Must children always obey their parents?
Saint Alexis did not. He refused a marriage his parents had arranged.
Saint Catherine of Siena did not. She likewise refused to marry despite her parents urging.
St. Francis of Assisi did not obey his parents. In fact, he refused his father's patrimony.
St. Rita of Cascia disobeyed her parents - "what may have seemed
disobedience
on the part of little Rita were in fact mild reproofs, prompted, no
doubt,
by God, against that vanity which alas too often is planted by
indulgent
parents in the hearts of their young children....From the Augustinian breviary we
learn that Rita Mancini was twelve years of age when she made her
choice".
St. Thomas Aquinas refused his parents' will for his life.
Joan of Arc disobeyed her parents, choosing instead to walk 40 miles to meet a local lord.
St. Clare of Assisi secretly left her home and parents when she was 18.
And, while technically not his parents, St. John of the Cross suffered similar travail:
"On the night of 2 December 1577, St. John of the Cross was taken prisoner by his
superiors in the calced Carmelites, who had launched a counter-program
against John and Teresa's reforms. John had refused an order to return
to his original house." "He managed to escape nine months later, on 15
August 1578, through a small window in a room adjoining his cell. (He
had managed to pry the cell door off its hinges earlier that day)." St.
John of the Cross disobeyed his superior's order because it was unjust,
therefore, immoral. For disobeying he was imprisoned, but then escaped
since he knew the actions of his superior was not God's will for his
life."
As I've noted before, until
1917, the canon law of the Catholic Church considered anyone above the age of 12 capable of
marriage. The 1917 Code raised the minimum age for marriage in the
church to 14 for girls and 16 for boys. This is still the law in the 1983 Code. Though any minister considering marrying someone under 18 is supposed to consult with parents or the bishop, once a the individual turns 18, that consultation is no longer necessary.
Children have a duty to obey their parents.
Parents have a duty to recognize their children's maturity and consider it in their decisions.
CCC 2253 Parents should respect and encourage
their children's vocations. They should remember and teach that the
first calling of the Christian is to follow Jesus.
Much as they would like to be, parents are not dictators, nor are their children - especially their teen children - always bound to follow a parent's dictates.
God gives us children so that we raise them in sanctity. He also gives us children so that we may become more holy. We have to submit to the will of God not only in our lives, but in our children's lives. The children may know a call that the parents do not fully see or fully comprehend. Subsidiarity is one of the bedrock principles of Catholic Faith. Subsidiarity requires that, just as small children must learn to trust their parents, so parents must, to at least some extent, learn to trust their children.
Pray God that we can.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The GOP Cassandra
“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Akin said of pregnancies from rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”What does Akin mean by "a legitimate rape"? Well, according to this news story, FBI and US DOJ studies over the course of years have demonstrated that about one in four rape allegations are fabricated. False. Made up. Created out of whole cloth.
And we already know that rapists impregnate women at a lower rate than is normally expected. That is, we already know that Mr. Akin is correct.
Fact: An unfertilized human egg lasts 24 hours in the reproductive tract.
Fact: A woman can't get pregnant unless she ovulates.
Fact: Stress delays ovulation.
Fact: Rape is stressful.
Conclusion: Therefore, rape is likely to cause delayed ovulation and result in no pregnancy than a normal act of consensual intercourse.
These facts are individually uncontested
It's only when you put the facts together and draw the conclusion that the liberals begin frothing at the mouth.
Why?
Well, they are heavily invested in abortion.
As the internet has grown, the information surrounding how the abortion industry actually works is slowly revealing itself. No one likes that. It is bad for business.
All the abortion crowd has left to defend abortion is rape, incest and fetal deformity.
If the truth were to get out - rape actually results in lower than expected pregnancy - one of their three remaining bullets would be lost. Worse, by using the phrase "legitimate rape", Akin actually alluded to the fact that 25% of rape allegations are faked. One in four "raped" women are liars, actively trying to destroy some innocent man's life. Possibly, their "rape-pregnancy" is likewise a lie.
None of these facts can be borne.
So, Akin has to be slimed even though the facts are virtually self-evident, even if the facts ALL favor Akin.
Especially since the facts all favor Akin.
And notice how the Republican hoi polloi have supported him.
Cough.
Men in power, whether Democrat or Republican, want legal abortion.
So do women in power.
For as long as blood banks have been in business, we have known that nearly 30% of women have lied to their husbands about the paternity of "their" children.
Powerful men want to keep screwing women. Powerful women want to be screwed by powerful men. Neither group wants anyone else to know. Pregnancy and children are hard to keep secret. Well, they're hard to keep secret if the children are alive. If the pregnancy is aborted and the children are dead, there's no problem.
Have you ever noticed that one-in-three children are the result of cuckolding and one-in-three children are aborted? Funny how those statistics mesh so well.
As I said, Akin is completely correct, but no one can afford for that to get out.
Cassandra, call your office.
UPDATE:
This doctor says Akin is correct.
Dr. Hilgers also agrees with Akin.
UPDATE: II
Easily obtained DNA testing will certainly have an impact on the discussion.
UPDATE III:
For those who don't trust my analysis, read this.
Seems Karl Rove "joked" that Todd Akin should be murdered for having spoken the truth.
Powerful Republican men are identical to powerful Democrats - they both want one thing, and they want legal abortion so they can keep doing that one thing.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Of Pregnancy and Rape
Republican Todd Akins is in trouble for saying that a woman is less likely to get pregnant as a result of rape then she is at other times of her life.
Everyone is jumping on Akins because he said something wrong. Nobody has really demonstrated exactly what his error is. Either what he said is true or it is not. That is, either raped women get pregnant at lower rates than the general population of sexually active women or they do not.
If he is wrong, then he should apologize.
If he is not, there is no need.
I've heard lots of pro-lifers say the kind of thing Akin just said, but I've never seen the studies that backed it up. So, I thought I would take a look around.
Here's an abstract of a study by the NIMH that indicates "The national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. Among 34 cases of rape-related pregnancy, the majority occurred among adolescents and resulted from assault by a known, often related perpetrator."
(Remember that bit about adolescents, pregnancy and rape. It will be important later.)
So, according to the NIMH, rape has about a 5% chance of causing a pregnancy. OK. Well, how often would a woman typically get pregnant from one act of unprotected sex with someone she wanted to have sex with? According to this study, there is no difference - rape and consensual sex have the same pregnancy rates. But, according to a second study, if you add up all the numbers on the second study's graph in the most generous way over the 28 days of a typical menstrual cycle, you get a figure of about 3.5%.
So, it would appear that rape may actually increase the chance of pregnancy.
Hmmm... before we have poor Mr. Akin apologize, let's think about this a bit.
According to yet another study, the woman's choice to have sexual activity tends to cluster around her most fertile days. In fact, the study hypothesizes that intercourse can stimulate ovulation. Whether or not that hypothesis is true, we know the six days before ovulation are the woman's most fertile days. Having sex on a fertile day vastly increases the probability of pregnancy.
"Yes", I hear you say, "but we're talking about rape, you idiot, which - by definition - the woman doesn't choose."
Well, true. The woman doesn't choose to be raped.
But the man does choose whom to rape.
And we haven't taken that into account.
For instance, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network statistics on rape victims show:
So, can rapists tell when a woman is fertile? Do rapists preferentially rape fertile women? Because, if they do, then the rate of pregnancy should be much higher among rape victims than among the general population. And if the pregnancy rate is not appreciably higher, then Mr. Akins is, in fact, correct. That is, if consensual intercourse can stimulate ovulation then it is not unreasonable to assume that rape might reduce ovulation. If rapists chose fertile targets but had a lower-than-expected pregnancy outcome, that might be evidence that rape can inhibit ovulation.
In passing, it should be noted that schools of evolutionary psychology generally support the hypothesis that rapists seek out fertile females.
Now, let's recall the NIMH study above. Most of the pregnancies were (a) in adolescents and (b) by a known perpetrator, that is, someone who might know the adolescent well enough to (un)knowingly recognize the tell-tale signsof fertility.
And, with all that in mind, it looks like the experts being brought in to lambaste Akins are actually inadvertently providing support for what he said.
Consider Politico's piece. The experts Politico quotes indicate that rape creates about twice the pregnancies of normal intercourse. The experts do admit that this is because rapists target fertile young women. But if rapists were actually targeting fertile young women during their fertile periods - as we know is possible - then the rate of pregnancy should be around 15%, not around 5% or 6%.
So why the brouhaha?
Obviously, the MSM and the Democrats want to keep pro-life senate hopefuls out of office. So, they start a tempest about Akins because it will score political points. Akins can't clearly back up what he says, and the pro-aborts know it, so all they have to do is keep the focus off the fact that he might actually be right. This is easy enough to do.
The Republicans will go along with it because Mitt doesn't want something this stupid to derail his bid for the Presidency. As Ronald Reagan said, "if you're explaining, you're not winning." Finding out whether Akins is right is not worth the time.
Akins is being thrown under the bus because it's an election year. I suspect that he will end up like Dan Quayle - vindicated far too late for it to do any good.
Everyone is jumping on Akins because he said something wrong. Nobody has really demonstrated exactly what his error is. Either what he said is true or it is not. That is, either raped women get pregnant at lower rates than the general population of sexually active women or they do not.
If he is wrong, then he should apologize.
If he is not, there is no need.
I've heard lots of pro-lifers say the kind of thing Akin just said, but I've never seen the studies that backed it up. So, I thought I would take a look around.
Here's an abstract of a study by the NIMH that indicates "The national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. Among 34 cases of rape-related pregnancy, the majority occurred among adolescents and resulted from assault by a known, often related perpetrator."
(Remember that bit about adolescents, pregnancy and rape. It will be important later.)
So, according to the NIMH, rape has about a 5% chance of causing a pregnancy. OK. Well, how often would a woman typically get pregnant from one act of unprotected sex with someone she wanted to have sex with? According to this study, there is no difference - rape and consensual sex have the same pregnancy rates. But, according to a second study, if you add up all the numbers on the second study's graph in the most generous way over the 28 days of a typical menstrual cycle, you get a figure of about 3.5%.
So, it would appear that rape may actually increase the chance of pregnancy.
Hmmm... before we have poor Mr. Akin apologize, let's think about this a bit.
According to yet another study, the woman's choice to have sexual activity tends to cluster around her most fertile days. In fact, the study hypothesizes that intercourse can stimulate ovulation. Whether or not that hypothesis is true, we know the six days before ovulation are the woman's most fertile days. Having sex on a fertile day vastly increases the probability of pregnancy.
"Yes", I hear you say, "but we're talking about rape, you idiot, which - by definition - the woman doesn't choose."
Well, true. The woman doesn't choose to be raped.
But the man does choose whom to rape.
And we haven't taken that into account.
For instance, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network statistics on rape victims show:
- 29% are age 12-17.
- 44% are under age 18.
- 80% are under age 30.
- ages 12-34 are the highest risk years.
- Girls ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.
So, can rapists tell when a woman is fertile? Do rapists preferentially rape fertile women? Because, if they do, then the rate of pregnancy should be much higher among rape victims than among the general population. And if the pregnancy rate is not appreciably higher, then Mr. Akins is, in fact, correct. That is, if consensual intercourse can stimulate ovulation then it is not unreasonable to assume that rape might reduce ovulation. If rapists chose fertile targets but had a lower-than-expected pregnancy outcome, that might be evidence that rape can inhibit ovulation.
In passing, it should be noted that schools of evolutionary psychology generally support the hypothesis that rapists seek out fertile females.
Now, let's recall the NIMH study above. Most of the pregnancies were (a) in adolescents and (b) by a known perpetrator, that is, someone who might know the adolescent well enough to (un)knowingly recognize the tell-tale signsof fertility.
And, with all that in mind, it looks like the experts being brought in to lambaste Akins are actually inadvertently providing support for what he said.
Consider Politico's piece. The experts Politico quotes indicate that rape creates about twice the pregnancies of normal intercourse. The experts do admit that this is because rapists target fertile young women. But if rapists were actually targeting fertile young women during their fertile periods - as we know is possible - then the rate of pregnancy should be around 15%, not around 5% or 6%.
Hmmmm....
To my knowledge, no one has done a study to determine if rapists target fertile women during their most fertile periods, so I can't tell if Akins is wrong, but no one else seems able to prove he's wrong either. And we don't know if women on hormonal contraception (which might well mask pheromone signals) are raped at a different rate than women not taking hormonal contraception.
To my knowledge, no one has done a study to determine if rapists target fertile women during their most fertile periods, so I can't tell if Akins is wrong, but no one else seems able to prove he's wrong either. And we don't know if women on hormonal contraception (which might well mask pheromone signals) are raped at a different rate than women not taking hormonal contraception.
So why the brouhaha?
Obviously, the MSM and the Democrats want to keep pro-life senate hopefuls out of office. So, they start a tempest about Akins because it will score political points. Akins can't clearly back up what he says, and the pro-aborts know it, so all they have to do is keep the focus off the fact that he might actually be right. This is easy enough to do.
The Republicans will go along with it because Mitt doesn't want something this stupid to derail his bid for the Presidency. As Ronald Reagan said, "if you're explaining, you're not winning." Finding out whether Akins is right is not worth the time.
Akins is being thrown under the bus because it's an election year. I suspect that he will end up like Dan Quayle - vindicated far too late for it to do any good.
UPDATE
Looks like I'm not alone in this estimation.
This article is a nice discussion of the pregnancy problem from a hormonal point of view.
The author points out that high stress is a known cause of infertility - referenced constantly by fertility experts.
So, if the liberals are to be believed, rape is NOT a stressful event in a woman's life.
At least, that would be a fair summary of their argument, given the science.
Overall, it looks like the entire brouhaha has been ginned up by lying liberals in order to make Todd Akin look bad... and the Republican party is willing to go along with it because it would be too difficult to correct the record.
Update II
Some readers are questioning if rapists really target fertile women.
It seems they do,
Oh, and 7% of women are subject to pre-eclampsia... forgot about that.
This doctor says Akin is correct.
Dr. Hilgers also agrees with Akin.
UPDATE III
Further evidence that rapists may know when women ovulate, and may therefore seek them out preferentially...
Looks like I'm not alone in this estimation.
This article is a nice discussion of the pregnancy problem from a hormonal point of view.
The author points out that high stress is a known cause of infertility - referenced constantly by fertility experts.
So, if the liberals are to be believed, rape is NOT a stressful event in a woman's life.
At least, that would be a fair summary of their argument, given the science.
Overall, it looks like the entire brouhaha has been ginned up by lying liberals in order to make Todd Akin look bad... and the Republican party is willing to go along with it because it would be too difficult to correct the record.
Update II
Some readers are questioning if rapists really target fertile women.
It seems they do,
Oh, and 7% of women are subject to pre-eclampsia... forgot about that.
This doctor says Akin is correct.
Dr. Hilgers also agrees with Akin.
UPDATE III
Further evidence that rapists may know when women ovulate, and may therefore seek them out preferentially...
Sunday, August 19, 2012
I Confess
When Christians see the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, "I Confess", they generally have one of two reactions: either they nod in agreement or they leave the film in absolute horror. Depending on how one understands one's own Christianity, the action the priest takes in the last five minutes of the movie is either (a) beautifully perfect or (b) disorienting and perverse.
For Christians, there is no middle ground.
I won't spoil the ending by describing it, but as an RCIA director, I enjoy recommending that movie to new Catholics precisely because their reaction to the movie's ending will give them, and me, a feel for how Catholic their worldview is.
Similarly, "The Scarlet and the Black" is an historically accurate movie whose ending discombobulates
Christian audiences. The last five minutes are, again, shocking. Some Christians walk out disgusted, muttering under their breath about the perversity of the Catholic Church in general and Catholic priests in particular. But others walk out strengthened in their Christian convictions by the movie's resolution.
And so we come to Cardinal Dolan's Al Smith Dinner and the invitation of Barack Obama. Indeed, we might treat on the way the Al Smith Dinner organizers treat pro-abort groups versus pro-life groups in general.
Is Dolan acting as a stooge or a Christian?
Is it scandal to give Obama a platform, or is this Dolan's brilliant scheme to give Barack the opportunity to either publicly make up or make a fool of himself?
Mary Ann Kreitzer opines that Dolan's invitation shows disrespect for the unborn. Dolan would presumably never entertain the idea of inviting Barack to dinner if our fine President were in the habit of "stabbing a bishop in the head and sucking out his brains." And she brings forward numerous Scriptural examples of precisely this refusal. I confess an enormous amount of sympathy for Mrs. Kreitzer's position.
But, as I listened to this morning's sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan, I realized there was historical precedent of a sort. We have the example of the Church in and after World War II.
Even though the Nazis were responsible for slaughtering thousands of religious, priests and bishops in death camps across Eastern Europe, the Pope approved of smuggling these same Nazis - including Adolf Eichmann - out from under the nose of Allied troops who wanted Nazi leaders arrested, tried and hanged.
Now, the comparison is not exact. The Vatican ratlines were run in secret, those smuggled out were not being given a public forum. Still, there is no indication that the men being smuggled out were penitent - as in Eichmann's case, we can be pretty sure that at least some of them were not.
So, what are we to think about Cardinal Dolan inviting our modern-day Eichmann to a public dinner, in which the participants 'roast' one another? Does it signal some tacit approval of Barack Obama?
Well, again, we have precedent. For instance, we know Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII, signed a concordat with Hitler on behalf of the Church, even though Pacelli was under no illusions about the integrity of the man with whom he treated:
November has not yet come. Neither Cardinal Dolan nor we know for certain who will win the election, or what this particular madman will do if he does win a second term. Many, including myself, hold honest concerns that an Obama victory would spell the end of the remnants of free elections in the United States.
So, is Cardinal Dolan's invitation scandalous or wise?
Is it an exercise in Christian charity or participation in evil?
I honestly don't know.
I pray that Cardinal Dolan does.
For Christians, there is no middle ground.
I won't spoil the ending by describing it, but as an RCIA director, I enjoy recommending that movie to new Catholics precisely because their reaction to the movie's ending will give them, and me, a feel for how Catholic their worldview is.
Similarly, "The Scarlet and the Black" is an historically accurate movie whose ending discombobulates
Christian audiences. The last five minutes are, again, shocking. Some Christians walk out disgusted, muttering under their breath about the perversity of the Catholic Church in general and Catholic priests in particular. But others walk out strengthened in their Christian convictions by the movie's resolution.
And so we come to Cardinal Dolan's Al Smith Dinner and the invitation of Barack Obama. Indeed, we might treat on the way the Al Smith Dinner organizers treat pro-abort groups versus pro-life groups in general.
Is Dolan acting as a stooge or a Christian?
Is it scandal to give Obama a platform, or is this Dolan's brilliant scheme to give Barack the opportunity to either publicly make up or make a fool of himself?
Mary Ann Kreitzer opines that Dolan's invitation shows disrespect for the unborn. Dolan would presumably never entertain the idea of inviting Barack to dinner if our fine President were in the habit of "stabbing a bishop in the head and sucking out his brains." And she brings forward numerous Scriptural examples of precisely this refusal. I confess an enormous amount of sympathy for Mrs. Kreitzer's position.
But, as I listened to this morning's sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan, I realized there was historical precedent of a sort. We have the example of the Church in and after World War II.
Even though the Nazis were responsible for slaughtering thousands of religious, priests and bishops in death camps across Eastern Europe, the Pope approved of smuggling these same Nazis - including Adolf Eichmann - out from under the nose of Allied troops who wanted Nazi leaders arrested, tried and hanged.
Now, the comparison is not exact. The Vatican ratlines were run in secret, those smuggled out were not being given a public forum. Still, there is no indication that the men being smuggled out were penitent - as in Eichmann's case, we can be pretty sure that at least some of them were not.
So, what are we to think about Cardinal Dolan inviting our modern-day Eichmann to a public dinner, in which the participants 'roast' one another? Does it signal some tacit approval of Barack Obama?
Well, again, we have precedent. For instance, we know Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII, signed a concordat with Hitler on behalf of the Church, even though Pacelli was under no illusions about the integrity of the man with whom he treated:
“This man is completely obsessed,” he said. “All that is not of use to him, he destroys; all that he says and writes carries the mark of his egocentricity; this man is capable of trampling on corpses and eliminating all that obstructs him." [editor's note: does this sound familiar?]
Pacelli said "I had to choose between an agreement on their lines and the virtual elimination of the Catholic Church in the Reich"...Pinchas Lapide notes that whilst negotiations for Concordat were taking place, pressure had been put on the Vatican by the arrest of ninety-two priests, the searching of Catholic youth club premises, and the closing down of nine Catholic publications.Concluding a concordat with a madman is certainly a lot more binding then simply inviting him to dinner. Even so, the Church has chosen to treat with madmen many, many times in her history. We have not yet had to descend to the level of concluding a treaty with Barack Hussein Obama, although the pressure he places on Catholic institutions in this country have not gone unnoticed by Rome.
November has not yet come. Neither Cardinal Dolan nor we know for certain who will win the election, or what this particular madman will do if he does win a second term. Many, including myself, hold honest concerns that an Obama victory would spell the end of the remnants of free elections in the United States.
So, is Cardinal Dolan's invitation scandalous or wise?
Is it an exercise in Christian charity or participation in evil?
I honestly don't know.
I pray that Cardinal Dolan does.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
The Death of Chivalry
Some woman was lamenting the death of chivalry.
She thought women had a right to chivalry, a right to be treated well.
She lamented the fact that she couldn't find a chivalrous man anymore.
And so many articles say the same thing today, articles pushed by righteous Catholics who think that if men would just MAN UP and treat women right, all the problems will go away.
So men get blamed for playing video games, watching porn, refusing responsibility, walking away from the women they have sex with, using women, objectifying them, yada, yada, yada.
Yes, men do all those mean nasty things - no question of it.
But why do you think they do it?
Maybe they have their reasons too, eh?
Maybe after being told for 40 or 50 years that their opinions don't matter, some of those men decide to take society at its word. We are always so careful never to insult the pregnant mother who is walking towards the abortion clinic, "she's a victim, too!"
Yes, I'm sure she is.
But before us friendly neighborhood Catholics start passing around articles about the skunks that men are, how about we consider what might turn a man into a skunk? If a woman may not realize that she is really carrying a child, and not just a bag of cells, might it not be the case that a man may not realize that he actually might have a purpose in life bigger than World of Warcraft? Society tells men the same lies it tells women, yet men are attacked, and women are cosseted, when both believe the same lies, take them to heart, and try to live them out.
So, this was my thoughts on the matter:
She thought women had a right to chivalry, a right to be treated well.
She lamented the fact that she couldn't find a chivalrous man anymore.
And so many articles say the same thing today, articles pushed by righteous Catholics who think that if men would just MAN UP and treat women right, all the problems will go away.
So men get blamed for playing video games, watching porn, refusing responsibility, walking away from the women they have sex with, using women, objectifying them, yada, yada, yada.
Yes, men do all those mean nasty things - no question of it.
But why do you think they do it?
Maybe they have their reasons too, eh?
Maybe after being told for 40 or 50 years that their opinions don't matter, some of those men decide to take society at its word. We are always so careful never to insult the pregnant mother who is walking towards the abortion clinic, "she's a victim, too!"
Yes, I'm sure she is.
But before us friendly neighborhood Catholics start passing around articles about the skunks that men are, how about we consider what might turn a man into a skunk? If a woman may not realize that she is really carrying a child, and not just a bag of cells, might it not be the case that a man may not realize that he actually might have a purpose in life bigger than World of Warcraft? Society tells men the same lies it tells women, yet men are attacked, and women are cosseted, when both believe the same lies, take them to heart, and try to live them out.
So, this was my thoughts on the matter:
You want chivalry?Fine - give up abortion.
If you are willing to abort your own child, what the heck will you be willing to do to ME when the chips are down? Chivalrous men consider pro-choice women complete jerks.
Maybe that's why you can't find a chivalrous man - if he doesn't care about his child, he's probably not going to care a lot about you either.
And a gentleman unknown to me added his two cents:
Arenotamso • parent You want to f#%k a guy up? Have him hold the door of the abortion clinic for his girlfriend when she's getting an abortion he doesn’t want and has no say in for the supposedly bombproof reason that it is her body (“it” with no antecedant). That destroyed me for years. No one forced me to hold that door. I was trying to be chivalrous in my own confused and misguided way. Could I let her face it by herself? Was I sending a mixed message to her? No. She knew I hated what she was doing. But she was a southern lady who, like the author of this article, appreciated being treated like a lady. She lives with her decision. That she underwent it physically had to have been worse for her, but on the other hand she was able to comfort herself with lies, whereas I knew better. Abortion is a twisted business and you've really hit the nail on the head here by bringing it up in connection with chivalry because chivalry is the child of Christian culture, and Christian culture is born of Christian theology, and at the heart of Christian theology is the doctrine of the trinity, the triune nature of very God. The secular humanists and others who don’t identify themselves that way but also believe in "choice" cannot have chivalry AND abortion anymore than they can have, in the words of Flannery O'Connor's Hazel Motes, "the church of Jesus Christ Crucified without Jesus Christ."On a related note, another commentator, obviously not Christian, played a few of the points I've been harping on for quite some time - as science advances, lives lengthen and societies become richer, women become increasingly unnecessary to society. From a population reduction perspective, none of the zero-growth people want women. Women tend to free-lance too many kids. Chivalry - respect for women - is precisely the thing the zero-growther wants to kill with a stake through the heart:
What relationship that countenances the murder of a baby can survive, or what state or kingdom survive that sanctions such murder? In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the murders Macbeth commits also destroy his relationship with his wife and drive them both mad. But what doomed image does Shakespeare present to us twice just before the murders to presage the shattering of this love and of an entire kingdom; what image symbolic of the triune love that represents the heart of every love but more obviously the heart of the erotic, if chaste, love of Chivalry? Both Macbeth and his Lady speak of it explicitly and in detail, and it is the image of a baby! This child is an aspect of every love as flesh, as possibility, and/or as spirit, but in all three cases is utterly real - if love itself be real; and if love not be real, then neither is the God of Christians.
Though the Holy Spirit, unlike a baby, cannot be killed, it can be grieved, and if one has ever grieved the Holy Spirit, he or she knows that he or she would rather be dead, and be better off dead, than do it again.
In conclusion, you are right: if chivalry is to live, so must the child unseen at the very heart of it, and to the heart of the discussion at hand goes your challenge: “Ladies, so you want chivalry? Give up abortion.”
Nathan • Women don't seem to realize that they have lost an enormous amount of social value to men over the past century. The need for many women to reproduce has drastically declined because agricultural and medical technologies have extended and enabled life far exceed previous possibilities. In addition, the sexual revolution and subsequent legal enactments have placed virtually all of the power over reproduction in the hands of women, thereby devaluing those functions in the eyes of many men. Women are no longer expected to fulfill any role that involves supporting a man or spending much of her time making him happy; you can certainly argue about the merits of that shift, but it causes women to have less value to men for the same reasons that a foreign-language translator is worth less to an employer if they do not speak Chinese. Women's (and men's) attractiveness has suffered a dramatic decline because of rampant obesity. The advent of pornography has nearly eliminated the necessity of a woman in order for a man to experience sexual gratification.
So women aren't needed very much from a reproductive standpoint. They aren't desirable from a relationship standpoint. They aren't as desirable from an attractiveness standpoint. And they aren't needed from a sexual standpoint.
Setting aside all of the issues related to the breaking of the social contract and the unfairness of placing expectations on men and not women, the simple question remains: what on earth makes you women think you're worth it anymore? Why would you think that we care about what you think you deserve?
Thursday, August 16, 2012
We Have Met The Enemy
A lot of Catholic parents detest dating. According to these parents, dating encourages the participants to get used to frequent breakups, emotional roller coasters and psychologically prepares them for divorce.
Perhaps it does all of those things.
But the problem isn't with the dating.
The problem is with the Catholic parents.
Is Kellmeyer Crazy?
As I've pointed out in other posts, parents in post-industrial societies like our own infantilize their children. In pre-industrial society, 12-18 year olds were treated as adults. For centuries, canon law allowed 12-year old women and 14-year old men to marry (today, canon law has raised the age... to 14 and 16, respectively). Pagan Rome, where the average age of marriage for women was 14, had allowed the same thing, ages before Christ founded the Church. In fact, nearly every pre-industrial society on the face of the earth allowed what the Church allowed. Indeed, a recent survey of hunter-gatherer societies show the average age of marriage was 14 for girls and 21 for boys.
Twelve-year old men were apprenticed and learned a trade - they were expected to be masters at their craft and able to support a family by age 18. For centuries, that's exactly what at least half the population did - women were married by age 16, men were married by age 18.
Now, I know your first rebuttal, and it is wrong. Medievals weren't all mostly dead by the age of thirty. Early marriage was not permitted because everyone died at age 30. Everyone thinks nobody made it to fifty because no one understands what "median age" means.
Any medieval who made it to age 10 was likely to live to be 50. The median age of death was in the low 20s and 30s for medievals because a lot of medieval children died in their first few years. This high early childhood death rate dragged the median death age artificially down.
In point of fact, if a person was able to survive the nutrition and health problems of medieval childhood, s/he was as likely to make it to 50 then as anyone born in modern-day Russia is today.
What changed?
Well, with industrialization, we decided to use a different kind of educational system. We pretty much scrapped apprenticeships and went for mass public schools. This new method warehouses children through age 18, keeps them out of the workforce and out of job competition with older adults. It also infantilizes them.
But it didn't used to be that way. In colonial Mexico, for instance, "More than half the Indias are married by the time they turn 16....using Nahua censuses for some Morelos villages around 1540, McCaa has built a strong case for child marriage. There were girls married before ten; mean age could stand between 12 and 14.(9) In all likelihood, the introduction of Christian marriage, with its threshold of 12 years for wedding girls, brought about a small rise in mean age at marriage for Indias.... At the age when half the girls (16) and the boys (18) were already married, both parents were alive in three cases out of four.(12) Adult mortality did not explain precocity of marriage." A Nahua source with very complete lineage and demographic information concludes, "Here, we find no unmarried individuals above fifteen years of age."
St. Rita married at age 12. The Blessed Virgin is assumed to have been about 12 to 14 when she got pregnant with Jesus. Edward Longshanks married at 15 to his 13-year old second cousin, Eleanor of Castile. They had 14 children. St. Elizabeth of Hungary married at age 13 and had her first child at age 15. Chrysostom said young men should marry as soon as possible (before they turn 20), to keep them out of the whore houses and theaters.
Why were saints marrying and having children at what we would consider a very young age? As I point out in my book:
[Did not St. John Chrystosom say] “What greater work is there than training the mind and forming the habits of the young?” Indeed he did. But the Latin reads “Ouid maius quam animis moderari, quam adolescentulorum fi ngere mores?” (emphasis added). That is, Chrysostom was referring to the education of teenagers. This is quite clear from the context of the homily in which the sentence appears, a homily in which the saint is at pains to point out:Chrysostom knew something we have forgotten.
The fathers are to blame. They require their horse-breakers to discipline their horses, they do not permit the colt to remain untamed. Instead, they put a rein and all the rest upon it from the beginnings. But their children? These they overlook. They allow their children to go about for a long season unbridled, and without temperance, disgracing themselves by fornications and gamings and attending the wicked theaters. Before the fornication began, they should have given their son to a wife, to a wife chaste, and highly endowed with wisdom. Such a wife will bring her husband away from this disorderly course of life, and will be instead a rein to the colt…. Do you not know that you can do no greater kindness to a youth than to keep him pure from whorish uncleanness? (Homily #59 on Matthew 18).
We all remember that marriage is meant for the procreation of children and the unity of the couple. But we rarely recall - because no one ever teaches it - that marriage also serves a third and critically important purpose. Holy Marriage is the salve for concupiscence, the remedy for our tendency towards the sin of lust.
Why do you think our society is so steeped in sexuality? It is due in part to the fact that our society does not allow teenagers to get married. Teens want what they are made for - marriage and the procreation of children - but they can't have it. So society tantalizes them with what they can't have: a stable family, a good sex life, with themselves as the heads of that family, loving their spouses.
Conclusion
You see, when your 12 or 14-year old dates, they really do expect that they are finding a mate. If society, including their Catholic parents, left them alone, and didn't push post-industrial expectations of higher education, better jobs, etc., upon them, these teens really would get married at 14 or 15, as men and women that age have for thousands of years.
They would get married as the Church permitted them to for thousands of years.
They would get married as St. John Chrysostom recommended they should over 1500 years ago.
But as a modern, responsible Catholic parent, you won't allow them to marry at age 12, 14 or 16. They cannot imitate St. Rita of Cascia, or St. Elizabeth or the Blessed Virgin. You won't allow it.
If they start getting "too serious", you will actively step in and forbid them seeing that young man or woman so often, or perhaps, even forbid them meeting at all. You will break them up. It doesn't matter if they have a true vocation to marriage to that person. You will make sure it is delayed or destroyed. Catholic parents don't want early marriage and dozens of grandchildren from their only daughter or only son. Rather than allow the marriage, or encourage the couple to stay together to get married at age 14 or 15, the parents will either provide no support or actively encourage the couple to breakup.
And so the young men and women will be emotionally overwrought, they will go through innumerable breakups, they will spend the next ten or twenty years preparing themselves for the divorce that comes from marrying the wrong person. This will not result because of dating, but precisely because we will not allow them to marry.
Now, I'm not saying that you necessarily should allow your children to marry at age 14. I'm just pointing out that the problem with dating is not dating - it is the parents. Parents don't have the same expectations for their children they had prior to the industrial revolution.
So don't go blaming the culture for corrupting our children.
If anything, we are the ones who actively contribute to our children's corruption, because we go along with society's expectations for our children. We helped set up today's currently highly sexualized culture, we keep our children from marrying young so that they have to endure the tantalization for years, even decades, and we expect them to live as celibates without a community to support them or a vow of celibacy to give backbone to their lifestyle.
Yeah, the people corrupting our children?
That would be us.
PS
An excellent article, recommended in the comments, and worth reading.
Additional references:
Treating Teens like Toddlers
Does Society Infantilize Teens
Driving Teens Crazy
The Case Against Adolescence
PPS.
Interesting stats here. According to this article, the divorce rate among teen couples has dropped to match that of adults. It's almost as if the Internet and smart phones makes teens mature faster.
2021 divorce rate for 15-25 was 19.7
2021 divorce rate for 25-34 was 19.4
2021 divorce rate for 35-44 was 18.1
Women are now LESS LIKELY to get divorced between 15 and 24 then they are between 25 and 44.
The divorce rate for teenagers is now indistinguishable from that between 30-year olds. Either teenagers are maturing faster, are adults are becoming less mature.
Given that divorce rates dropped, it seems that smart phones and the Internet might be making teens MORE MATURE FASTER.
That is counter-intuitive.