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A Primer on Human Sexuality... PDF
by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow   

eternal_embrace.jpgWhen God made man, he did not make a conscious subject aware of itself as a self to which he then added a body as an afterthought. Rather, when he made man, "male and female he created them," and he blessed them, saying: "Be fertile and multiply" (Gen 1:27-28).

In other words, when God created man he created a bodily being, made in his own image and likeness and thus endowed with the gifts of intelligence and free choice, sexually differentiated into male and female. And he loves specific, individual human persons, male and female, and not humanity in general. He made them to be the kind of beings they are (human in nature), namely, bodily persons sexually differentiated into male and female, precisely so that they could freely receive from him the gift of his own divine life (grace) so long as they freely choose, with his help, to give themselves away in love--in a sincere gift of self--and thus form a communion of persons, ultimately the communion of saints living fully the life of the Triune God.
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04/30/2009
 
The "Good of the Spouses" and Marriage as a Vocation to Holiness PDF
by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow   
william_e_may.jpgIntroduction
Long ago St. Augustine distinguished three cardinal goods of marriage: the good of offspring (bonum prolis) who are to be begotten lovingly, nurtured humanely, and educated religiously; the good of steadfast fidelity (bonum fidei) between husband and wife; and the good of the sacrament (bonum sacramenti),  which entails both the holy bond of indissoluble unity (sacrum vinculum) and sacramental sign (sacramentum signum), the good of the sacrament in the strict sense as the good pointing to and inwardly participating in Christ’s bridal union with his spouse, the Church (St. Augustine developed his teaching on the threefold good of marriage principally in On the Good of Marriage (De bono coniugali),On Marriage and Concupiscence ( De nuptiis et concupiscentia),and The Literal Meaning of Genesis ( De genesi ad litteram). Subsequent Catholic tradition made these goods its own, constantly affirming them; in fact, Pope Pius XI structured his 1930 encyclical On Chaste Marriage (Casti connubii) around these three Augustinian goods..
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03/31/2009
 
Feminism and Human Sexuality: Part II PDF
by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow   
william_e_may.jpgI will examine and criticize the position of Lisa Sowle Cahill, a married woman and mother who is professor of moral theology at Boston College and highly regarded by her peers, on the issue of human sexuality by focusing on her views regarding the significance of “single sexual acts,” contraception, and in vitro fertilization.
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03/13/2009
 
Feminism and Human Sexuality: Part II PDF
by colfi_admin   
william_e_may.jpgI will examine and criticize the position of Lisa Sowle Cahill, a married woman and mother who is professor of moral theology at Boston College and highly regarded by her peers, on the issue of human sexuality by focusing on her views regarding the significance of “single sexual acts,” contraception, and in vitro fertilization.
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03/13/2009
 
Feminism and Human Sexuality: Part I PDF
by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow   
william_e_may.jpgFeminism comes in different varieties. Some forms are compatible with Catholic/Christian teaching on human sexuality; others are not. In a two-part essay I will consider the heterodox feminist understanding of human sexuality and of norms governing sexual activity proposed by some Catholic theologians that is quite different from and opposed to the understanding of human sexuality and its norms held firmly by the Catholic Church.
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02/25/2009
 
THE DIFFERENT MEANINGS OF HUMAN ACTS IN THE CULTURE OF LIFE AND THE CULTURE OF DEATH: Part 1 PDF
by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow   
william_e_may.jpgA major and most important difference between the culture of life and the culture of death is the different ways in which they understand the meaning of human acts. The culture of death understands human acts primarily in terms of what our acts get done in the external world, i.e., it assesses and evaluates human acts in terms of their consequences or states of affairs that they bring about, whereas the culture of life, while recognizing that human acts get things done in the external world, assesses and evaluates them primarily in terms of what they have to say about ourselves, about what they do to us as persons who make ourselves to be the kind of persons we are in and through the acts we freely choose to do every day of our lives.
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01/29/2009
 
Review of “Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts” Part III PDF
by William E. May, Ph.D, Senior Fellow   

william_e_may.jpgHere I examine Charles J. Reid, Jr’s “Marriage: Its Relationship to Religion, Law, and the State,” Douglas Laycock’s “Afterword,” and offer final comments.

I summarized pp. 157-176 of Reid’s chapter in Part I of this review; in them he showed that traditionally in Western civilization and particularly in Anglo-American history marriage was regarded as “a divine institution.” Here I focus on the section “Marriage and the State” (176-187) and on his “Conclusion” (187-188).

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12/11/2008
 
Review of “Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts” Part II PDF
by William E. May, Ph.D, Senior Fellow   
same-sex_marriage_and_religious_liberty.jpgIn Part I, I said I would devote two articles to this important book. Because of the dramatic change in the political atmosphere caused by the 2008 presidential and congressional elections, I now think that three articles are necessary. This one, Part II, takes up the chapters by Robin Fretwell Wilson and Chai  R. Feldblum, whose proposals were made when a quite different political situation was in place. Part III will consider the chapters of Charles R. Reid and Douglas Laycock and offer final reflections.
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12/03/2008
 
Review of “Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts” PDF
by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow   
same-sex_marriage_and_religious_liberty.jpgEdited by Douglas Laycock, Anthony R. Picarello, Jr., and Robin Fretwell Wilson and published by The Becket Fund and Rowman & Littlefield Publishers in 2008, this book is over 300 pages. Pages xi-xiv+1-207 include the essays by the editors and contributors, pages 209-298 provide notes and are followed an Appendix (pp. 200-310), an Index (pp. 311-326), and “About Contributors.”
The book is so significant I will devote two articles to it. In this, Part I, I summarize the essays, offer personal comments, and identify those papers that demand the closer study, analysis, and critique to be given in Part II.
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10/30/2008
 
Connecticut's "Adults-Only" Same-Sex Marriage Decision PDF
by Helen M. Alvaré, J.D.   
alvare_h.jpgThe Supreme Court of Connecticut has rendered that state the latest in the growing number of states asserting a state constitutional mandate to recognize marriage rights for same-sex couples. (Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health).   In Kerrigan, Connecticut’s highest court  held that it was a violation of the state’s constitutional equal protection guarantee to allow same-sex couples all of the benefits associated with marriage, by means of the “civil union” classification, but to deny them the status of marriage.
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10/15/2008
 
Parenting "Rights" for Homosexuals: How We Got There and its Implications for all Families PDF
by Helen Alvare, J.D.   
alvare_h.jpgThe California Supreme Court decided several weeks ago that doctors specializing in assisted reproductive technologies may not assert their religious freedom as a defense to California’s Civil Rights law requirement that businesses provide services without discrimination on the basis of clients’ sexual orientation.  A fertility clinic willing to treat heterosexual patients must therefore also treat homosexual patients.
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10/02/2008
 
Interview with Dale O'Leary, author of "The Gender Agenda One Man, One Woman" PDF
by Elizabeth Moncher, MS, MSW   

one_man_one_woman.jpg1.    Ms. O’Leary, can you begin by helping us understand what is meant by feminism, and whether there are particular distinctions among feminists that are important to recognize?

It is important to distinguish liberal feminism from radical feminism and these from the search for authentic womanhood based on the truth about the human person.

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07/10/2008
 
“No new research has ever shown homosexuality to be a healthy sexual variant...” PDF
by Elizabeth Moncher, MS, MSM   
Interview with Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Founder and Director of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic and President of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH)
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04/18/2008
 
CDC: 1 in 4 Teenage Girls has an STD PDF
by Matt Hanley   

If you were looking for another indicator of the cultural malaise to which our young are subjected today, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) delivered last week.   At the 2008 National STD Prevention Conference in Chicago, March 11th, they issued results of a nationally representative survey which found that slightly more that one in four (26%), or 3.2 million, teenage girls between ages 14 and 19 have contracted a sexually transmitted disease (STD).  Among those infected, about 15% had more than one disease.  Some groups had about twice the national average – nearly half of young African American women or adolescents in the survey had an STD.

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03/20/2008
 
Interview with Dr. Jennifer Roback-Morse, Ph.D. on Comprehensive Abstinence Education PDF
by Culture of Life   
ImageDr. Jennifer Roback-Morse is Research Fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty and former Research Fellow at the Stanford University Hoover Institution. In an interview with Culture of Life Foundation, Dr. Morse discusses her research on abstinence education programs and what she calls “Comprehensive Abstinence Education”.
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03/07/2008
 
Contributing writer Dawn Eden sheds light on the truth of abstinence data reporting PDF
by Dawn Eden   
ImageContributing writer Dawn Eden is author of The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On (Thomas Nelson) and an internationally recognized speaker on chastity. During the past year, her writings on culture-of-life issues, faith, and popular culture have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times of London, the National Post of Canada, and First Things.
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01/16/2008
 
The Significance of the Consummation of Marriage, Contraception, and Condoms to Prevent HIV PDF
by William E. May   
The use of condoms to prevent transmission of a disease is intrinsically evil because the object freely chosen that specifies the moral nature of the act is not the marital act, an act in which husband wife give and receive one another and become literally “one flesh,” but a different kind of act, one that in no way unites them but rather changes utterly the “language of the body.” by William E. May, Michael J. McGivney Professor of Moral Theology Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family
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11/13/2007
 
And Nobody Opposes Fertility Clinics. Right? PDF
by Joe Capizzi, Ph.D.   
Writing in the Washington Post, Michael Kinsley thinks he has cornered opponents of embryo-destructive research into contradicting themselves. In fact all he does is reveal his ignorance of the pro-life movement.
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07/12/2006
 
Conceiving a World Without Contraception PDF
by Joe Capizzi, Ph.D.   
Conservative Protestants are beginning to join faithful Catholics in recognizing the harm done to society by widespread contraception.
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05/09/2006
 
Homosexuality and Hope PDF
by Catholic Medical Association   
This is a summary or condensed version of the statement of the Catholic Medical Association on the diagnosis and treatment of Same Sex Attraction. The extended version is also available on the Culture of Life website.  
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03/08/2006
 
Marriage and the Federal Marriage Ammendment: Answering the Toughest Questions PDF
by Culture of Life   
Strong majorities of Americans oppose gay marriage. Supporters of SSM (Same Sex Marriage) therefore seek to change the subject to just about anything: our sacred constitution, federalism, discrimination, benefits, homosexuality, gay rights. Our goal is simple: Shift the conversation rapidly back to marriage. Don’t get sidetracked. Marriage is the issue. Marriage is what we care about. Marriage really matters. It’s just common sense.
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01/31/2006