One Flesh - Let Not Man, Nor Copper, Nor Latex, Nor Drugs Divide

I say this a lot, but I really can't say it enough:  I thank God that I've lived to see these days!  He has raised us up a new generation of the faithful, well-formed and bold as lions.  They've had enough of our wishy-wash, and they're not going to take it anymore.

The problem with truth is that it's seldom popular.  How much are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of being on the right side?  Your job?  Your friends?  Your liberty?  Your family?  Your life?  What's your threshold?  Christianity is not easy.  Jesus ain't for wussies.  Standing by Him, or standing by His Vicar, the Pope, or His Church will cost you.

That, and the fear of scism - yet another split in the Church - has kept priests and bishops fairly quiet about certain moral issues.  The Church's teaching on sexual morality, for example seems more honored in the breach than in the observance.  Parishioners often come to church expecting to be affirmed in their okayness, rather than challenged to repent their sinfulness.  In short, the scism's actually there de facto, but some of our clergy hope it'll go away if they just pretend it's not there.

If you think I'm being harsh, check out what Cardinal Dolan told the Wall Street Journal:

 The "flash point," the archbishop says, was "Humanae Vitae," Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical reasserting the church's teachings on sex, marriage and reproduction, including its opposition to artificial contraception. It "brought such a tsunami of dissent, departure, disapproval of the church, that I think most of us—and I'm using the first-person plural intentionally, including myself—kind of subconsciously said, 'Whoa. We'd better never talk about that, because it's just too hot to handle.' We forfeited the chance to be a coherent moral voice when it comes to one of the more burning issues of the day."

 As a result, people can cite spurious surveys claiming 90% of Catholic women defy Church teaching on artificial contraception, and otherwise intelligent people actually find it believable.


Because, truth be told, it may not be 90%, but it's probably better than 50%.

It's a good thing Jesus said, Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.  I don't even want to think about how many people would willingly make an informed choice, knowing it would lead to damnation.  At least the poorly formed have a chance.

But those comfortable days are numbered.  I've believed for some time now that this decade is going to be the Anti-'60s.  More and more of today's young people are demanding an objective reality, straight answers, a truth outside themselves, a challenge to be more, and something worth giving their all for.

In the spirit of this, Bad Catholic  and his merry band of friends have started a new website:

1Flesh

Their mission:  to expose, on a secular level, the damage that our contraceptive culture has done to women and to society in general.  It affirms sexuality in accordance with the Natural Law.  This blog supports them altogether!

Now, since they're focusing on the sociological, psychological, demographic, and philosophical side of things, I thought I'd take on the theological, typological, semantic, and aesthetic aspects.  This is a many-headed beast, and it's going to take me some time to put it all together coherently, but since these young folks are sounding the trumpet, what can an honest man do but grab his armor and set out to do his best?  Look for more on this in a week or so, maybe sooner.