Sexual Morality, Hope, and Healing

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P. A. Ritzer, Volume 29

Please see all twelve parts of “The Big Lie of Overpopulation and the Fear that Drives It:” Part One: “One Big Family;” Part Two: “Truth Pierces the Veil of Propaganda;” Part Three: “Elon Musk, Bill Maher, Mark Steyn, Ronald Reagan, and Paul VI on Demography, Life, and Murder;” Part Four: “Nature, Control, and Sin;” Part Five: “Psychology, Communication, Love, Communion, and Sacrament (Not Necessarily in that Order);” Part Six: “Sexual Morality, Hope, and Healing;” Part Seven: “Compelling Observations about Human Procreation from Roseanne Barr, Tucker Carlson, and Calley and Casey Means;” Part Eight: “The Deep, Broad Root of the Culture of Death;” Part Nine: “In Vitro Fertilization and Transhumanism as Illuminated by Nicole Shanahan and Mattias Desmet;” Part Ten: “‘A Truly Human Civilization’ vs. the F-Word Culture;” Part Eleven: “Fear, Control, and Death;” and Part Twelve: “Making Room and the Courage to Love;” and please see also “The War on Women and Population Control.”

I guess somewhere along here I have to make the obligatory statement, especially in a culture that puts so much effort into suppressing rather than confessing sexual guilt, that this is not about judging anyone. Judgment of a person belongs to God. Nevertheless, we are all called to judge behavior. If a person breaks into my house and makes toward my wife with a knife, I had better judge his behavior and act accordingly. We all need to judge ours and others’ behavior and act accordingly. “The unexamined life is not worth living,” as Socrates put it. And this is not about advocating for new law. The laws regarding these things have already been promulgated by God. Instead, this is about advocating for conversion, which is an ongoing process for all of us, who have a real need for it until the day we enter into the very life of God.

And this is not to make the case that large families are better than small. Families come in all different sizes for different reasons. As I mentioned above, my mother had only one sibling, and she and her sister each had seven children. I remember meeting a very impressive man years ago in West Texas. He was a tall, strapping farmer in his forties or fifties who was obviously very intelligent and yet conveyed the humility of a man of deep faith. In the course of our conversation, when I asked a question about his children, he lowered his head and said that he and his wife had not been blessed with children. It was obviously a sensitive point for him, and I regretted that I had mentioned it. People open to life may have many children or may have few or none at all. It is not so much a matter of how many children people have, it is a matter of being open to the children God would bring into the world through the love of a couple and of God within the Sacrament of Matrimony.

For those whose sexual morality has not yet arrived at the point of reserving the sexual act for one man and one woman within the Sacrament of Matrimony open to accepting the children that would naturally result from it, you might ask yourself where your line is drawn. It seems most people recognize that there is something perverse in much of the way sexuality is presented and practiced in the present culture. Perhaps the blasphemous opening of the Olympics, the drag shows for children, the pornography in schools, the human sacrifice of abortion “to a false god of expedient mercy,”^¹ or the horrible sexual mutilation of children as a sacrifice to the lie that we can change our sex are bridges too far. Understood. Why are those too far; why are those immoral? Once you determine that, work your way back to what sexuality is for, as we did above, and see where you land as far as what is right or wrong. And please do not fall into the idea that everyone has the right to act out sexuality however he or she wishes. We cannot keep playing this game of anything goes. We may be free to do so, but we do not have a right to do what is wrong.

Therefore we cannot ignore the necessary morality for the powerful gift of human sexuality and must seek the truth about what that is, regardless of our own failings. To do what is wrong is evil, even if it is legal, and that is between the person and God (instead of the person and the state.) And also, please do not limit your sexual morality by your own sexual failings. Again, everyone has sexual sins. Do not let yourself be prisoner to your past sins. If you have not repented of your past sins, do so. If you have not confessed them, do so. And especially do not refrain from teaching morality to your children out of a feeling of hypocrisy. Parents cannot sit idly by, due to the sins of their past, and allow their children to ignorantly navigate the minefield of illicit sexuality. I remember schools bringing in drug addicts to teach us not to do drugs. Similarly, if you have sinned sexually, all the more reason to instruct your children not to do so. Teach your children the truth about chastity for their sakes. Your sins are none of their business.

If you are not sure what chastity really is, do your research. Not forming young people in the virtue of chastity is a grave failing on the part of their parents and culture. Consider that when the devil unleashed the “sexual revolution” upon the world, many representing the Catholic Church in the United States in positions of leadership, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, all but abandoned the Baltimore Catechism and much sound catechesis for such things as the Becoming a Person series. Those of that era might well have known that one was not supposed to engage in sexual intercourse outside of marriage but—with a drastic shift in cultural morality, confusing teaching (even in the confessional) from those representing the Church, and without a solid grounding in practical chastity—were left to determine for themselves where they should stop short of intercourse, which left the door a bit too open to the possibility of not stopping short after all, especially in the heat of passion.

And all this evil of the contraceptive culture rests in despair of the future. Sexuality should not be about despair but about hope that celebrates the union of man and woman, in the sacrament, and the children that are introduced into the world with the supernatural destiny of joining God and all the hosts of heaven. What could be more hopeful. Instead, we have the present despair of a culture mired in sexual perversion. Ultimately, despair is considered to be one species of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which Jesus said would not be forgiven.² Would it not be better to forge ahead choosing life and doing the best we can to develop the resources we have to make sure everyone has what he needs, rather than to brutally slaughter millions of innocents in utero now in the unfounded belief that that will make the world better for those whom some fear may not have enough. Morality aside, is it not better to protect the life of all we can now in hope, rather than slaughter innocents for a possibility of scarcity that we have no reason to expect?

One can see why people recognize abortion to be a form of age-old human sacrifice. And as God taught Abraham to whom he gave the Promise of blessing for “all the families of the earth,”³ after a pre-history of man’s failure to live up to his part in God’s covenants with man, God does not want human beings to sacrifice their children. There is but one sacrifice that atones for man’s sins, and that is the sacrifice of God’s only-begotten Son. Thus, the child sacrifice of abortion is offered not to God but to Satan, who just revels in the profound evil of it.

Apply that knowledge to all we know about abortion, and see if it does not ring true. It makes me think of something I heard once about Charles Manson and his cult. He would ask his followers to cross a moral barrier, like to have sexual relations with someone he chose within the cult. He did not force it but made it known that he would like them to do it. Once the person then crossed that line, he would ask them to cross another, like to have relations with someone of the same sex. With each moral line they would cross, he would have a deeper hold upon them. If you have had an abortion, do not let it have that kind of hold on you. I once heard that, on average, it takes a woman well over ten years to come to terms with her abortion. To come to terms with it is to have to admit what would seem to be unforgivable, one’s participation in the killing of one’s own child. But a meditation on a crucifix or the passion narratives of the gospels reveals the depth of humiliation and suffering Jesus Christ went to to make available the very forgiveness needed, and he loved you personally enough to do that. If you have had an abortion, there is healing in the Church through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and there is support through various individuals or groups. Come out from the denial and darkness and admit, confess, and come back to the light.

And that is where we will wrap up Part Six. Part Seven should follow shortly.

Thank you,

P. A. Ritzer

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©2025 P. A. Ritzer

1. Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz (New York: Bantam Books, 1997), 295.

2. Matt 12:31, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, RSV, Second Catholic Edition (2010).

3. Gen 12:1-3, 22:15-18, The Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (1966).