Men and Women: Diversity and Mutual Complementarity is the title of an important and helpful book published by Libreria Vaticana Editrice in 2006 containing papers given at the Study Seminar held in Vatican City 30-31 January 2004. It contains 12 essays divided into 4 major parts. I will try to summarize the thought of some of the major papers in two articles.

Here I will take up the following essays: (1) Lucetta Scaraffia’s “Socio-cultural changes in women’s lives”[1] ; (2) Vincente Aucante’s, “Fatherhood”[2] ; (3) Maria Teresa Garutti Bellenzier’s “The identity of women and men according to the teaching of the Church”[3] ; and Carlo Caffarra’s “Benchmarks, problem areas and issues for debate.”[4]  In another article I will consider the contributions of Karna Swanson, Manfred Lutz, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, and Marguerite Peeters.

I recall sitting at a breakfast table at a large pro-life banquet years ago with Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago. Ten to fifteen times over the course of the meal, guests came over, with the same introduction: “Don’t want to disturb your breakfast, Your Eminence, just wanted to thank you for being here and tell you …..”  Near the end of the “meal,” I noticed the Cardinal hadn’t even picked up his fork and I mentioned this. “I always eat before I come,” he replied, (and here, I’m paraphrasing, but accurately) because it’s so important to every person who comes to speak to me that I give them my full attention, and reply personally and kindly. If I don’t, they’ll leave this banquet --  this may be one  opportunity to speak to a bishop directly -- believing that ‘the Church’ doesn’t care about them.”

In your recent book “The Temperament God gave your Spouse” you review the four classic temperaments as a way of understanding how people naturally react; could you explain these and tell us how you came to be interested in this age-old concept in the present day?

 
We were introduced to the classic four temperaments (originally proposed by Hippocrates) by a priest who shared with us how temperament (the way we naturally tend to react to our environment) influences our spiritual lives; subsequently, we discovered that understanding temperament is not only a great way to get to know ourselves better (and therefore improve ourselves) but also it has a great bearing on our relationships—with God, with our spouse and with our children. Art discovered in his marriage counseling that many couples who came in for counseling were often arguing or fighting about a temperament issue!

Part II Interview with Psychologist  P. Alex Mabe, Ph.D.

1.    Dr. Mabe, thank you for agreeing to provide a follow-up interview regarding your publication on the treatment of childhood conduct disorder. In the first interview, you described the essential features of Conduct Disorder as repetitive and persistent patterns of behavior in which the basic rights of others and major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated. Further you noted that a variety of factors represent risk factors, discussing the impact of biological, socio-cultural, and early life experiences. I would be interested in hearing what the research shows about the other factors you presented: peer experiences, social experiences in various institutions; and early exposure to violence on television or videogames?

Interview with Art A. Bennett, M.A., Director of Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Services and founder of its Unity Restored website for those seeking freedom from sex based addictions, compulsions and pornography.

Culture of Life speaks with Dr. Paul Vitz, Professor and Senior Scholar at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, VA and author of the recent book, “Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism” on the role of fatherhood in faith, family and culture. 

If you have ever found yourself up late at night staring at the television, you’ll likely be familiar with Joe Francis’s work. Joe Francis is the brains (?) behind “Girls Gone Wild,” that lovely, $40 million a year series of videotapes or DVDs that provide a historical record of the varieties of undergarments worn and removed by mostly drunken old girls and young women of the early twenty-first century.