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Liberal Secularism and Subsidizing Unchastity

Liberal secularism is crassly materialistic

The Church has an entire different vision of contraception.  Based upon the natural law and the teachings of the Gospel, the Church insists that the use of artificial contraception, whether as an end in itself or a means as an end, is an intrinsic evil, a moral wrong admitting no exceptions. It is a wrong based upon natural law, which means it morally obliges the entire world no less than does the injunction "Thou shalt not kill."


CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - Rush Limbaugh has created quite a stir in calling Georgetown's third-year law student Sandra Fluke some rather ungentlemanly names following her testimony to the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.  I will not repeat them here. 

I suppose had he been more circumspect and Shakespearean, he could have, with an added delightful double entendre, called her a Winchester's goose, and then the modern media would not have known what he was talking about. 

(Though it is possible that a Professor of Elizabethan English would have known exactly what he meant. Google it, I will not do the work for you!)

As for me, I would not stoop to call Ms. Fluke such vulgar and plebeian names.  For me, Ms. Fluke is a Knight. 

Ahhh, but she is not a knight like the woman knight Britomart in Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene, for Britomart was a Knight of Chastity.  For me, Ms. Fluke is a Knight, but a Knight of Unchastity. 

As the commentator on Spenser's Faerie Queene Elizabeth Heale observes, the virtue of which knight Britomart is a symbol-chastity-is not simply abstention from sex.  For Spenser chastity-before marriage and in marriage-was "a binding force central to social, national, and indeed universal concord." 

As it turns out, Ms. Fluke has turned out to be a symbol of unchastity, an unchastity which is more than mere profligacy, sex upon sex upon sex.  No, the unchastity of which Ms. Fluke is a knight is unchastity as "a binding force central to social, national, and indeed universal concord." 

We have heard it bantered around that more than 98% of all women have, at least at some period of their life, used artificial contraception.  Whether this sad fact is true or not is hard to tell, but it is certainly perceived as true.  And, what is more, it is perceived as a good thing, one that is worthy of public promotion so that the 98% can have their way paid for by everyone else and so that the last 2% holding out may eventually be captured.

That is why this unchastity needs to be subsidized, the experts say.  That is why unchastity as a social institution needs a Knight.  And that is why Ms. Fluke-ahem, Sir Fluke of the Law Students for Reproductive Justice-has received her many accolades from the Knights of the Round Table of the liberal press, and even a call from the King of the kingdom of which she is a knight, President Obama.

Sir Fluke has been offered the Siege Perilous of Liberalism, that vacant seat of the Round Table reserved for that one great knight who would successfully attain the Holy Grail: 100% subsidized contraception.

I've read Sir Fluke's testimony, and it is downright depressing in its crass materialism.  There is mention only of "financial, emotional, and medical burdens."  There is a lot of what lawyers call inadmissible anecdotal evidence and hearsay about such burdens by "real people" (as distinguished, I suppose from "unreal people," who, I gather under our current law and Sir Fluke's way of looking at things, are fetuses in the womb.).  There's the de rigueur "hard cases"-a woman with "polycystic ovarian syndrome," a woman that has been raped-which-in liberal ways of thinking-makes good law.  And all this is peppered with plenty of inconsistencies and non sequiturs.  But all of it is based upon the supposed calculus of weighing financial, emotional, and medical grounds.  Utilitarianism, all of it.

Sir Fluke never, ever considers the issue of whether artificial contraception is moral, whether it is virtuous, whether it is, from a moral standpoint, right.  I repeat.  The testimony is depressing in its crass materialism and utilitarianism.  There is no spirit, much less Nature or Nature's God, in the thing.  It is all conventional.  Never does she try to get to the heart of moral reality, of what is.

The Church, of course, has an entire different vision of things.  Based upon the natural law and the teachings of the Gospel, the Church insists that the use of artificial contraception, whether as an end in itself or a means for an end, is an intrinsic evil, a moral wrong admitting no exceptions.

It is a wrong based upon natural law, which means it morally obliges the entire world no less than does the injunction "Thou shalt not kill." 

It is, of course, this very moral law that the Obama administration acting through the Department of Health and Human Services wants the Catholic Church and all its organs to violate, and which the Church insists-as a matter of religious freedom, and indeed in obedience to Nature and Nature's God-the Federal government cannot ...

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1 - 10 of 12 Comments

  1. JoAnn
    1 year ago

    Rob: You are probably right, I don't know. Do you know of any place I can go to hear the entire soundbite?. What I heard did not have that word in it. God bless.

  2. marya
    1 year ago

    The pill that was introduced in the 60's had the unfortunate consequence, besides so many other immoral things the worst of which was abortion as its backup, of setting back any real advancement in regards to understanding to fertility. The i-pad should have an icon on it for every woman of child-bearing age detailing her fertile times which only amount, after all, to 48 hours out of the month if they can be pinpointed. That period should be sacred. It should be diserned. One of the great things about being a Catholic wife and mother for me was knowing exactly when I could and did conceive my children.

  3. Stephanie
    1 year ago

    Kn...

    There are better and more effective treatments than the birth control pill, which was classified as a group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization in 2005. And there are good Catholic doctors who have never prescribed the Pill!

    You also have to consider the Church teaches based on intent. It is morally permissible for a woman to take a Pill or get a hysterectomy if it is for a valid medical reason because the intent is not to abort or sterilize. But a woman cannot be on the Pill if she is sexually active because of the abortifacient; there are better alternative means to treatment. For example, instead of forcing a hormonal balance through drugs/pills, why not figure out what the cause of the problem is and treat that?!

  4. Brian A Cook
    1 year ago

    I see that you refused to post both of my comments in spite of my hardest efforts at a respectful tone. I am sorry. I don't know what to tell you. I have actually written letters to the Pope about roadblocks to the New Evangelization. Among other topics, I have written about the apparent association with the Right--with an antidemocratic, reactionary, altar-and-throne mentality--that goes back to the end of the French Revolution and goes on to this very day. I expressed hopes that the Church will examine this apparent association, look at it in the eye, and make efforts to move forward with renewal. I am deathly-afraid that this association will come back to bite Mother Church otherwise and cause an even bigger scandal.

  5. Rob
    1 year ago

    Cathy/JoAnn, not that I care one way or the other about this, but I'm not sure you guys are right on this one. I just listed to the recording...Rush says, "what does that make her (referring to Ms. Fluke) that makes her a slut." If you didn't hear it that way I'm sorry but it's pretty plain. Tech, I think you are right about the state of Catholic institutions. This government action is merely reaping what we have sown by our disobedience. But you ask if the Church is the Church of Cardinal Dolan, taking a stand against the government. I don't mean to split hairs, but the Church is the Church of Jesus Christ. I do agree that we Catholics have sent a terrible, mixed message to our society, but what I fear is that from all of this we are merely going to be looked at as another political special interest. If we succeed in overcoming this mandate, I hope it's just not business as usual. We'll ignore these issues for another 40 years until the government tries something else. The laity has a role to play to be sure, but unless our shepard's actually shepard on this issue, all this fighting will be for not.

  6. techwreck
    1 year ago

    Unfortunately, Ms. Fluke has turned out to be more than a symbol of unchastity. She is also a symbol of the decay in Catholic education because she is a student at Georgetown and the Cardinal of DC is unwilling to crack down on institutions that claim to be Catholic but do not comply with Church teaching. The Church is fighting itself because the hierarchy will not speak out, so we have a confused laity and American public wondering which is the "real" Catholic Church. Is it the Church of Cardinal Dolan, taking a principled stand against the power of the American government? Or, is it the Church of Cardinal Wurl, allowing a university in his diocese to imply it is Catholic and yet oppose Church teaching on the national media. The hierarchy continue to spread confusion in our country because they do not have the courage to take a stand against the Church's dissidents, and they will have to answer someday for the damage to the Body of Christ.

  7. eithena
    1 year ago

    CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT THE WAYS OF THIS WORLD ARE GOING DOWN THE GUTTER, FREE WHAT EVER HAS BEEN AVILABILE FOR YONKERS AND YOU STILL ARE NOT HAPPY JESUS HAVE MERCY THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO

  8. JoAnn
    1 year ago

    Cathy S: Right on. I'm in the same position you are. Rush did not call her names. Actually the libs did by injecting them into the conversation That's what Progressive Socialist do, they change the conversation. God bless.

  9. David&Joan
    1 year ago

    The further one falls into the sin of unchastity the less they think it a sin,as it becomes for them a natural form of behavior. Our whole society seems to prove the point. Chastity requires a strong faith,a faith in ones self,a faith in other people,and a faith in God. When one is not chaste and feel that chastity restricts their "life style",they have lost confidence in themselves,others and God,as they must constantly justify themselves for having the right to be who they think they are and that others should accept the fact that it is alright to be as one prefers to be,as only God is their judge. This is the age when personal feelings that are clearly wrong about chastity can be legislated to become law. Wrong again becomes the right for those that like to be morally wrong. Sex is fun? Those that think so are liberated? Those aborted since Roe vs Wade,if they could speak as a group,might have an even more moving testimony than Ms.Fluke to oppose hers and for excellent reasons. I wonder if President Obama would personally give that group a personal phone call of approval,sympathy and personal support.

  10. abey
    1 year ago

    Just as the universe works to a balance, so does life , which balance comes through the commandments of GOD to Life & non life each to its own ways, in which human chastity plays its part & where liberal Secularism violates the commandments which is to the word of GOD, to life, which includes chastity then the life gets to be unbalanced in the interconnections of time & to this context, saying change, change of all changes to the balances, resulting in imbalances is more than just ignorance, it is destruction & to this the saying "I am my brothers keeper" does matter which makes Limbaugh's words to be relevant, however harsh it may seem, to Obama"s stumble.


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