By Anthony Esolen, The Catholic Thing, Sept. 11, 2023
Anthony Esolen is a lecturer, translator, and writer. Among his books are Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, and Nostalgia: Going Home in a Homeless World, and most recently The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord. He is a professor and writer in residence at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts, in Warner, New Hampshire. Be sure to visit his new website, Word and Song.
So the Catholic, trying hard to be faithful in a faithless time, is now to be dismissed – according to a Certain Person in Rome – for being obsessed with sins “below the belt.” Whether that includes a kick to the groin is not clear.
How about above the belt – in the eyes and in a mind scorched by the evils of a world that has rejected the most fundamental truth about sex? It is the truth that our Lord affirmed, that “in the beginning God made them male and female,” and “for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” (Mt. 19:4-5). …