Christopher West’s ideas on sexuality ignore ‘tremendous dangers,’ Alice von Hildebrand says [CNA]

[Norminha]

Thank you both, graceandglory and Transformerfor giving credit where it is merited and give Christopher a reason to keep evangelizing this society that has lost the sense of values and treats human beings as objects.

CW is not “preaching to the choir.” He is evangelizing people who are brand new to the concept of sexual purity. AND THESE ARE CATHOLICS!!!
The ultimate purpose behind ANY evangelization is to draw people into an intimate relationship with Christ and to SAVE them from hell.
Why aren’t we rejoicing that people are being converted through the message and work of Christopher West? Don’t you people care that souls are going to hell?

When we pray: For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on of the WHOLE WORLD. Do we really understand the meaning of these words? or it is just a pure lip service?
If we didn’t like what this or that person is trying to do in the name of Jesus then, why we don’t take the mission and do it? After all, everyone, in virtue of our baptismal rights, is obliged to pray and evangelize our brothers and sisters, to save them from HELL. Our Blessed Mother commands us to do it, specially for the sins of immorality.
Transformer

In conclusion, nothing in this article shakes my trust in Christopher West. I don’t mean to claim that he is the best interpreter of ToB; he very well may be outclassed by a number of other writers. But I find nothing seriously objectionable in his work.

Charitable words!
Let’s pray many rosaries (instead of criticize) for the works of all those brothers and sisters who are right now, around the world trying to save souls during this time of great peril; tomorrow, it may be too late. They’re doing their best and that’s all God wants from us, to do our best.

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

18 posts so far, and I read the links, and still nobody has stated WHAT (other than a feeling, or an opinion) they disagree with.

Real sloppy arguments, people.

Perhaps a sloppy study of the links provided.

In a conversation with CNA, Fr. Faggioni explained that some of the issues discussed publicly by West, such as the appropriateness of anal sex or other forms of sexual “foreplay” in married relationships, have to be dealt with using great care, since “the risk is of displacing the attention from marital love and the anthropologic meaning of lovely gestures to merely the genital aspects.”

“Regarding this type of intercourse or others, no one can pretend to accept from another person something that offends that person’s sensibility on sexual issues or that does not respect the structure and natural complementarity of the bodies of man and woman.”

The moral theologian warned that “today’s youth, in a special manner, have to be protected from unnecessary exposure to sexual-genital issues that can lead to a morbid curiosity.”

catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=16458

The posts are included for opinion on what is being discussed, far from a collegiate study. The basis for all this is concupiscence and our attraction to sin leading to slavery to sin.newadvent.org/cathen/04208a.htm

We live in a sexually perverted culture. This message of purity is being preached strongly by CW.

From CW’s website:

We as Catholics actually agree - or should agree - with Hugh Hefner’s diagnosis of the disease of puritanism. …Many of us have so “spiritualized” things that we’ve lost sight of the purpose and meaning of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh.

theologyofthebody.com/11-10-06.asp

We have lost the spiritual and replaced it with the “At-one-ment” of atonement. The spirit gives life. In West’s above quote, a contemplative religious is of no value to humanity.

The ultimate purpose behind ANY evangelization is to draw people into an intimate relationship with Christ and to SAVE them from hell. Why aren’t we rejoicing that people are being converted through the message and work of Christopher West? Don’t you people care that souls are going to hell?

Before judgment is a life leading up to it. Being concerned only with salvation is not Catholic, a life of Grace that leads to Sanctifying Grace is.

Someone mentioned in an earlier post, “prove it” that people are changing their lives as a result of the work of CW. There are plenty of testimonies online if you want to seek them out. I am one. I know of many people who have not only become sexually pure, but have CONVERTED to Catholicism because of this message of Redemption.

TOB as written by John Paul II is not accessible to young people who are ignorant of it. It’s barely accessible by people who know it and love it. It is an extremely difficult read. CW is a voice preaching this good news and making it accessible to the people who need to hear it the most, the ones who need to be converted.

One needs more than a cursory study and using TOB as a basis for ones own ministry no matter how much good it may do in the short term. Small points of theology have been the basis for heated argument, anathema’s, proclamations of heresy, and excommunication. There is a reason for this. Where you end up is directly related to the direction from which you start out. Off just a little and down the road many miles or centuries later, you are lost. Those who know what they are talking about must be listened to and humbly submitted to.