There are facts and truths that "sexual libertarians" don't want society or public opinion to know, that even they don't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To define one's identity on the basis of our sexuality alone is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you. G.S.
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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best human efforts to make sense of our lives - and of our human sexuality in particular - also including the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium. The Church has been accumulating much valuable wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik
SCROLL DOWN 👇 = 2- WE RESIST BY PRIORITIZING OUR OWN PLEASURE
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In each case, please go to the link for the complete article.
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👉 The Testimony of Gloria Polo - “I was at the gates of heaven and of hell”
If someone might doubt, or think that God does not exist, that life beyond is something from the films, or that with death all ends, do yourself a favor and read this testimony! But read it from the beginning to the end! Even the most skeptical opinion, perhaps, will change! We are dealing here with something that really occurred! Gloria Polo is a woman that “died”, she passed to the other world and returned precisely to give her testimony to the incredulous. God gives us many proofs, but we always deny His existence. Gloria Polo actually lives in Colombia, she continues to exercise the same profession that she had before this event. She remained with enormous scars, but she has a normal life; this difference is that now she is a woman with great faith! She travels a lot, in order to give her testimony to thousands of people, fulfilling the mission that God confided to her (she has the authorization from the part of the Church for this). This is a transcription of one of her testimonies, given in a church in Caracas (Venezuela), May 5, 2005, and it is translated from the Spanish original version. It is authentic! IT IS NOT A FAKE! Padre Leone Orlando 👉 Video version with simultaneous translation
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This English version was translated from the Italian translation of Padre Orlando, with the acknowledgement and encouragement of Gloria Polo, by Father Joseph Dwight.
👉 Témoignage de Mme Gloria Polo - "du Paradis à l'Enfer"
Une mort clinique - Un jugement - Une seconde chance - Mme Gloria Polo, dentiste à Bogota, (Colombie), était à Lisbonne et Fatima, la dernière semaine de Février 2007, pour donner son témoignage. Sur son site internet : Dra. Gloria Polo. Testimonio místico. Colombia., apparaît un extrait (en anglais) d'une interview qu'elle a accordée à 'Radio Maria' en Colombie. Frères et soeurs, c'est merveilleux pour moi de partager avec vous en cet instant, l'ineffable grâce que m'a donnée Notre Seigneur, il y a maintenant plus de dix ans. 👉 Version vidéo avec traduction simultanée
👉 SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE
By Leo Walsh, CSB - God is all perfect, by definition. God created all things. So in some way everything that is, is an image of God. Therefore, everything points to God, gives us an idea of God, however imperfect. Everything is a sign of God. The heavens proclaim the glory of God. All things do. The signifying of one thing by another is something well-known to us. We don't always interpret the signs correctly, of course, but mostly we do. A face signifies a particular person, a genuine smile signifies friendship in some way, a false smile points to treachery. An older couple holding hands as they come to church, a mother pacifying a crying child, teenagers' bored body language, a young woman in silent prayer.... There are endless examples of this efficacious sacramentality in ordinary life, where the sign brings about what it signifies. A gift, which is a sign of friendship, deepens the friendship; a hug which is a sign of togetherness, brings about togetherness.
April 4-6, 2018 - We, the undersigned scholars, affirm that the Catholic Church’s teachings on the gift of sexuality, on marriage, and on contraception are true and defensible on many grounds, among them the truths of reason and revelation concerning the dignity of the human person. Scholarly support for the Church’s teachings on the gift of sexuality, on marriage, and on contraception has burgeoned in recent decades. Moreover, institutes and programs supporting that teaching have been established all over the world. Even some secular feminists and secular programs have begun to acknowledge the harms of contraception. These facts, however, seem to have escaped the notice of the authors of “On the Ethics of Using Contraceptives” (hereafter, the Wijngaards Statement) which urges the Catholic Church to change its teaching and issue an “official magisterial document [that] should revoke the absolute ban on the use of ‘artificial’ contraceptives, and allow the use of modern non-abortifacient contraceptives for both prophylactic and family planning purposes.” The Wijngaards Statement, unfortunately, offers nothing new to discussions about the morality of contraception and, in fact, repeats the arguments that the Church has rejected and that numerous scholars have engaged and refuted since 1968.
👉 ENCYCLICAL LETTER HUMANAE VITAE OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF PAUL VI
The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships. The fulfillment of this duty has always posed problems to the conscience of married people, but the recent course of human society and the concomitant changes have provoked new questions. The Church cannot ignore these questions, for they concern matters intimately connected with the life and happiness of human beings. I. PROBLEM AND COMPETENCY OF THE MAGISTERIUM 2. The changes that have taken place are of considerable importance and varied in nature. In the first place there is the rapid increase in population which has made many fear that world population is going to grow faster than available resources, with the consequence that many families and developing countries would be faced with greater hardships. This can easily induce public authorities to be tempted to take even harsher measures to avert this danger. There is also the fact that not only working and housing conditions but the greater demands made both in the economic and educational field pose a living situation in which it is frequently difficult these days to provide properly for a large family. Also noteworthy is a new understanding of the dignity of woman and her place in society, of the value of conjugal love in marriage and the relationship of conjugal acts to this love. But the most remarkable development of all is to be seen in man's stupendous progress in the domination and rational organization of the forces of nature to the point that he is endeavoring to extend this control over every aspect of his own life—over his body, over his mind and emotions, over his social life, and even over the laws that regulate the transmission of life.
👉 Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 155: Consenting to Sex
By Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD MAY 30, 2018 - Recent news articles exploring the post-#MeToo world of romance have noted the phenomenon of cell phone “consent apps,” allowing millennials to sign digital contracts before they have sex with their peers, sometimes strangers they have just met. Many of these apps are being refined to include a panic button that can be pressed at any time to withdraw any consent given. Lawyers reviewing the practice, as might be anticipated, have urged caution, noting that consent apps are not able to provide definitive proof of consent, because feelings may “change throughout an evening, and even in the moments before an act.” When we look at modern views about sex, it’s not a stretch to sum them up this way: as long as two consenting adults are involved, the bases are covered. When it comes to “sex in the moment,” consent is touted as key, allowing for almost all mutually-agreed upon behaviors or practices. Yet this approach to sex is fundamentally flawed, and it’s often the woman who is the first to notice. Even when consenting unmarried couples scrupulously use contraception, there remains an awareness, particularly on the part of the woman, that a pregnancy could follow, and a concern about who will be left holding the bag if that were to happen. Sex between men and women involves real asymmetries and vulnerabilities, with men oftentimes being, in the words of sociologist Mark Regnerus, “less discriminating” in their sex drives than women, eager to forge ahead as long as there appears to be some semblance of consent. Women often sense, rightly, that consent for a particular sexual act ought to be part of something bigger, a wider scope of commitment.
Emotions can be confusing! But what if you could explore them in an emotion wheel, and dig deeper with a simply powerful emotions list? The Plutchik Model of Emotions provides a simply logical way to make sense of feelings. Plus! At the bottom of this page you’ll find our top emotions resources, and a form to get your free emotions list with dozens of emotions explained.
👉 Our Father's Gift of Tenderness is a Healing Gift
We invite you, the reader, to adopt with us our Church’s teaching that our human sexuality is an integral part of the gift of our human life entrusted to us by God, and because He is the giver, He also has a plan for our individual and collective happiness that includes instructions on how to make the proper and best use of all our gifts and capacities. This includes our capacity for tenderness in a whole host of different relationships and varied situations – including all that can be defined as pertaining to our human sexuality. This also implies that before God we all have a responsibility to learn everything that can be known about his plan for us, to govern our lives and actions in accord with this plan, and then to help others to do the same – especially doing all we can to transmit God’s plan to our children – and to provide them with an apprenticeship into life, that they may come to know and understand their sexuality and develop their ability to give and receive tenderness in appropriate and chaste ways.
👉 God's Plan For Life
The Scriptures reveal that when God designed a plan for life, he used careful and loving advanced planning. In Jer 1:5, God says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” God knew Jeremiah before he was born. It follows that God knows all of us even before we are born. God's advanced loving and careful plan is confirmed by Rom 8:29-30 where Paul says: “For those he foreknew he also pre-destined to be conformed to the image of His son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” The same notion of foreknowledge is revealed in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, 1:3-4: “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” Love requires advanced planning. God’s plan for life began before the world was made.
👉 WHEN TRUST IS LOST
By Dan B. Allender - © 2010 RBC Ministries - Sexual abuse is one of the few crimes that brings more shame to the victim than to the offender. It takes away a person's innocence and self-respect, and usually silences the victim so that help is difficult to find. The wounds and struggles that follow are often as difficult to deal with as the original abuse. Many victims feel alone, confused, depressed, and sometimes as if they are going crazy. If you have been sexually abused, or if you know someone struggling with this problem, the following pages describe a process of recovery that is filled with hope and help. Some of what follows will be difficult to accept. But the pain of understanding and healing is far less than the pain of denial and despair.
👉 Sexuality, memories, dreams, evil suffered, forgiveness, and God
Although we often are inclined to wonder whether we are where we need to be, we believe that the Father always brings about his will in those who are open; so we can say that we are where He wants us to be, whether we like being here or not for the moment. It can be said to be a normal experience to have at some point troubling memories or dreams which, though they seem utterly real, may or may not be related to actual events. Such things are part of our condition as human beings. Some people have more vivid dreams or numerous memories than others, and some are hardly aware of any at all; while others are troubled by some of their memories or dreams or images.... Are they real? Are potential witnesses denying the reality of what happened to me or am I imagining the event?
👉 THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE FAMILY THE TRUTH AND MEANING OF HUMAN SEXUALITY - Guidelines for Education within the Family
INTRODUCTION - The Situation and the Problem
1. Among the many difficulties parents encounter today, despite different social contexts, one certainly stands out: giving children an adequate preparation for adult life, particularly with regard to education in the true meaning of sexuality. There are many reasons for this difficulty and not all of them are new. In the past, even when the family did not provide specific sexual education, the general culture was permeated by respect for fundamental values and hence served to protect and maintain them. In the greater part of society, both in developed and developing countries, the decline of traditional models has left children deprived of consistent and positive guidance, while parents find themselves unprepared to provide adequate answers.
This new context is made worse by what we observe: an eclipse of the truth about man which, among other things, exerts pressure to reduce sex to something commonplace. In this area, society and the mass media most of the time provide depersonalized, recreational and often pessimistic information. Moreover, this information does not take into account the different stages of formation and development of children and young people, and it is influenced by a distorted individualistic concept of freedom, in an ambience lacking the basic values of life, human love and the family. Then the school, making itself available to carry out programmes of sex education, has often done this by taking the place of the family and, most of the time, with the aim of only providing information. Sometimes this really leads to the deformation of consciences.
In many cases parents have given up their duty in this field or agreed to delegate it to others, because of the difficulty and their own lack of preparation. In such a situation, many Catholic parents turn to the Church to take up the task of providing guidance and suggestions for educating their children, especially in the phase of childhood and adolescence. At times, parents themselves have brought up their difficulties when they are confronted by teaching given at school and thus brought into the home by their children. The Pontifical Council for the Family has received repeated and pressing requests to provide guidelines in support of parents in this delicate area of education.
2- WE RESIST BY PRIORITIZING OUR OWN PLEASURE
👉 Priests still suffering from effects of Humanae Vitae dissenters, Vatican cardinal says
“Lead us not into temptation” is the sixth petition of the Our Father. Πειρασμός (Peirasmòs), the Greek word used in this passage for ‘temptation’, means a trial or test. Disciples petition God to be protected against the supreme test of ungodly powers. The trial is related to Jesus’s cup in Gethsemane, the same cup which his disciples would also taste (Mk 10: 35-45). The dark side of the interior of the cup is an abyss. It reveals the awful consequences of God’s judgment upon sinful humanity. In August, 1968, the weight of the evangelical Πειρασμός fell on many priests, including myself,” the cardinal began.
👉 500 Catholic scholars lash back at Humanae Vitae critics
Washington D.C., Sep 20, 2016 - Nearly 50 years after the “prophetic” papal document Humanae Vitae, the Catholic Church’s longstanding teaching against contraception continues to promote the human good, said a group of Catholic thinkers on Tuesday. “We hold that Catholic teaching respects the true dignity of the human person and is conducive to happiness,” said hundreds of Catholic scholars in a Sept. 20 document. “Humanae Vitae speaks against the distorted view of human sexuality and intimate relationships that many in the modern world promote. Humanae Vitae was prophetic when it listed some of the harms that would result from the widespread use of contraception,” they said. More than 500 Catholic scholars with doctoral degrees in theology, medicine, law and other fields have signed the document in support of Catholic teaching, titled “Affirmation of the Catholic Church’s Teaching on the Gift of Sexuality.”
👉 Maternal-Fetal Attachment and the Culture of Life - Part One
By Bridget Campion, PhD - Pregnancy has always been regarded as a time of growth and development for the unborn baby. However, since the later part of the twentieth century, researchers have been turning their attention to the pregnant woman and the effects that this life-stage holds for her. Far from being a time of simply waiting for the baby to be born, pregnancy is now regarded as a period with its own tasks, during which women undergo deep psychological change and development. While much of this is preparational insofar as it serves the wellbeing of the mother and infant in post-natal life, in fact researchers are finding that pregnancy is a very significant time in itself, with women bonding to their unborn children.
👉 Maternal-Fetal Attachment and the Culture of Life - Part Two
By Bridget Campion, PhD - The first article of this two-part series provided an examination of maternal-fetal attachment, a phenomenon recognized by researchers in which the bond between a mother and her child begins in pregnancy, leading to developmental behaviours that protect both mother and child before birth and prepare them for life after birth. Pregnancy, with all of the growth it entails, thus becomes an important developmental stage for the pregnant woman as well as for the baby she carries. What is the importance of maternal-fetal attachment within the context of a Culture of Life?
👉 Bringing Sanity to Sex: Part I By Karlo Broussard
February 08, 2017 - Sanity is to see what is (reality) and live in accord with it. If your grandfather thinks leprechauns are jumping in his butter dish and he gives them his butter knife to use as a springboard, then his sanity is defective. He mistakes a hallucination for what is real and behaves accordingly. As he tells you about this phenomenon at the dinner table, you probably would invite him to become a citizen of the real world and see reality as it is and live in it. I use this example to prompt the question, “Is there a real world when it comes to sex and our sexual powers?” In other words, is there a meaning to sex that is independent of what you or I make sex out to be? Is there a reality to sex, and thus to our sexual powers, that we ought to reverence and live in accord with? Is there a real world with regard to sex that we could invite someone to live in? Is there such a thing as sexual sanity?
👉 Bringing Sanity to Sex: Part II By Karlo Broussard
In my previous article, we saw that there is such a thing as sexual sanity, an objective reality with which we need to live in accord in order to be sexually sane. Regardless of someone’s personal motive for engaging in sexual activity, procreation is its natural end. Now, the charge that such a view reduces human sex acts to mere biology might have force if producing children were the end of the story. But it’s not. There is another purpose of sex intrinsic to making babies: the physical and emotional drawing together of spouses. Catholic theology calls these the procreative and unitive dimensions of sex. There are two ways to see this intrinsic connection. The first sees the spousal friendship as finalizing the procreative dimension inasmuch as it makes sex a human reproductive act. The second sees how the unitive is bound to the procreative for the sake of rearing children.
👉 Watch a 20-week baby in utero with new groundbreaking technology
Abortion, really? - London, England, Jun 6, 2017 When the fetal ultrasound gained popularity in the 1970s, it was hailed as a “window to the womb.” But now, new technology could offer a much more in-depth view of babies before birth. Courtesy of a recent multimillion dollar project based out of London, some parents are able to see clear scans of every movement and organ of their babies in the womb starting as early as 20 weeks, using advanced MRI technology.
👉 Gradual Shifts in Abortion Laws: Will they be effective?
One of the interesting developments in the area of abortion is a small but real shift in the laws in some States in the US. As we know, Canada continues without a law regulating abortion, meaning that a woman could technically obtain an abortion right up until delivery. The reason is that the Canadian Criminal Code defines “person” as someone who has been completely delivered from the birth canal of his or her mother. Until then, a child is not deemed to be a person, which means that the child has no rights whatsoever. At the beginning of the journey down the birth canal the baby makes it known that it is positioning itself to enter the world, and, as the mother’s contractions intensify, maternity staff prepare to help guide its entrance into the world, intervening only when necessary to aid the process. The feelings of excitement, awe, relief and gratitude that occur when the baby finally appears are intense. Thank God, we say! Thank God, too, for all the personnel involved in safely delivering a new human infant. Everyone present knows this is a baby, a tiny human being, an independent and unique person, yet our law insists that he or she is not legally a person in Canada until “completely delivered from the birth canal.”
👉 HUMAN DECISION SYSTEM
👉 Reclaim God's Plan for Sexual Health You are very familiar with the fact that you have an Immune System and a Digestive System, but did you know that you also have what we call a Human Decision System? This remarkable system is centered in your brain and plays a dominant role in every decision you make—positive or negative. Learning how your Human Decision System works, how to harness and direct it—this is the key to your success in consistently making the choices you desire most. Begin today to “reclaim God’s plan for sexual health”, one day at a time.
👉 Why Sterile Heterosexual Acts and Homosexual Acts Are Not the Same
Karlo Broussard May 10, 2017 - When a homosexual couple are unable to generate children after four years, no one wonders why. That’s because the nature of their sexual activity is not baby-making—it’s not the type of activity that is naturally ordered toward producing children. On the other hand, a heterosexual couple who, due to age or medical condition or some other factor, cannot conceive a child, do engage in baby-making activity. The genital union that they achieve is the kind of activity that nature ordains to produce children. And if it were not for the unintended (accidental) physical defect, the natural end of procreation would be achieved. So a heterosexual couple’s inability to generate children involves an impeded natural ability, whereas a homosexual couple’s inability to generate children involves no natural ability. To use an example from my friend and colleague Trent Horn, the former is analogous to a paralyzed man who is unable to walk—an external factor is frustrating the achievement of a natural end. The latter is analogous to a man trying to fly by flapping his arms.
There are facts and truths that the "Gay Lobby" doesn't want society or public opinion to know, that even IT doesn't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - is that we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To identify oneself on the basis of just the one element of our sexuality is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you.
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik
👉 On the Importance of Friendship
By Father John McCloskey - One of the great impoverishments of contemporary American life is the difficulty of forming and maintaining strong male friendships. (Women, on the whole, seem to do much better in befriending one another.) Virtually the only time I see groups of men meeting together regularly occurs in front of a television – at home or at a bar or restaurant – watching sports. Most of the time, these men are primarily enjoying not each other but the game. Now, there is nothing wrong about enjoying sports together or enjoying other hobbies and social activities. An important aspect of male bonding occurs around the pursuit of vocations or avocations. Still, a deeper dimension of friendship often seems missing.
👉 “ MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM ”
TOWARDS A PATH OF DIALOGUE ON THE QUESTION OF GENDER THEORY IN EDUCATION - It is becoming increasingly clear that we are now facing with what might accurately be called an educational crisis, especially in the field of affectivity and sexuality. In many places, curricula are being planned and implemented which “allegedly convey a neutral conception of the person and of life, yet in fact reflect an anthropology opposed to faith and to right reason”.1 The disorientation regarding anthropology which is a widespread feature of our cultural landscape has undoubtedly helped to destabilise the family as an institution, bringing with it a tendency to cancel out the differences between men and women, presenting them instead as merely the product of historical and cultural conditioning.
Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute - University of St. Michael's College at University of Toronto - 👉 BIOETHICS MATTERS - List of Articles 2007-20
👉 The absurd logic of assisted suicide
By Andrew Coyne If assisted suicide is a right to be released from suffering, how can that be restricted to adults? Are we to condemn children to endless torment? This is not some dire prophecy. It is, as the panel reminds us, the logic of assisted suicide. By making it lawful to euthanize children, we would only be following where Belgium and the Netherlands have led; by applying it to the mentally ill, we would be doing no more than Switzerland has already done. If that is where we want to go, so be it. But let us at least be clear that that is what is really at stake.
👉 Finer points of consent missing in assisted suicide bill
By Andrew Coyne Consent needs to be demonstrated, not assumed. That so many seem willing to take it as given is among the more disturbing aspects of this debate. Throughout the debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide, the trump card for their proponents has been consent. If we were crossing lines few societies in history have been willing to cross, erasing distinctions once considered inviolable — between allowing death to take its course and hastening it, between killing yourself and someone else killing you, between pain relief and poison — it was all right, because it was being done with the consent of the patient. Yet, far from demanding that the bill be tightened, the majority of the critics seem concerned only that it should be loosened further: to permit the euthanization of children, for example, or to allow those anticipating being mentally incapacitated in future to make provision for their death in advance — not because they are necessarily suffering now, but in dread of the suffering they believe they will find intolerable in future. Will they, in the event? Might they have changed their mind, if not? Who can say? But their “consent” would already have been obtained. Consent is a powerful concept. But it needs to be demonstrated, not assumed. That so many seem willing to take it as given is among the more disturbing aspects of this debate.
© 2006-2023 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2023 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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