Tag: Chastity

Your Body Matters to God: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2024

Posted on by Father Albert
2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, B                                                                    January 14, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/YiG7kmwbD-I “Why would the all-powerful God be so worried about what people do in their bedroom?” Critics of the Church’s teaching on sexuality love to ask that kind of question. They want to imply or even explicitly say that the Church is too obsessed with sex and that, to God, it’s not really a big deal. “Do what you want! Your sex life isn’t important enough for him to notice!” We have an answer, though. It’s meant as a rhetorical question or a lazy criticism,...Read More

Pastor Column: Casti Connubii IV

Posted on by Father Albert
From the bulletin of October 3, 2021      After addressing the sacramentality and indissolubility of marriage, Pope Pius XI’s letter continues with a lament of social conditions that work against the good of marriage in society. He lists a variety of mediums of entertainment (radio, television, plays) and nots that they increasingly extol sin (like adultery and fornication) as good or at least as something less than terrible.      From there, he targets a particular falsehood that we’ve seen play out in the worst way in our society today. There were and increasing number of philosophers and social commentators who...Read More

Pastor Column: Casti Connubii II

Posted on by Father Albert
     After that brief interruption for the sake of the Ember Days, we return to Pope Pius XI’s letter on marriage. We are still addressing the second blessing of marriage. The last thing mentioned was the virtue of chastity, which applies even in marriage. Chastity always means self-control so that we can love others as people and not objects. Outside of marriage, this takes the form of physical self-denial, but the aspect of self-control still applies even within marriage. There are many nasty and prejudiced jokes out there about Catholics having large families and how women are treated. These insults...Read More