“We will never surrender” - by Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph. D.

In MercatorNet

The following are remarks prepared by Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., for the Rhode Island legislature hearings on the redefinition of marriage and delivered there last week (January 15). Dr Morse is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage.

Almost two years ago, I came to this place to plead with you not to remove the gender requirement from marriage.[1]  I predicted that children would have three legal parents[2] and that custody disputes would involve three or more adults.[3]  I predicted greater attacks on religious liberty for those who resist your war against the gendered nature of the human body.[4]  I predicted the systematic removal of gendered language from the law. No more husbands and wives, only spouses. No more mother and father. Only Parent 1 and Parent 2.[5]  

All of these things have come to pass in other places.

Tonight, I have returned.

You will little note, nor long remember what I say here.   The rich people in our country have decided that we are going to have what you call same sex marriage.[6]  You will do what you have come to do.

So tonight, I have a few more predictions.

Some of you are in this fight for power, some for love.

For those of you who are in it for the power: I predict that even if you do not have enough votes this time, you will keep coming back until you do.

I predict that you will continue to remove any recognition of sex differences from the law.  The very bill you are considering tonight replaces “husbands” and “wives” and leaves only “parties.”   Banning a father daughter dance will seem like child’s play,[7] by the time you and your allies are done using the law to purge every last hint of sex differences from society.

I predict that you will grow more aggressive in attacking the natural bonds between parents and children.  You will continue to blur the distinction between “parent” and “non-parent.”[8]

But some excluded fathers will want a relationship with their children.[9] Some mothers will find sharing their child with another woman to be far more difficult than they expected.[10]  And some children will want to know their missing parent.[11]

No matter. Genderless marriage commits the state to taking sides against the natural parent and in favor of the socially constructed parent.

I predict that you will block any meaningful reform of the IVF Industry.  The IVF industry is guilty of grotesque exploitation of the poor by the rich, including the outsourcing of surrogacy to India.[12] I predict you will turn a blind eye to this and other abuses.

I predict that you will follow Quebec in its attempts to prohibit the belief that heterosexuality is normal.[13]  Wiping out a belief in something that is actually true will certainly open up vast vistas of government involvement in civil society.   Redefining marriage opens the door to increases in government power that could never be achieved any other way.

I do not know if any of these things are your intent or your wish.  But I predict they will be the outcome, the logical result of your marriage policy.

For those of you who are in it for the love, I have a few predictions for you too.

Many of us in the marriage movement are survivors of earlier phases of the Sexual Revolution.  We found that it didn’t work for us, the hook-ups, divorce, single motherhood, marital infidelity, cohabitation, as well as the contraception and abortion that made it all appear to be possible.  Only a few of us were wise enough to see from the beginning that this would end badly. And those who did see it, drew on the wisdom of the ancient Christian churches, churches that take a far longer view of things than most people do.

It would be astonishing if the steps you are contemplating tonight will work any better for you than the earlier stages did for us.

I predict that none of it will make you happy.  Not redefining marriage. Not the attempts to smother sex differences and biological connections. Not the further suppression of churches, religious organizations, and faith-filled private citizens. If normalizing homosexual activity were going to make you happy, it would have done so long ago.  You would not be so desperate today for affirmation from strangers.

And if any of you come to realize that the Sexual Revolution has been one empty promise after another, we will embrace you.  We will welcome you to our ragtag  ranks of  refugees, defectors and displaced persons from the great social civil war of our time.

Perhaps I will be mistaken, and you will never have a moment’s doubt for the rest of your lives.  In that case, we must continue to oppose you, to try to contain the damage we believe you are doing.

Even if we should lose this particular fight on this particular evening, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength on the airwaves, we shall defend our beliefs, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight in the churches, we shall fight at the ballot box, we shall fight in the schools and in the courts, we shall fight on the web; we shall never surrender.

As for me, I shall sleep soundly tonight, knowing that I have done my duty to God and my country and to future generations. And with that, I wish you all, a good night. 

Notes

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[1] My testimony from February 2011 is available on-line at the Ruth Institute Marriage Library, http://www.marriagelibrary.org/2011/02/dr-morse%E2%80%99s-testimony-to-the-rhode-island-legislature-regarding-same-sex-marriage/.

[2] California passed a bill permitting a child to have three legal parents if in the opinion of the judge, it was in the child’s best interest.  This particular law did not require the consent of any of the parents.  Governor Jerry Brown vetoed this bill, saying, “I am sympathetic to the author’s interest in protecting children. … But I am troubled by the fact that some family law specialists believe the bill’s ambiguities may have unintended consequences. I would like to take more time to consider all of the implications of this change.”
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/09/jerry-brown-vetoes-bill-allowing-more-than-two-parents.html  See my analysis of this bill, and the situation that gave rise to it, “Why California’s Three Parent Bill was Inevitable,”  The Public Discourse , September 10, 2012. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/09/6197/For a shorter analysis, see “A Little Girl Named M.C.,” available on-line at: http://www.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/entry/12/20383/20

[3] For a Canadian case involving three parents see here: http://www.calgarysun.com/2011/10/19/groundbreaking-ruling-in-gay-custody-case
For a British case involving four parents, see here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047671/High-Court-judges-blast-gay-parents-fighting-little-sisters.html#ixzz1buTCawCX

[4] For example, an innkeeper in Vermont, http://www.citizenlink.com/2012/08/24/vermont-innkeepers-settle-discrimination-case/ , a minister in Ontario, Canada, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ontario-christian-minister-forced-to-conduct-same-sex-marriages-or-get-sack.  For more complete analysis  of the religious liberty implications of this bill, I defer to my learned colleague from the Alliance Defending Freedom, Ms. Kellie Fiedorek.

[5] Washington State’s new marriage bill replaces “husband” and “wife” with generic  “spouses” throughout the law.  http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2011-12/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Bills/6239.pdf
The U. S. State Department attempted to introduce Parent 1 and Parent 2 on US Passports. After a public outcry, the attempt was abandoned.  But the attempt is still significant because it illustrates the momentum for removing gender-specific language from the law. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010706741.html

[6] To cite just a few examples, in New York, Wall Street Republicans contributed the money necessary to redefine marriage in the legislature.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/nyregion/the-road-to-gay-marriage-in-new-york.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1  In Washington state, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos contributed $2.5 million to pass the referendum redefining marriage.  Contributions of this magnitude made it possible for the proponents of genderless marriage to outspend the advocates of conjugal marriage many times over.

[7]The Cranston,  Rhode Island school district banned a father daughter dance, under pressure from the ACLU, that such a dance would be improper gender discrimination. ” Father-daughter dances banned in R.I. as ‘gender discrimination’” Los Angeles Times,  September 18, 2012, http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-father-daughter-dances-gender-discrimination-20120918,0,2172144.story

[8] Family law radicals are already paving the way for the redefinition of parenthood, to go along with the redefinition of marriage.  One way to blur the distinction between parent and non-parent, and to break down “bionormativity,” is to create and/or expand the concept of “de facto parent,” in which a judge can decide whether someone unrelated to child either through biology or adoption, can nonetheless count as a parent.  “Court upholds woman’s ‘de facto’ parental rights,” Delaware on-line, April 18, 2011, The Delaware statute ”is not specific to same sex couples, but applies to other unmarried partners and stepparents.” http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110419/ NEWS01/104190347/Court-upholds-woman-s-de-facto-parental-rights?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s;  State of Minnesota, A05-537, May 10, 2007, In re the Matter of Nancy SooHoo, Respondent, vs Marilyn Johnson. See also,  In re parentage of L.B., a Washington case creating a four part test for definition of de facto parents.
For an academic defense of multiple party parenting by contract, see Associate Professor at Michigan State University College of Law, Melanie B. Jacobs, “Why Just Two? Disaggregating Traditional Parental Rights and Responsibilities to Recognize Multiple Parents,” 9 Journal of Law and Family Studies 309 (2007).  The media are also attempting to normalize the redefinition of parenthood. See this puff piece,  “Johnny has two mommies—and four dads,” in the Boston Globe, October 24, 2010,http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/10/24/johnny_has_two_mommies__and_four_dads/

[9] The In re M.C. case arose in part because the biological father came forward to try to care for his daughter after the birth mother went to jail for accessory to attempted murder of her former partner. “Why California’s Three Parent Bill was Inevitable,”  The Public Discourse , September 10, 2012. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/09/6197/

[10] This is probably a factor in the drama in the background of the in re M.C. case.  It is surely a factor in the celebrated Miller-Jenkins custody dispute.    “FBI arrests Tenn. Pastor in Vt.-VA custody case,” Sign On San Diego, April 22, 2011. http://www.signonsandiego.com/ news/2011/apr/22/fbi-arrests-tenn-pastor-in-vt-va-custody-case/ “Vermont: ruling in Lesbian Custody Case,” New York Times, January 22, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/us/23brfs-RULINGINLESB_BRF.html

[11] See the many blogs and websites started by Donor Conceived Persons, such as http://www.tangledwebs.org.uk/tw/, http://www.anonymousus.org/index.php, http://donorconceived.blogspot.com/

[12] On the outsourcing of surrogacy to poor countries, see the following articles, which vary in their approval of the practice. Forbes considers it just another business. “The Newest Wave in Outsourcing to India: Surrogate Pregnancies,” Forbes, July 23, 2012.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/learnvest/2012/07/23/the-newest-wave-in-outsourcing-to-india-surrogate-pregnancies/
The Center for Bioethics and Culture considers it exploitation. “Biological Eugenic Colonialism,” citing a story from May 2012, http://www.cbc-network.org/2012/05/biological-eugenic-colonialism/
WebMD just reports, “Womb for Rent: Surrogate Mothers in India,” http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/features/womb-rent-surrogate-mothers-india

[13]“The Quebec Policy Against Homophobia,” also pledges to eliminate “heteronormativity,” which is the belief that heterosexuality is normal. http:// www.justice.gouv.qc.ca/english/ministere/dossiers/homophobie/homophobie-a.htm

Abortion: Another Milestone for America - by Regis Martin

In Crisis

Forty years ago this month, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down every law in the land protecting the right of any child simply to be born.   All at once, amid the sound and fury of imploding statutes, the most dangerous place in America became a mother’s womb.

Since Roe v. Wade authorized an almost unrestricted right to abortion, the lives of millions of innocent human beings have ended before their time.  And in the aftermath of the decision made on January 23, 1973, great and alarming numbers of our fellow citizens have come to terms with a culture of death.  What this means is that millions of people in this country are more or less culpably indifferent to the human status of the unborn child, ethically untroubled therefore by the gaping hole their absence has left in the larger human community.  Nor do their sensibilities appear to have been the least bit ruffled by the violence with which the abortion industry conducts its business.  People are not disturbed by what they choose not to see.

But for those who will not acquiesce in the killing of defenseless children, who remain haunted by the faces of so many unseen babies, their lives suddenly snuffed out by those who should love and care for them, the struggle continues despite the impacted complacencies of all those who will not defend them.  Yes, even despite the arrant institutionalization of a practice that, more and more, everyone, including those who both welcome and profit from it, acknowledge as the deliberate destruction of human life.

In other words, the Right to Life Movement simply will not go away.  Galvanized by the words of the eighteenth century British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke, it persists in the conviction that “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”  It is really quite astonishing the extent to which pro-lifers have remained totally resistant to the Spirit of the Age.  Why?  Because they know it to be evil.  And so, unwilling to give in to the counsels of despair, which everywhere argue the futility of all attempts to end the killing, they are resolved to redouble their efforts to stop it.  Because—so they believe—the iniquity of abortion will only go away when enough good people cease to do nothing about it.

It should not require any great leap of imagination to produce a snapshot of a world where wickedness is in retreat because of a few good souls determined on making a difference.  How vastly transformed the face of the last century, surely the most bloody on record, had only enough good people mobilized early on to oppose the evils of Hitler and Stalin!  The ultimate hideousness of the campaign to exterminate European Jewry, for instance, could hardly have succeeded in the face of early and vigorous opposition from even a handful of brave and honorable men.  Or put it this way:  but for the silence of so many of their neighbors, families and friends, the genocidal mania of one moral idiot could so easily have been thwarted.  Think of all that bitterness and hatred festering away in some fever swamp of private pathology; none of that larger megalomania left to engulf whole continents and peoples.

In the light of how things actually turned out, of course, how perfectly pathetic and irresolute were the politicians of that day.  Not to mention those millions of morally insensate souls on whom they depended for their support.  What happened to the soul of Christian Europe that kept it from upholding the ordinary decencies of the moral life?

Perhaps it had lost that “horrible moral squint,” of which a corrupt Cardinal Wolsey complained to Master More, when it became irritatingly clear to him that the latter would not bend to the King’s demands.  “You’re a constant regret to me Thomas.  If you could just see facts flat on, without that horrible moral squint; with a little common sense, you could have been a statesman.”

And how do we see things?  Have we too lost the squint?  Is our level of moral heroism any higher?  We like to think of ourselves as good and decent people, yet we allow an annual extermination of a million or more of our children, simply for want of an Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing their right to life.  Absent that guarantee, they continue to be sacrificed on the altar of reproductive freedom.  No other issue commands the moral high ground as this one does; for without the basic right of a child to be born, there can be no talk of any other right.  No one is safe so long as that right has been jettisoned for the sake of either ideology or convenience.  To paraphrase Mr. Lincoln, who, in the midst of a bloody Civil War well understood the urgency of the question:  “If you can kill some people, then you can kill any people.”

Certainly there is no other issue on the table of comparable importance to the Catholic Church in this country than the need to restore reverence for human life, most especially in its smallest and most vulnerable state.  It is, undeniably, the one teaching about which there can be no ambiguity as to where precisely the Church stands.  She is entirely on the side of life.  This is why the initiative taken by some bishops to withhold the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Unity, from those so-called Catholic politicians whose complicity with abortion breaks the bond of that unity, is both welcome and long overdue.

When professed Catholic politicians pass laws promoting the “abominable” practice of abortion (to use the language of the Second Vatican Council), they are not only dishonest in their exercise of bad faith regarding the truth about human life, that it possesses a dignity that they have cravenly refused to defend; but that, in addition, their egregious failure to champion the cause gives the gravest possible scandal to the faithful.  Lay Catholics are surely entitled to feel secure in the maintenance of the Church’s right to pass on The Gospel of Life, to recall the title of Blessed John Paul II’s beautiful and prophetic encyclical letter, which he issued in 1995, exactly ten years before returning home to God.

“When the Church speaks,” wrote St. Catherine of Siena, who did not hesitate to catechize princes and popes regarding their duties before God, “it is Jesus himself whom we hear.”  When Catholics in public office refuse to heed her voice, disdaining the sound of that voice even when it pronounces in the most apodictic way the truth of the moral law, then it is only fitting that certain consequences follow, chief of which is that they have disqualified themselves from fellowship with the People of God at the Altar of the Lord.  They have broken faith, in fact, with the very One who has most clearly and intimately identified himself with the least and the lost, namely, his and our own brothers and sisters in the womb.

The birth of a child, someone once said, is God’s opinion that life should go on. What a terrible blight we loose upon the world when, by the choices we make, we tell God that we are no longer interested in life.  That life should not go on.  Then Thanatos becomes our god, and we are no better than the Phoenicians, for whom the worship of Death, of Moloch, exacted a most terrible price: the sacrifice of their own children.   Without little ones, there can be no future.  Is that why the Phoenicians are no longer with us?

Abortion Promises Unfulfilled - by Michael J. New

In The Public Discourse

In the 1960s and 1970s, abortion advocates used a variety of arguments to advance their cause. Some emphasized women’s liberty and autonomy. Others tried to persuade people that easy access to abortion would benefit society as a whole. Consider just two representative quotations:

“A policy that makes contraception and abortion freely available will greatly reduce the number of unwanted children, and thereby curb the tragic rise of child abuse in our country.” (NARAL, 1978)

“The impact of the abortion revolution may be too vast to assess immediately. It should usher in an era when every child will be wanted, loved, and properly cared for.” (NARAL co-founder Larry Lader, 1974)

Legal abortion, advocates argued, would result in fewer out-of-wedlock births and less child abuse, and would ensure that every child was wanted. Over time, these arguments lost credibility because neither out-of-wedlock births nor child abuse was decreasing.

In the early 2000s, academics Steven Levitt (University of Chicago) and John Donohue (Yale University) published a study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, titled “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime,” claiming that legal abortion unexpectedly lowered crime rates in many American cities during the 1990s. Groups supporting abortion rights generally distanced themselves from this argument, fearing its eugenic implications. Though the findings have received some widespread credibility because of Levitt’s popular book Freakonomics, they have been much criticized by other academics.

In this essay I show that easy access to abortion during the past forty years has not benefited society as a whole. Legal abortion has not reduced out-of-wedlock births, child abuse, or crime rates.

Abortion and Out-of-Wedlock Births

After the Roe v. Wade decision, the out-of-wedlock birthrate continued to rise, even though the number of abortions increased substantially. At first glance, this seems somewhat surprising. When abortion became legal, a sexually active woman who did not want to bear children had the option of terminating her pregnancy.

But legal abortion dramatically changed social and sexual mores. When abortion became easily available as a back-up option, women as well as men became less careful about using contraceptives and more likely to engage in pre- and extra-marital sex. This increase in sex outside marriage further weakened social taboos regarding sex before marriage—resulting in even more sexual activity. Men who impregnated women faced considerably less social pressure to marry.

Indeed, Donohue has observed that after Roe v. Wade, conceptions increased by 30 percent. Of course, a higher percentage of these conceptions were aborted. However, the increase in the incidence of abortion failed to offset this increase in conceptions. As such, the out-of-wedlock birthrate continued to climb.

Steve Sailer, "Did Legalizing Abortion Cut Crime?" December 2005.

Abortion and Child Abuse

Abortion advocates frequently argued that legal abortion would decrease child abuse. Children who were wanted, they claimed, would be less likely to suffer from abuse than those who were unwanted. But social science data suggest that this logic is flawed. A landmark study of 674 abused children by Edward Lenoski (University of Southern California) found that 91 percent of the parents admitted that they wanted the child they had abused.  A 2005 study by Priscilla Coleman (Bowling Green University) showed that women who obtained abortions were 144 percent more likely to abuse their own children.

At a more theoretical level, Dr. Philip G. Ney, head of the Department of Psychiatry at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Canada, has outlined why abortion can lead directly to child abuse.

1. Abortion decreases an individual's instinctual restraint against the occasional rage felt toward those dependent on his or her care.

2. Permissive abortion diminishes the taboo against aggressing [against] the defenseless.

3. Abortion increases the hostility between the generations.

4. Abortion has devalued children, thus diminishing the value of caring for children.

5. Abortion increases guilt and self-hatred, which the parent takes out on the child.

6. Abortion increases hostile frustration, intensifying the battle of the sexes, for which children are scapegoated.

7. Abortion cuts the developing mother-infant bond, thereby diminishing her future mothering capability.

Overall, American statistics paint a clear picture. Legal abortion did not reduce child abuse. In fact, the exact opposite happened. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect has reported that child abuse has increased more than 1,000 percent since the legalization of abortion in 1973. According to data from the US Statistical Abstract, deaths due to child abuse continued to rise after the Roe v. Wade decision and increased by 400 percent between 1972 and 1990. Obviously, child abuse is caused by a variety of complicated factors. Still, our experience in the United States provides no evidence that legal abortion reduces child abuse.

Abortion and Crime

Donohue and Levitt's study cited above presented their results from a regression analysis that attributed an unexpected reduction in the US crime rate during the 1990s to legalized abortion. In essence, they argued that low-income earners and racial minorities tend to abort more often. Since criminals disproportionately appear in these categories, many would-be criminals were never born due to legal access to abortion. Crimes that these would-be criminals would have committed never happened. The study received considerable coverage from a number of mainstream media outlets including the New York Times and the Washington Post.

As a social scientist, I was skeptical of Levitt and Donohue’s findings. They claimed that the crime rate fell earlier in the group of states that legalized abortion before the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. But they did not seem to consider that many people who obtained abortions in states that legalized early, like New York, actually resided in other states, as reported in a National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Theodore Joyce, Ruoding Tan, and Yuxiu Zhang in 2012. They also claimed that states with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s tended to experience larger drops in their crime rates. But again, they did not seem to control for interstate migration. After all, many people born in one state grow up elsewhere.

Steven Sailer has presented a devastating critique of Levitt and Donohue’s research. He argues that the end of the crack-cocaine wars, not legal abortion, was largely responsible for the crime rate decline in many cities. More importantly, he shows that we can easily test Levitt and Donohue’s hypothesis by breaking down crime rates demographically. If their theory is correct, there should be a sharp decrease in the crimes committed by young people.

But Sailer shows that the cohort of 14-to-17-year-olds born after the Roe v. Wade decision was much more likely to commit homicides than the cohort of 14-to-17-year-olds born before Roe v. Wade. Similarly, the percentage and the number of violent crimes committed by those between the ages of 12 and 17 spiked in 1993 and 1994, over twenty years after abortion was legalized. Economists John Lott and John Whitely have made similar arguments in an article published in the academic journal Economic Inquiry, titled “Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out of Wedlock Births.”

Steve Sailer, "Did Legalizing Abortion Cut Crime?" December 2005.

Conclusion

Empirical evidence clearly shows that forty years of legal abortion have not helped our society. Contrary to the bold claims of abortion advocates, there is no proof that legal abortion has reduced either the out-of-wedlock birthrate or the incidence of child abuse. In fact, both the out-of-wedlock birthrate and the rate of child abuse have increased since the onset of widespread legal abortion. And research claiming to show that legal abortion has reduced the crime rate has been proven flawed. Since their empirical arguments for abortion’s benefits are weak, abortion advocates today generally focus on arguments for the autonomy and liberty of women. However, as we observe the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade and consider the impact of forty years of legal abortion, it is certainly worth noting that abortion advocates’ many promises for society remain unfulfilled.

* * *

The Public Discourse symposium on Roe at 40 features the following six articles; check back each day for the new essay:
Ryan T. Anderson, “On the Fortieth Anniversary of Roe v. Wade: A Public Discourse Symposium”
Elise Italiano, “Forty Years Later: It’s Time for a New Feminism”
Michael New, “Abortion Promises Unfulfilled”
Daniel K. Williams, “The Real Reason to Criticize Roe”
Gerard V. Bradley, “The Paradox of Persons Forty Years After Roe”
Michael Stokes Paulsen, “The Right to Life Forty Years from Now”

Pope Benedict XVI: "The Christian vision of man is, in fact, a great 'yes' to the dignity of the person"

VATICAN CITY, January 20, 2013 (Zenit.org) - Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave Saturday when receiving in audience participants in the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.

* * *

Dear friends,

... Your witness can open the doors of faith to many people who seek Christ's love. Thus, in this Year of Faith the theme "Charity, the New Ethics and Christian Anthropology," which you are taking up, reflects the close connection between love and truth, or, if you will, between faith and charity. The whole Christian ethos receives its meaning from faith as a "meeting" with the love of Christ, which offers a new horizon and impresses a decisive direction on life (cf. "Deus caritas est," 1). Christina love finds its basis and form in faith. Meeting God and experiencing his love, we learn "no longer to live for ourselves but for him and, with him, for others" (ibid. 33).

Beginning from this dynamic relationship between faith and charity, I would like to reflect on a point that I would call the prophetic dimension that faith instills in charity. The believer's adherence to the Gospel impresses on charity its typically Christian form and constitutes it as a principle of discernment. The Christian, especially those who work in charitable organizations, must let himself be oriented by principles of faith through which we adopt "God's perspective," we accept his plan for us (cf. "Deus caritas est," 1). This new way of looking at the world and man offered by faith also furnishes the correct criterion for the evaluation of expressions of charity in the present context.

In every age, when man did not try to follow this plan, he was victim of cultural temptations that ended up making him a slave. In recent centuries, the ideologies that praised the cult of the nation, the race, of the social class, showed themselves to be nothing but idolatry; and the same can be said of unbridled capitalism with its cult of profit, which has led to crisis, inequality and misery. There is a growing consensus today about the inalienable dignity of the human being and the reciprocal and interdependent responsibility toward man; and this is to the benefit of true civilization, the civilization of love. On the other hand, unfortunately, there are also shadows in our time that obscure God's plan. I am referring above all to a tragic anthropological reduction that re-proposes ancient material hedonism, to which is added a "technological prometheism." From the marriage of a materialistic vision of man and great technological development there emerges an anthropology that is at bottom atheistic. It presupposes that man is reduced to autonomous functions, the mind to the brain, human history to a destiny of self-realization. All of this prescinds from God, from the properly spiritual dimension and from a horizon beyond this world. In the perspective of a man deprived of his soul and of a personal relation with the Creator, that which is technologically possible becomes morally legitimate, every experiment is thus acceptable, every political demographic acceptable, every form of manipulation justified. The danger most to be feared in this current of thought is the absolutization of man: man wants to be "ab-solutus," absolved of every bond and of every natural constitution. He pretends to be independent and thinks that his happiness lies solely in the affirmation of self. "Man calls his nature into question … From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be" (Speech to the Roman Curia, December 21, 2012). This is a radical negation of man's creatureliness and filial condition, which leads to a tragic solitude.

The faith and healthy Christian discernment bring us therefore to pay prophetic attention to this problematic ethical situation and to the mentality that it supposes. Just collaboration with international organizations in the field of development and in human promotion must not make us close our eyes to these dangerous ideologies, and the Pastors of the Church – which is the "pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15) – have a duty to warn both faithful Catholics and every person of good will and right reason about these deviations. This is a harmful deviation for man even if it is waved with good intentions as a banner of presumed progress, or of presumed rights, or of a presumed humanism. In the face of these anthropological reductions, what is the task of every Christian – and especially your task – involved in charitable work, and so in direct relations with many social protagonists? We certainly must exercise a critical vigilance and, sometimes, refuse money and collaboration that would, directly or indirectly, support actions and projects that run contrary to a Christian anthropology. But, positively speaking, the Church is always committed to the promotion of man according to God's plan, man in his integral dignity, with respect for his twofold vertical and horizontal dimension. The actions of ecclesial development organizations are also oriented in this direction. The Christian vision of man is, in fact, a great "yes" to the dignity of the person called to intimate communion with God, a filial communion, humble and confident. The human being is neither an individual subsisting in himself nor an anonymous element of the collective. He is rather a singular and unrepeatable person intrinsically ordered to relationship and sociality. For this reason the Church stresses her great "yes" to the dignity and beauty of marriage as an expression of a faithful and fecund alliance between man and woman, and says "no" to such philosophies as the philosophy of gender. The Church is guided by the fact that the reciprocity between man and woman is the expression of the beauty of the nature willed by the Creator.

Dear friends, I thank you for your commitment on behalf of man, in fidelity to his true dignity. In the face of these challenges of our times, we know that the answer is the encounter with Christ. In him man can fully realize his personal good and the common good. I encourage you to continue in your work with a joyful and generous spirit as I bestow upon you the Apostolic Benediction from my heart.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

The Dynamic of the Gift: Authority and Submission in Christian Marriage - by Mary Stanford

In HPR

At the heart of the Christian vocation lies the notion of gift.  Each of us is called, in some particular way, to make a gift of our very self.  It is this “self-gift” which we call “love.”  Living out a true dynamic of gift within the specifics of family life, however, brings with it a distinct challenge.  This is because the love relationship, marriage, which is the foundation for the family, is not just any ordinary community of persons.  The persons who enter marriage are either man-persons or woman-persons.  As Catholics, we do not profess to be gender-neutral; we believe that masculinity and femininity shape the entire person, not merely the body.

Both persons in a marriage are called to love,which means that each one is called to a life of giving and receiving.  The catch is:  spouses don’t give and receive in exactly the same way.  This is because man and woman are not replicas of one another, nor are they mirror images.  Instead, they seem designed to exist in an asymmetrical relationship which has often been described as “complementary.”  The recently canonized German philosopher, Edith Stein, provides some excellent insight into the spiritual differences between man and woman.

Edith Stein argues that a person’s physical nature is an expression of his or her spiritual dimension, and is to be understood as a “clue” to that person’s destiny.  With what specific qualities does nature endow a woman?  The most obvious is the capacity to bear new life—the ability literally to grow and nurture another person in her own body.  Stein suggests that it is precisely because of a woman’s natural disposition to cherish, guard, and preserve the life within her womb that her spiritual ideals take on a distinctly feminine character. ¹  

Regardless, then, of whether a particular woman ever bears a child in her life, she has been given a psychological outlook which is geared toward the development and nurturing of another person.  Fulton Sheen noted that while men tend to gather around discussing things and ideas, women are much more inclined to gather around discussing other people. ² We must ask:  in what way is a person different from a thing or an idea?  For one, a person is a concrete whole.  There is nothing abstract about a person.  When a mother takes care of a child, she does not have the luxury of caring for his physical needs one day, and his psychological needs the next.  She needs to relate to her child as a whole—and in the present moment!  She cannot abstract from, or ignore, any of his needs.

A person is a multi-faceted creature, with women being more inclined and equipped to deal simultaneously with all of these facets, and giving women a tendency to excel at multi-tasking. A woman is a natural multi-tasker because she is “person-oriented.”  She demonstrates an instinctive way of “tuning in” to persons and personal details to a degree that most men do not share.  (Men tend to develop these abilities by way of learning, rather than by instinct.)

What gift, specifically, enables a woman to connect so naturally with others?  Stein argued that it was a woman’s emotions which fueled this ability.  She commented that it is only through the stirring of the emotions that one can really relate to a soul in its entire being ³—one glance at her child’s face can often reveal more to a mother than if she were to ask the child a barrage of questions.  It is the place of the intellect to separate and abstract: the intellect breaks things down in order to understand them.  The emotions, on the other hand, can sense the whole.  This ability is what the ages have termed “women’s intuition”— an immediate grasp of a particular truth.   This is not to suggest that women do not have an intellect, but merely that it is not primarily the intellect which powers her heightened ability to engage with persons.

It is precisely the intellectual ability to abstract from the whole that informs the natural outlook of men.  Consider a man physically.  His physical form is not designed for bearing and nursing a little person. What characterizes his physical form is size and strength.  His capacity for battle and for work indicates that he is designed not to receive and nurture a person, but instead to act on the world.  While this is done certainly for the sake of persons, his immediate outlook is less person-oriented, and much more deed or object-oriented.  A man tends to more easily distance himself from the immediacy (often, the total chaos) of a situation in order to pursue a long-term goal beyond it.  This is a strength of the intellect.  Man has an ability to pursue the future by disentangling himself from the emotional pull of the present moment.  Think about it:  how else could a father leave the intimacy of home and family, day after day, to trudge off to work?  How else could he stand to leave his loved ones in order to march off to battle?   (How else could he spend five hours straight playing video games?)   Men often rely upon their ability to compartmentalize, to “shut down” their emotions, in order to accomplish important tasks.

Once again, these complementary perspectives of man and woman, Stein asserts, find their source in the sexual difference.  A woman’s entire sense of identity is deeply connected to her body, and its nurturing power.  From an early age, her body, and its natural hormonal cycles, remind her she is female.  She seldom feels the need to “prove” she’s a woman in the way a man does.  Her body simply reveals it to her, and in a certain way, she identifies herself with that body.   (Note the amount of time and attention women pay to the details of physical appearance.)   A man’s body-soul relationship, however, is a little less direct—his body does not immediately reveal to him that he is a “man.”  Because his physique is designed for work, his body serves more as an instrument to his identity. ⁴  It is precisely those deeds which he accomplishes through his body that form the basis for his sense of self; hence, the time-old tradition of initiatory rites for young men, who attempt to “prove” their manhood through various actions. Comprehending this subtle difference in self-understanding is key in explaining the different ways in which men and woman both crave and express love.

The masculine and the feminine orientations—towards the “project” and the “person”—are both absolutely necessary for the fostering of the family.  While a man’s concerns tend to be more “linear”—directed toward accomplishing a single task at a time—a woman is inclined more globally—interested simultaneously in all aspects of the person.  It has been said that while men tend to be specialists, it is women who are the great universalists.  The fact remains that the world needs both.

What we need to remember, however, is that God’s design, beautiful as it is, has been profoundly affected by original sin.  And it is not just human nature in general which bears the wounds of sin, but human nature in its particular incarnations of masculinity and femininity.

It is well-known that a man’s particular abilities for specialization and abstraction can come at the expense of personal relationships.  A man’s absorption in his career may cut him off from family life.  His drive toward accomplishment and dominion may degenerate into an exploitation of the world, a senseless acquisition of wealth and, often, an objectification of women. ⁵  Frankly, man’s “worst fault” is summed up in a single phrase:  he tends to rank things over persons, or better, he tends to treat persons like things.  Sinful man approaches the world from the perspective of dominating and controlling things for their use, and is, therefore, inclined to abuse other persons along the way, treating them as objects.

Women, too, must examine the perils of their own femininity, which did not make it through the Fall unscathed either.  Her instinctive concern for the growth of others can easily be perverted.  It can be confused, first of all, with mere curiosity about others, leading to that incessant gathering of all possible information about them.  That women are most often the perpetrators of gossip is no accident; it is simply a perversion of her natural, global concern for persons.

Furthermore, because of her orientation toward the whole, rather than the part, a woman can too easily make the mistake of “frittering away her powers” ⁶ by dabbling in too many things at once, putting herself in danger of living only at a superficial level.  Where a man might get lost “in his project,” so to speak, a woman often has her hand in so many things that she doesn’t enter very deeply into anything.

There exists another perversion of the feminine nature, as well:  a woman’s concern for others can degenerate into something radically self-centered.  A woman’s emotional desire for personal relationships can propel her to insert herself into the lives of others, drawing satisfaction by clinging to the “needy,” gaining a sense of importance through involvement in others’ lives.  While Stein asserts that the emotions are the feminine source of strength which enable a woman to “tune in” so effectively to persons, they become her Achilles heel if she does not temper them.  Experience reveals that it is all too easy for women to become obsessed with relationships, and slaves to their moods.

So we can see that the man-woman relationship, which is foundational for the family, is a precarious one because of the effects of original sin.  The account of Genesis is clear on this point.  After eating of the forbidden fruit, the man and the woman in the Garden face the consequences.  God addresses the woman:  “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (RSV Gen 3:16)  For his part, the man will be prone to dominate his wife, to use her and control her as one would an object;  the sad complement here, however, is the part the woman plays:  through her own fallen nature and desires, she will allow—and even encourage—this domination to happen.  Sin transforms the man-woman relation into what Stein calls “a brutal relationship of master and slave.” ⁷ And while these fallen tendencies of ours cannot be ignored, we know that they are not God’s will for the family.  That is simply not how he made us—sin and its consequences are a human accomplishment, not a divine one!  Christ our Lord has placed the relationship between man and woman at the foundation of the family for a reason. If sin fractures this relation, we must ask:  how, specifically, does Christ propose to repair it?

For if Christ came to redeem the world, surely he came to redeem marriage as well.  It is at this point that we must look at St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  Here, encapsulated, is Christ’s teaching on the husband-wife relation:  what marriage is meant to look like, what the grace of redemption enables the man and woman to become.

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.  As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (RSV Eph 5: 22-27).

It is clear in this passage that the natural differences between man and woman do not “disappear” as a result of Christ’s grace; there remains a definite “asymmetry” in the relation that founds the family.  The man as “head” is clearly not identical to the woman, called to “be subject” to him.  Today’s feminist ideology, which identifies any “difference” with “inequality,” completely disregards St. Paul’s words here as being culturally conditioned—simply a remnant of the “dominating male/servile female” notion of antiquity.  What are we to make of this?

On the one hand, we know that the early Christians were radically counter-cultural. So there was no reason for St. Paul to dilute the truths of faith in his preaching.  On the other hand, if the so-called “master-slave” relation between man and woman was the result of original sin, how could St. Paul possibly be referring to—and upholding—this model in his preaching on the sacrament of marriage?  Christ came to heal our sins, not to reinforce our already sinful inclinations.  So we must try to understand the asymmetric relation between husband and wife in a redeemed sense.

If being “head” does not mean “being a tyrant,” and if “being subject” does not mean “being a slave,” then we must consider the true meaning of these terms, without compromising them to make them more palatable for our times.  In marriage, St. Paul makes clear that the husband is the authority.  We must, then, ask:  what is the authentic meaning of “authority”?

The root of the word “authority” is “author,” and what is an author but the very source of a thing’s life?  An author brings a thing to life. The philosopher, Yves Simon, describes the function of authority in a similar way, though from a more political perspective.  He argued that authority was an essential principle in governing people.  This is so because every group of people needs guidance and coordination if their common good is ever to be achieved.   He claimed that the precise function of authority is to vivify each of the different parts of a whole. ⁸ And what does “vivify” mean?  To energize or bring to life—there is that idea again.  True authority “brings out the life” of those it serves.

When authority, in the political or the domestic sphere, is misunderstood as tyranny, it attempts to squash and dominate its subjects; it crushes their spirit and it squelches their life.  All true authority must be true to its name:  it must foster life.  This principle was affirmed by John Paul II, when he stated that in “revealing and reliving on earth the very fatherhood of God, a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of his family.” ⁹

Through his initiative and purposeful activity, a father’s “project” is to help realize the potentialities of those under his charge, to foster their lives.  This notion finds its biblical correlate in St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  There, a husband is called to be “head” in the manner of Christ himself, to love his wife as Christ loved the Church.  How, precisely, did Christ give life to the Church?  By pouring out his own life for her.  You can’t “give life” unless you literally give life.  A father is called to self-sacrifice to the point of death for his beloved ones.  Like Christ, he is not a tyrant, but a lover; he does not exercise authority by taking, but by giving.  And so it seems that in the gift dynamic of marital love, it is the man who emerges as the chief giver—and it is precisely in this mode of giving in which he properly exercises authority.

But if this is the case—that there is an authority proper and exclusive to the husband—how are we to understand the submission of the wife?  Does this make her something like a slave, servile and unequal in dignity?  First of all, a slave is someone who has not chosen to serve; a wife is one who voluntarily chooses to submit to her husband.  From the beginning, there is the will: the exercise of freedom in marriage.  In fact, the Greek verb St. Paul uses for “be subject” (hypotasso) has the character of being reflexive—it literally translates to “submit yourself.”  It is a call for wives to make this free choice to submit. (He does not say, “Wives, you are by nature inferior beings,” but rather, “You are being called to make this submission so that the family will be truly fruitful.”)

And what is the nature of this submission?  Since the husband is called to give himself, a wife’s submission is essentially a way of receiving her husband’s self-gift.  John Paul II refers to a wife’s submission as “above all, the experiencing of {her husband’s} love.” ¹⁰ She is becoming vulnerable, allowing him, in fact, to do certain things for her.  After all, how can he give his life to a wife who will not accept it?

What we need to realize is that being a receiver is more difficult than it sounds.  Being on the receiving end of a gift requires a willingness, as Gabriel Marcel suggested, to “accept the unexpected.” ¹¹  After all, with a gift, we never quite know what we are going to get.  One does not order a gift according to certain specifications.  Furthermore, receiving a gift makes one vulnerable to the giver of the gift. It makes one, in a certain way, freely indebted to him, willingly obliged to him, and inextricably involved with him.  The receiver of a gift carries a great burden—the entire relationship hangs in the balance based upon her free response to the gift.  Will she receive it gratefully or ungraciously?  Will she wound the giver? Or inspire him to give more generously through her appreciation of his efforts?

From the beginning, the human person has struggled with being on the receiving end of a gift.  Adam and Eve simply could not countenance being in such a position with regard to God.  Consider that, from the very beginning, they had known nothing else but God’s total generosity and care for them in the Garden.  And yet, they could not stand having to accept such generosity on God’s terms.  The humility required by such terms was more than they could bear.  They instead chose to accept Satan’s proposition that God was not loving, but jealous, that God’s command to them (regarding the forbidden fruit) was not for their good, but in order to withhold power from them.  Though such an idea was totally insupportable in the face of God’s complete generosity toward them, our first ancestors chose to accept the lie of the tempter.  As John Paul II declared, Adam “cast doubt in his heart on the deepest meaning of the Gift” and “on love as the specific motive of creation.” ¹² They chose to believe that God’s relationship to them was not rooted in gift, but in a mere power play.

From the beginning, then, man has had a mistaken notion about authority.  We have made the fatal error of believing, like Adam and Eve, that God’s authority was bound up in some sort of knowledge that we could gain.  Such an error has echoed down though millennia, and was summed up the Baconian mantra that “knowledge is power.”  When in reality, true power, true authority, was first and foremost rooted in love—in the utterly unmerited, divine gift of creation itself.

And so it is, that a husband’s authority, a husband’s headship, is not even possible without a free and gracious reception on the part of his wife.  Indeed, a husband needs to be allowed, freed, enabled to be “head.”  At its heart, then, authentic submission is an attitude, a fundamental disposition of gratefulness, offered in response to a husband’s works performed on behalf of his family.

These works, these “gifts,” so varied in kind, are the concrete manifestation of his authority—of his “life-giving” role in the family.  Examples of such gifts are his material support, through which he creates the conditions for his wife to fulfill her person-centered nature.  Through his employment, he is enabling her, freeing her, to foster the emotional ties upon which she and her children thrive.  Even assistance with household tasks—such as cleaning and laundry, and anything that helps his wife to be more patient, nurturing and attentive toward her children—is included in this gift.  Beyond material support, the spiritual encouragement he gives his wife to continue to develop and share her own talents (something often neglected by the “multi-tasking” wife), can be essential in maintaining her happiness, and sense of self-worth. ¹³ Another critical gift is his presence.  A father’s educative “presence” in the family begins at birth, when he introduces a newborn child to the very notion of otherness, and continues through the teenage years, as he sets an example for his children, particularly through his faithful love of their mother.  One may object that such actions are generally expected of a “good” husband and father; the material point here is that such activities are essentially an exercise of true authority, and they are not to be feared.

What usually strikes a note of fear when addressing the topic of husbandly authority, however, is in the area of decision-making.  Does a husband’s headship extend to decision-making?  Certainly, it cannot be denied that each member of the family has a proper “sphere of activity” in which free decision-making is possible and necessary.  How can anyone be prepared for a fully human life if his or her freedom has not been developed?  Spouses, as a natural part of their vocation to love, should seek to communicate, as fully as possible, regarding decisions that affect their family’s future—and should seek consensus.  In fact, a wise husband will often heed his wife’s advice, deferring to her expertise in many matters.  But, there are times in every family when a consensus cannot be reached, and it falls to the husband to make the decision.  And while there is a certain sense in assigning someone in the family with “a final say,” it is not simply accidental that such a say is given to the husband.  William May points out that a husband’s masculine nature helps equip him for such a task:  “at times, [the man's] superior strength is relevant; very often, his experience in dealing with the external world, and his tendency to devise means to achieve particular goals, is of crucial significance” ¹⁴ in being able to make decisions for the common good of the family.

Recall that a man tends to be future-oriented; a woman, because of her attention to persons, is at times so consumed in tending to them in the present moment that it can be difficult to abstract from it in order to gain perspective.  On the other hand, the woman’s nature gives her a distinct advantage in accepting her husband’s decision in a difficult matter. The feminine ability to subordinate her own interests for the sake of a personal relationship ¹⁵ enables her to “get on board” with a decision with which she may disagree.  A man, being object-oriented, struggles more to accept such decisions, and, should they backfire, may be less willing to take responsibility for them.

What is important to keep in mind here is that these types of “final say” decisions are not the norm in marriage; they are the exception.  Those who would argue against a husband’s authority often paint a picture of a dictator husband making “final decisions” on a daily basis and a passive, subservient wife who keeps her opinions to herself.  Having a clear principle of authority within marriage, however, ought to give wives a new sense of responsibility.  A wife needs to use all of her powers—of intelligence, of intuition, and especially of her natural warmth—to influence her husband.   If she takes her maternal mission seriously, she will work to be an effective advisor to him, and a passionate advocate for her children’s well-being.  The more devoted a wife becomes to communicating positively with her husband, the more rare it is that a stalemate is reached.

And such decisions can hardly be considered a “triumph” for a husband.  In fact, they can be quite burdensome because they are to be made for the common good of the family, not in order to satisfy his own whims.   He must then bear the weight of responsibility for those decisions, particularly if they should turn out badly.

So, we see that authentic authority does not tyrannize; it will not oppress those whom it leads.  In fact, we recognize instead the great trepidation of those who wield it; for it is they who are called to complete self-oblation.  The husband is called to image Christ—and though he is not Christ—he will grow more and more into Christ’s image through the respectful submission of his wife.  It is she, who by lovingly placing herself in his hands, inspires him to claim responsibility for herself and her children.

Such an idea may be difficult for a modern wife to swallow.  But the bleak alternative to such a model—otherwise known as the “nagging and controlling” wife—is already a documented failure.  Nature has simply ordained it this way. Nagging will, without a doubt, repel a man.  Why?   Because nagging erases the freedom of his gift.  Nagging demands a gift,which really negates the meaning of gift in the first place.  Nagging strikes at his masculinity, which is bound up in being a giver.  Harsh criticism from a wife is toxic to a man; it can seriously compromise his ability to give, because his identity is wounded by digs at his efforts.  While a woman is more easily wounded by remarks against her physical person; a man, on the other hand, is more sensitive to critiques of his ideas or actions.

It is rather through beauty, admiration, and gratitude that a man is truly motivated to give.   When a wife shows appreciation for his deeds, however imperfect, she is communicating a respect which affirms him to the core.  It is often precisely the measure of a wife’s delicacy, of her respectful adherence to him, that has awakened in many a husband the vocation to live as another Christ.  For every husband fails in some way—and though she may be tempted to—no woman should respond to the failure of a husband by failing as a wife.  Each wife must take literally the words of St. John Chrysostom:

‘Be subject to each other out of reverence for Christ.’  If your spouse does not obey God’s law, you are not excused.  A wife should respect her husband even when he shows her no love, and a husband should love his wife even when she shows him no respect. ¹⁶

Notice his language here—though man and wife are both called to love—there is an underlying asymmetry in the dynamic of this love.  A woman craves love in the form of a gift; a man craves respect as an expression of gratitude for that gift.  A wife’s submission, at its root, is a loving, grateful reception of her husband’s self-gift.  But is not love supposed to be mutual?  Does a wife have nothing to give? Certainly, but her most valuable gift to her husband is no “thing” at all:  it is a fundamental disposition of gratitude. A woman, sensitive to a man’s soul, knows that an appreciative manner can truly build him up, and inspire him to become even better.  Just as she nurtures others in her life, she must “make room” to receive and appreciate what he has to offer. ¹⁷

For his part, a man, though acting in the role of chief giver, demonstrates his gratitude, his appreciation for his wife through his acts of giving.  It is an honor for him to be able to give to her; to have his gifts received and cherished exclusively by her.  His outgoing deeds demonstrate his appreciation, his gratitude for the woman.   It is like a gift to him to be able to bestow something upon her.  Hence, the phrase “allow me” when performing a service for another.  There is a certain simplicity to it; but it does not make living this gift dynamic “easy.” Therapists have noted that one consistent symptom in troubled marriages today is that husbands do not feel respected by their wives.  Such a “gift dynamic” seems grounded in our very natures; couples ignore it only at the cost of their own happiness.  It is only through the self-sacrificing gift, and generous acceptance, on the part of husband and wife that marriage will cease to resemble the “power play” suggested by Satan, and will, more and more, begin to image the Trinity in being a self-giving love that is fruitful.

1. Edith Stein, Essays on Woman, 2nd edition, revised. Vol. 2 of The Collected Works of Edith Stein, trans. by Freda Mary Oben. (Washington, D.C.: ILS Publications, 1996), 45. ↩
2. See Fulton Sheen, The World’s First Love (New York: Garden City Books, 1952),134. ↩
3. Stein, 96. ↩
4. Stein, 95. ↩
5. Stein, 71. ↩
6. Stein, 47. ↩
7. Stein, 72. ↩
8. See Yves R. Simon, A General Theory of Authority (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962), 64-65. ↩
9. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris consortio, 25. ↩
10. John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Michael Waldstein  (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006), 92:6. ↩
11. See Kenneth Schmitz, The Gift: Creation (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1982), 48. ↩
12. John Paul II, Man, 26:4. ↩
13. Stein, 77. ↩
14. William E. May, “The Mission of Fatherhood,” Josephinum: Journal of Theology, Vol. 9. No. 1 (Winter/Spring, 2002), 42-55. ↩
15.  See Stein, 46. ↩
16. St. John Chrysostom, On Marriage and Family Life, trans. by Catharine P. Roth and David Anderson (New York:  St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), p. 54. ↩
17. See Stein, 132.  She describes the feminine soul as “a shelter in which other souls may unfold.” ↩