was it was a wound an immediate wound and and I I I I I I did I had like an interior experience of De deep mourning and sadness because these are my sisters and they don't know who they are and I can remember the face still to this day of of one of these women in the stall and from time to time when her face kind of shows up in my memory I pray for this woman who's a real person and God knows if she's still walking this Earth but probably she is and I just want to say to you right now wherever you are who whoever you are I'm sending you love girl I am sending you love you are a person made in the image and likeness of God and you are never ever ever meant to be looked upon as a thing for my pleasure or anybody else's yeah that's beautiful I mean there's so much we could say about this but just real quick what I would say is you know the it's kind of proof that sex ought to be so good that it can be made so bad cuz you can't make moderately bad things really really wicked I think it was CS Lewis who said you can make Angel Wicked but you can't make a cow Wicked oh oh you know yes and it's like just by the very fact that we can make sex so degraded shows us what it ought to be what it yes it points Us in an inverse manner to the heights that it can reach or if the body wasn't so good you you couldn't really degrade it in the sense that we talk about it you don't talk about degrading paper clips and washing machines yes a amen you do talk about degrading the person okay why because they're made in the image and likeness of God they express something that a paperclip doesn't I would put it this way if you want to know what is most holy what is most sacred what is most beautiful in this world all you have to do is look to that which is most profaned and degraded but in order to do that don't you have to have some knowledge of what's sacred to begin with otherwise you would just say well I don't think it's profane I don't I don't exactly and this is why John Paul II's entire Theology of the Body begins with Christ's words that point us back to the beginning yeah to understand how beautiful and holy and sacred it was when they were naked and felt no shame yeah if that's not our starting point the sacredness the dignity the goodness the Holiness the Theology of the Body if that's not our starting point then we have no concept of what it means to sin uh put it this way if sin means to miss the mark As Thomas PO said we have to know what the Mark is to know if you're missing it and that's why we have to go back to the original blueprint start there only in that context do we know what sin is and this is why I I I man I don't like it when the gospel is summarized as follows you're a sinner and you need a savior I hate that Declaration of the Gospel cuz the starting point is sin is it true that you're a sinner and I'm a sinner and we need a a savior absolutely it's true but I don't even know what sin is unless I go back to the original goodness from which I have fallen I see which is why the Declaration of the Gospel shouldn't begin with sin the Declaration of the Gospel which is called Good News should begin with the good news of our original creation yeah so it should be something like you have fallen from the greatness you ought to have and God wishes to restore that amen all right let's look at uh number seven seventh question here having to do with women's ordinations why is it that women cannot be ordained priests isn't that rather sexist haven't we really moved on from that especially when you consider the fact that women are usually way better at many of the things that priests are called to do uh you know they tend to be more pastoral perhaps I know this might be a bit of a stereotype but at least some might maybe with organization secretarial work attention to detail you know some yeah so why not have women priests yeah well let's look at the natural purpose of the sexual difference and there's a basic principle here that Supernatural realities which is what priesthood is a supernatural reality Supernatural realities are based on natural realities another way to put it Grace perfects nature right so what is the natural purpose of the sexual difference in all this talk about equality between the Sexes equality yes equal in dignity absolutely but equality does not mean interchangeability right what is the natural basic purpose of the sexual difference the generation of children right this is the natural purpose of the sexual difference it is wrong to say a man can do anything a woman can do no no a man will never be a mother it is wrong to say a woman can do anything a man can do stand up comedy for [Music] example you are getting yourself in trouble here Matt I not wrong stand up comedy am I right Matthew all right what else I do not I did not say this I do not endorse this statement what say voice now all right so the she can't the woman can't a woman will never never be a father right never this is where the sexual difference matters and unless priesthood has something to do with that essential difference unless it does it would be uh unjust discrimination right we use this word discrimination um let's say indiscriminately without discrimination what discrimination is not a bad thing we discriminate all the time and we must discriminate means this is not that right this is water it's not a beer I've discriminated because there's a difference it's an unjust discrimination when the difference is meaningless like brown hair and red hair something like that yeah uh let me give you an unjust discrimination of the sexual difference women should not be allowed to vote is there something inherent in femininity that that says women do not have the capacity to vote that would be an unjust discrimination here's a just discrimination of the sexual difference women should not enter the men's locker room at the local Health Club why why is that a just discrimination because here the sexual difference matters because in the locker room people are going to be naked and in the nakedness men need their own privacy and women need their own privacy because of the world we live in and we're not naked without shame anymore the sight of a naked body CA all causes all kinds of stirrings that are not appropriate to be following in a locker room that's right yeah it's a just discrimination another example um it would be an unjust discrimination to say blind people should not uh enter a men's locker room if they're men yeah that's unjust true but it is a just discrimination for the state to say blind people will not be issued driver's licenses we are discriminating in a just way right so this labeling of that's discrimination against women the question is they can't be priests that's discrimination is it just or is it unjust we have to know what priesthood is to know if it's just or unjust discrimination so what is priesthood it is not a career choice right women will bring their Womanhood into all they do just as men will bring their manhood into all they do right mhm but there's nothing inherently in being a an attorney or a doctor or an astronaut that we should across the board say women can't do that women I think are right to wave a flag and say hey I can be an astronaut I'll be a woman astronaut and there will be issues that need to be looked at that are different but I can be an astronut or I can be president or I can be a doctor I can be a lawyer right so women are right to wave that flag but women are not right to say I can be a father I can be a father uh no you can't priesthood is spiritual fatherhood and in order to be capable of being a father in the spirit you must be capable of being a father in the flesh the church takes this very seriously in fact it's right in canon law that a man has to have his genitals to be ordained a priest M there it is in canon law you have to have what it takes to be a father have you gone back and look this up I'm sure you've said that in at times you're like is that still true it's what well there can be what I've been told by a Canon lawyer it's in canon law but one can be granted a dispensation in certain circumstances okay but it's true it's right there in canon law yeah you have to have what it takes to generate as a father to be ordained a priest and this goes back to the Old Testament and remember we're talking here about a sacramental understanding of the world in the Old Testament the Lambs that were sacrificed all of these Lambs are a foreshadowing of the Lamb of God who takes Away The Sins Of The World the lamb had to be a male and he had to have his male member and his testicles intact I don't remember reading that I believe it's right in the Old Testament you can look it up it's there what is the saying there's something inherent to masculinity that is Priestly it is the offering of the spiritual seed that makes one a spiritual father and where do men train to be priests seminary in the Seminary and we're not making this up that there's a connection what is the man training to do in the Seminary he's training to give the spiritual seed that will make him a spiritual father the male body is the sacrament of that Priestly fatherly offering for a woman to attempt to confer the Eucharist the relationship is now bride to bride the congregation is the bride the priest is the bridegroom for a woman to attempt to confer Eucharist it's now bride to bride and there's no possibility of a holy communion and there's no possibility of New Life y but notice in a world where we think two women can get married we also think a woman can be ordained a priest right both confusions come from the same cloth which has confused sexual equality with samess or interchangeability equal in dignity but it does not mean sameness there's a difference that is necessary for communion and life-giving on the natural level and on the supernatural level very good I just looked up discrimination the current definition of it is unjust you know it bakes that right into the definition but the emology means distinguish from something else or from each other you know boom we make distinctions all the time yeah so we should so when somebody says isn't it discriminatory to say that women can't be priests the answer is of course yes but it's just it's good [Music] and I think it was I would like you know you ever watch you ever read Babylon B yeah occasion I have this idea and I want them to take it and run with it cuz I think it's a great joke I want to see a photo of men outside of a Convent let us in let us in and why why since you bring that up why why do we it is as foolish I'm going to start a campaign men for pregnant men right and I'm I'm going to I'm going to comb the world for signatures and I'm going to put this petition to the Pope and I'm going to demand that the pope let me get pregnant and what is the pope going to say I cannot change the order God has established yeah also here has a number of a good therapist but yeah women who want to be priests that's the same confusion they want to be fathers you can't be a father when you are a woman this is where the sexual difference matters but again if we're viewing all of this through condom colored glasses guess what disappears the fundamental meaning of the sexual when you say condom colored glasses I imagine the glasses removed and two condoms that Dro down past my ey that's what I'm seeing Thursday do some kind of mockup of of condom condom color I wonder what AI would have to say about that all right we have three more we can all right let's do it we can do this okay um homosexuality what's the problem with homosexuality well if we're following the train of thought that we've laid out so far it should be rather obvious but let's let's just enter in a little bit I had a professor who once put it this way and this is a uh he was known for having a rather salty tongue um this is not table talk but sometimes we need to be hit kind of squarely between the eyes and this is not said in any way to shame scold condemn anybody it's said to turn the lights on yeah but this is what he said as soon as you sever orgasm from procreation any orifice will do mhm this is this is the situation we have come to embrace contraception excuse me we have come to embrace homosexuality because we've come to embrace contraception contraception man you don't realize just how evil it is it is diabolical it is it results in widespread pornography it is the biggest snow job next to Original Sin it is the biggest snow job in history do you find yourself angry when you go to the store and see it I've I find myself not just angry I found my myself repulsed yeah like I this sacrilege if you understand the sacramentality of the two becoming one flesh that this is a great Sacrament a great mystery as St Paul says of Christ's Union with the church contracep is a sa say sacrilege what you're doing sexually is either going to be and there's no middle ground it's either going to be sacramental or sacriligious yeah it's one or the other and let me give you a just going to say a visual but not in that sense here's my visual when we understand what a man and a woman can do with their genitals and are designed by God to do with their genitals in other words generate new life we know it is absolutely impossible to raise what two men are doing with their genitals or two women to that level biologically ontologically impossible however it is not impossible to lower what a man and a woman are doing with their genitals to the same level as what two men or two women are doing with their genitals which is what pursuing sterile pleasure with contraception we have lowered what a man and a woman are doing to the pursuit of sterile pleasure mhm so when we view sexual activity and marriage itself through condom colored glasses the culture is right through those condom colored glasses to say marriage equality yeah or love is love all of a sudden it seems like unjust discrimination exactly but take those condom colored glasses off and let the sexual difference speak the language that God has inscribed it with and boom you see the purpose and meaning of the sexual difference right what two men are doing with their genitals or two women are doing with their genitals is not the same unless we've contracept the union of what a man and a woman are doing and this is fascinating you brought up the Anglican Church was the first to change the teaching on contraception 70 years later in the year 2000 Archbishop Rowan Williams head of the at the time head of the Anglican Church said and this is close to memory as I can get almost a direct quote but this is definitely the sentiment of what he said he said a church that justifies contraception has no basis not to justify homosexual activity but rather than questioning huh should we have Justified contraception did he do yeah he was logically consistent taking contraception as a starting point and he justified homosexual activity yeah with condom colored glasses the whole purpose of the sexual difference eventually evaporates y this is the world we live in right now none of this is said to shame anybody scold anybody condemn anybody it said to turn the lights on so we can see the darkness in which we've been immersed and have a way out of it and this is our God he he does not come to to scold us he comes to save us we got to let him save us Thursday can we put those two episodes I've done with these two very beautiful people as a man and a woman on same seex attraction and lifestyle so if you're out there watching this and maybe you feel condemned by this I hope you don't but maybe hearing it from a man who's lived the homosexual life and a woman who has and then chose to repent of that might be helpful to you so the links will be in the description below to that all right two more yes um what's the problem with IVF then because it sounds like you're saying okay the problem with contraception let's just Define IVF for people who may not know what in vitro fertilization yeah right they might not know IVF sure sure sure I'm sorry yeah because it sounds like the you know I can see someone saying oh the Catholics are super into babies right and so that's why they're against contraception you have contraception then babies don't result so okay what's the problem with IVF then I mean you got a couple they love each other they want a baby they're going to be good parents and now you're saying now we got this technological advancement right it's apparently doing to quote you of course I'm playing Devil's Advocate to quote you that um you know medicine should seek to Aid the body well there's a deficiency here they want to bring a baby in lovingly and now you're telling them they can't it just sounds like the Catholic church is against all medical progress only that which substitutes the sexual act for the origin of the life is the church opposed to if medicine and Technology can Aid the marital act in achieving its natural end there's nothing wrong with that at all Viagra Viagra um ovulation pills y uh you can even have a certain um put a woman on a certain diet that will improve the lubrication that allows the sperm to get to the egg there are all number of things that can be done to Aid the marital act in achieving its natural end but if we replace the marital act itself as the means by which the child is conceived now we have the flip side of contraception I'll explain that in a moment but I want to just say this notice how beautifully logically and rightly consistent the church is in her teaching and the teaching is this sex and babies go together right if you want to frame for understanding the whole thing marriage sex babies go together and in that order contraception says I want the sex without the babies conceiving a child in a test tube says I want the babies without the sex it's the flip side of contraception and tragically we end up reducing that person conceived in the petri dish mhm to a product we've paid for rather than receiving that child lovingly from God through the marital act and not to mention what we do to the poor woman who we just asked to be the incubator if if that's the route that the couple goes yes yes isn't that the only route no no no the child can be implanted in in the actual biological mother oh sure sure sure I'm immediately thinking of homosexuals using I that's a good point Y yes yes so the the point here and I think anybody and everybody can recognize this the desire for a child is beautiful but that does not justify any means to get a child we don't have a right to a child we don't what a married couple has a right to is the marital act yeah they do not have a right to demand a child from the hand of God anybody can recognize the desire for child is beautiful but that does not justify you kidnapping somebody else's child the end does not justify the means even kidnapping a child from a Suba family let's say right right and the purpose here is not to draw a parallel between IVF and kidnapping sure but just to demonstrate we can all recognize there are means to acquiring a child that are not justified by the end right and then we're saying this is one of them and we're saying this is the church's invitation Ponder this to separate babies from sex is the flip side of separating sex from babies it grows naturally out of a contraceptive mentality and this is fascinating historically do you know the birth date of the first child conceived by inv vitro no is it something to do with the humanite July 25th 1978 the 10th anniversary of human Vite was the birthday wow of the first child conceived by invitro fertilization if that's not a heaven just going hello hello there's a connection here with contraception uh what what the church is opposed to is any medicine and technology that replaces the sexual act as the means by which the child is conceived God designed every child put it this way if we're going to be talking about rights here the rights we have to consider are especially the rights of the child and every child this is the church's teaching every human being has the right to be conceived through the loving marital Embrace of his or her parents we know children can be conceived by all kinds of other acts act s an act of rape an act of fornication an act of adultery an unloving act by people who are married MH inv vitro fertilization are these children loved by God absolutely are they desired by godh absolutely they would not exist if God did not desire them to exist but the fact that that child was not conceived by The Loving marital Embrace of his parents will always remain an injustice to that child so again if we're to consider rights here we must consider the right of the child first the parents have a right to the marital act they do not have a right to replace the marital act with something else to demand a child from the hand of God all right thank you we've come to our 10th and final question and what's funny about this is I said these would be 10 questions about sex but in a way this final question is a question about not sex namely celibacy yes so to to cue that up I guess the first question is is there even a difference between abstinence and celibacy and what does the church invite men and women to yes you know what does Christ invite men and women to when he invites them to right Christ calls Christ himself we can't just yeah toss the scripture aside Christ himself calls some to remain celibate and the next line is critical for the kingdom for the sake of the kingdom of God and here's an old joke of mine I don't even remember where I heard it but it is celibacy for God's sake not celibacy for God's sake it is celibacy to devote myself entirely to the kingdom well what's the kingdom the Bible begins with the marriage of man and woman it ends with the marriage of Christ and the church the whole purpose of this marriage is to be an Earthly sign that points me to this marriage why does Christ say in the resurrection men are women men and women are no longer given in marriage because you no longer need a sign to point you to heaven when you're there right marriage is the primordial Sacrament John Paul the second says the original the fundamental sign in the created order that gives me a hint a clue as to where this all goes I am destined for what scripture calls the marriage of the Lamb the wise virgins and here we have to distinguish the wise virgins from The unwise Virgins right the wise virgins are the ones who have oil for their lamps and that means their hearts are lit on fire with what the Saints call a Divine Aeros that is aimed to those Eternal aimed at those Eternal nuptuals put it this way the witness of the wise virgins is that that Eternal Marriage is is real and it is worth selling everything yeah to possess when we understand that we understand that celibacy for the kingdom is not a denial or a rejection of sexuality it is actually a living out of the ultimate purpose and meaning of sexuality so in this understanding of the wise and the foolish virgins the oil represents what Aeros and just sum that up for us quickly AOS is a Greek word we get the English word erotic but in English that word erotic has been really pornified yeah we have to reclaim the meaning and John Paul II says Aeros properly understood is the upward impulse of the human Spirit towards all that is true good and beautiful okay St Francis tale says Aeros is the passion within us that strives with all of our body and soul I read that in your new book I was shocked that he said that for divinization beautiful this is really powerful right because that oil that you're referring to has to exist in marriage Earthly marriage as well and so it's it's yeah we both we could speak of the wise married couples or the unwise married couples do you have oil for your lamp yeah right and if you don't have oil for your lamp you're going to be using one another in the sexual act this is not going to be the marital act it's going to be just a man and a woman using each other under the guise of well it's okay we're married and no no no no it's only okay if you are really learning to be a gift right and that's a lifelong journey you and I uh recently finished filming a whole series on love and responsibility where we go into great detail on on what that means um so we'll leave that for that but the point I want to make here you asked what's the difference between celibacy as a vocation and abstinence right is it was that your question yeah yeah and it reminded me that we didn't address an issue previously when we were talking about contraception which is why does the church allow natural Family Planning mhm right what's the difference the the church allows periodic abstinence right and with natural Family Planning what happens or some people today call it fertility awareness I guess I'm old school here I've been doing this a long time whether you call it fertility awareness or natural Family Planning doesn't matter but a couple can come to understand the natural cycles of a woman's fertility mhm and with modern methods of understanding this you can know with 99.9 something per accuracy when a woman is fertile and when a woman is infertile armed with that knowledge suppose you know it's the fertile time and suppose you have a serious reason maybe even a duty yeah to avoid a pregnancy the only loving thing to do is to avoid that behavior that leads to a child in other words abstain MH abstain from the act that leads to a child the only form of birth control in keeping with human dignity is self-control right uh you and I once joked you know why why do you spay or neuter your dogs and cats why not just ask them to abstain right well they can't abstain well we can unless we reduce ourselves to the level of animals if you take an honest look at contraception that's what we're reducing ourselves to we're reducing ourselves to the level of animals who can't control themselves we are called to freedom and freedom means I can say yes or I can say no if I can't say no my yes is emptied of its meaning so the call here is to self-mastery so you're fertile tonight we have a maybe even a duty to avoid a child freely I choose to abstain in honor of the way God made the whole beautiful mystery of human sexuality suppose it's um an infertile time in the cycle does the couple have to abstain they don't have to they don't have to there may be still a good reason to but you don't have to and and this is my point abstinence itself can be a profound Act of Love yeah really every married couple knows this yeah right uh there are many occasions in married life where you might want to renew your wedding vows through intercourse but love demands you abstain sure right maybe one of you is sick yeah uh maybe you're at the in-laws and there are thin walls yeah maybe your wife is fertile and you have a good reason not to have a child these are good reasons to abstain love demands abstinence in these situations okay but then there's the occasion where you're not fertile uh is there any reason to abstain I don't know is one of you sick are you at the In-laws in their thin walls are you in a public place if not all systems go praise God rejoice and then people will say wait a minute what is the difference between sterilizing the ACT yourself and just waiting till it's naturally infertile both couples avoid children the end results the same thing and you've heard me say this before you know okay what's the big difference between killing grandma and just waiting till she dies naturally the end result is the same thing dead Grandma ah yes but one is a serious sin called Murder whereas in the other situation Grandma's dead but there's no sin involved whatsoever because her death is an act of God and I always invite people think on this think on this think on this if you can understand the difference between youth in Asia and natural death you can understand the difference between contraception and natural Family Planning give people one final kind of push because we're talking about celibacy those who might be questioning their vocation who might be have made a commitment to celibacy or there might be seminarians watching who wonder whether this really is something they should try to embrace yeah inevitably there are people out there right now who are facing this question how am I called and this is the question of vocation not am I called to make a gift of myself that's the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being says jp2 to learn how to love as God loves to make a gift of myself there are two fundamental ways of committing your whole life to being a gift marriage or celibacy for the kingdom either way we are called to live out that bodily gift of myself virginity is a bodily gift celibacy is a bodily gift Angels cannot be cits they have no bodies it takes a body to make that kind of gift so if you are called to become that gift a celibate gift God will give you the grace to live that if you are called to make a marital gift God will give you the grace to live that and that this is the point both are vocations that demand Grace we sometimes erroneously think well marriage is easier cuz you don't have to refrain from sex your whole life jp2 sugges in love and responsibility that in fact marriage is a harder vocation because you have to learn how to engage in sex rightly yeah and that is a serious call to Virtue I was just thinking that a man who lives amidst a adulterous and fornicating people uh may come to believe that marriage is unnatural because he looks around him and everybody else is screw and everybody else you know but it's not and in a similar way like the celibate man may come to believe that it's just unnatural because he's surrounded by unas men and women as well so yeah I can summarize that whole perspective of the culture I mean the culture looks at the secular culture the culture of the sexual Revolution looks at married people first and says well you're crazy enough you you know Christian marriage you limit your only chance to get some to one person for your whole life okay that's crazy enough but then you have these other freaks who give up any legitimate chance to get any and they condemn themselves to a life of hopeless [Music] repression that is what jp2 calls a disintegrated non-personalised view of sexuality we've reduced sexuality to the level of animals that's what he means non-personalised yeah and we think it's just an instinct that you can't control and from that perspective it is silly to limit it to one person don't you want to sew your Wild Oats with all kinds of people why limit it to one person that's crazy enough and then these people over here they give it up all together that's just Insanity yeah but if we have this this is a word John Paul II uses a sublimated Vision which means a vision that is made Sublime upturned right turned towards these infinite realities turned towards these Divine realities well then this begins to make sense and maybe we'll close with this story I'll never forget here in the story uh I heard a a carlite nun tell the story and she was giving a presentation at a secular University about carlite spirituality and she was claiming that she knew knew much like Teresa vava knew this Divine ecstasy in her prayer life and and the statue um of Teresa and ecstasy is is famous Bernini statue right it's it's one of the most beautiful works of sacred art in the entire tradition of sacred art and it's in a church outside Rome Teresa in absolute ecstasy in Union with God and stammering to put a language to that experience of her prayer life she said it's it's nuptial Union with love Eternal so in that tradition this carlite nun was trying to explain this to a rather secular audience and this psychologist came up to her after her talk and said you are sick what you really want is sex but you're disguising your desire for sex with all this ridiculous talk about Union with God and she responded very clearly and firmly she said oh no no no no I beg to differ what the world really wants is Union with God but it's disguising that desire with all this ridiculous promiscuous sex preach sister who was right yeah the non 1,000% thank you so much Christopher um tell people about your wonderful podcast and and your website yeah my wife and I do a podcast called the ask Christopher West show hosted by Wendy West we've done something like 270 episodes or something and we usually answer three questions so do the math on that we've answered hundreds of questions and it's really enabled us it's it's a beautiful thing we have a a global community of listeners we've had millions of downloads it's it's probably the most popular thing I've ever done and and there's a sense of of community because we're addressing people's real needs and real questions in real time beautiful thing uh you can listen to that wherever you listen to podcasts and then we have the to Institute YouTube channel and I've done a whole series of videos uh 70 or so videos on my book good news about sex and marriage which is a Q&A book there's 150 questions in that book all that all these that we've addressed and 140 others and uh yeah check out our YouTube channel we have hundreds of videos there uh and check out our our course schedule go to theology thebody.com look at our course schedule we offer online courses and in-person courses in a 5-day format people can go the whole way to get a master's degree we have a relationship with ponix University we offer a masters in Theology of the Body and the new evangelization we also have a certification program which is shorter but most people we've had thousands of people from around the world take our courses just for personal enrichment and it's a great way to go deeper into this incredible gift that John Paul II has given us you've taken a course share your experience of course it was like why you why you laughing Thursday this is where we removed him from the room uh it's like uh to be fair we have been working a lot today poor Thursday's going crazy next door um it was beautiful it was like drinking from a fire hydrant and it was a very beautiful communal Journey with other folks and my wife yeah your wife been to two or I think she went to one but she she brought her friend with her who's a lovely Protestant woman and both got a tremendous amount out of it soise God I mean I know that things can be done online these days and that there's benefit to that but there's much more benefit to doing it in absolutely if you can do it in person in that 5day format highly recommend it all right thank you you're welcome Matt thanks Thursday you're welcome I love you

Channel: Pints With Aquinas

Views: 72,011

Keywords: aquinas, catholicism, catholic, pints with aquinas, matt fradd, theology, debate, religion, st. thomas aquinas, thomas aquinas, philosophy, women's rights, woke, feminism, feminist, pro-choice, pro-life

Id: FEyKY0myS9M

Length: 105min 47sec (6347 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2023