Yes, we must teach people that they ought to treat others with respect. I agree. We must also teach them that respect for others means not using others for sexual purposes.
The second sentence, while true, is a separate issue.
I realize that this type of discussion can be very sensitive, just because we live in an age when the matters we are discussing have in fact affected a lot of people—probably most people. It’s not like a discussion of nuclear war, something in which we have not participated. But we have engaged in sexual sins; there are children born out of wedlock; there are a million abortions a year; the sale of contraceptives is a huge business. A lot of us have been personally affected.
You are right, but I have to say I dont like being compared to a consequence of sexual sin. I know you dont mean it that way, but what I am trying to point out is that even if one does not care about the feelings of millions of human beings, if one wants to halt the widespread use of abortion, they might want to think of a less counter productive way.
So a priest giving a perfectly reasonable homily about such matters can expect that many people in the congregation will take it personally or be offended, because they have been affected by such things personally. Perhaps that is why, as Easter Joy mentioned, such homilies are quite rare.
Well, one can give a homily without using the term ‘illegitimate’ and talking about the many other benefits of marriage etc.
You say that “linking children being borne out of wedlock to a social ill just does not sit right with me. It makes me feel very uncomfortable and I can never accept it.” But without making any judgment on the individuals who may be such children or their parents, the fact is that it is a social ill, with adverse effects on the well being of society. Again, without looking at individuals, statistically such children and such families, overall, have worse outcomes in a variety of categories. There have been a number of books written about this. And the greater the rate of out of wedlock births, the greater the social ills in the population.
I assume you have not had to deal with some of the rubbish people come up with as an excuse to warn against fornication. I dont think it is worth it even if to stop any of the ‘social ills’ you might think are propagated by the births of these children.
The story of Adam and Eve is the first account in the bible after creation itself, and it concerns marriage. When marriage is undermined, individuals and society suffer.
The world was not one big utopia prior to the 1960’s. But the sexual revolution DID have a huge effect on the direction of society, and it was not good. The results are documented and convincing. Mary Eberstadt’s recent book “Adam and Eve After the Pill,” summarizes them quite well. If Paul VI could have lived to see the actual results of the disregard of his encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” he might have stated his case more forcefully. Even so, everything he warned about has in fact occurred.
