“¡No hay derecho! Me siento decepcionada. Ha sido una violación de mi derecho de tener relaciones sexuales con mi novio sin tener que estar embarazada. Tengo todavía muchos planes en mi vida. Además, este niño no es deseado. Ya no puedo estudiar bien.” (It’s unfair! I feel disappointed. It was a violation of my right to have a sexual relationship with my boyfriend without getting pregnant. I still have many plans with my life. Besides, this child is unwanted. I can’t study well.)
Listening to this declaration coming from a 25-year-old lady on a morning Spanish TV program (one that deals with social complaints), I was quite stunned and – I guess – had a little of nausea. She was complaining against the doctor who gave her a prescription of contraceptive pills. She’s finishing her course but living in the house of her boyfriend and his parents.
What made me sick – besides the foolish idea of living with her boyfriend while still studying and having many plans in life – is the fact that she believes that to have a sexual relationship with her boyfriend is a basic right!
Just when is fornication considered a basic human right? Fornication is a mortal sin! See 1 Corinthians 5: 1ff.
* * *
“Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile” (Mk 7: 14-15).
When Jesus, in this Sunday’s Gospel, made this affirmation, He is trying to rectify some erroneous mentality of His time. Today, I think, we need to voice out in the open a lot of rectification of this kind. It seems that our silence on this matter is doing a havoc especially on the young minds.
Fornication is a sin NOT ONLY because the Bible says so. The Bible says it is a sin because it goes directly against God’s will and design regarding sex, love and marriage. God wills that “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Besides, He ordered that they “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28).
In other words: sex (becoming one flesh) is a sacred gift from God – a gift with a double dimension, both complementary and inseparable: union in love (“unite with his wife”) and procreation (“fruitful and multiply”). And it is given within the context of marriage ONLY (“a man…and his wife”). Fornication or pre-marital sex (including sex outside marriage, meaning with non-spouse) goes directly against this divine will.
* * *
Another erroneous mentality of our time: Condoms are an effective instrument to prevent AIDS.
Pope Benedict XVI has been very clear and bold in declaring that THIS IS FALSE: “The condom does not prevent AIDS. Only responsible sexual behavior can address the pandemic," he said. But the international press was scandalized at hearing this truth.
Now, a scientist and expert on AIDS prevention, Edward Green corroborates the Pope’s affirmation. Green explained that scientific studies point out a phenomenon of human behavior called "risk compensation," whereby a person "feels protected and thus exposes himself more." When one believes condoms protect him, he would indulge himself more in irresponsible sexual activities; thus, elevating the risk of being infected.
Dr. Green asked: “Why has an attempt not been made to change people's customs?” “The world industry has taken many years to understand that measures of a technical and medical character are of no use to solve the problem,” he added.
Now it’s time for people to change their mentality: in the same way that “nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile”, nothing from the outside can protect the person from AIDS but the things from within: abstinence and fidelity.
Listening to this declaration coming from a 25-year-old lady on a morning Spanish TV program (one that deals with social complaints), I was quite stunned and – I guess – had a little of nausea. She was complaining against the doctor who gave her a prescription of contraceptive pills. She’s finishing her course but living in the house of her boyfriend and his parents.
What made me sick – besides the foolish idea of living with her boyfriend while still studying and having many plans in life – is the fact that she believes that to have a sexual relationship with her boyfriend is a basic right!
Just when is fornication considered a basic human right? Fornication is a mortal sin! See 1 Corinthians 5: 1ff.
* * *
“Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile” (Mk 7: 14-15).
When Jesus, in this Sunday’s Gospel, made this affirmation, He is trying to rectify some erroneous mentality of His time. Today, I think, we need to voice out in the open a lot of rectification of this kind. It seems that our silence on this matter is doing a havoc especially on the young minds.
Fornication is a sin NOT ONLY because the Bible says so. The Bible says it is a sin because it goes directly against God’s will and design regarding sex, love and marriage. God wills that “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Besides, He ordered that they “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28).
In other words: sex (becoming one flesh) is a sacred gift from God – a gift with a double dimension, both complementary and inseparable: union in love (“unite with his wife”) and procreation (“fruitful and multiply”). And it is given within the context of marriage ONLY (“a man…and his wife”). Fornication or pre-marital sex (including sex outside marriage, meaning with non-spouse) goes directly against this divine will.
* * *
Another erroneous mentality of our time: Condoms are an effective instrument to prevent AIDS.
Pope Benedict XVI has been very clear and bold in declaring that THIS IS FALSE: “The condom does not prevent AIDS. Only responsible sexual behavior can address the pandemic," he said. But the international press was scandalized at hearing this truth.
Now, a scientist and expert on AIDS prevention, Edward Green corroborates the Pope’s affirmation. Green explained that scientific studies point out a phenomenon of human behavior called "risk compensation," whereby a person "feels protected and thus exposes himself more." When one believes condoms protect him, he would indulge himself more in irresponsible sexual activities; thus, elevating the risk of being infected.
Dr. Green asked: “Why has an attempt not been made to change people's customs?” “The world industry has taken many years to understand that measures of a technical and medical character are of no use to solve the problem,” he added.
Now it’s time for people to change their mentality: in the same way that “nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile”, nothing from the outside can protect the person from AIDS but the things from within: abstinence and fidelity.
1 comment:
Pre-marital Sex
"It is written (Tob. 4:13): 'Take heed to keep thyself. . . from all fornication, and beside thy wife never endure to know a crime.' Now crime denotes a mortal sin. Therefore fornication and all intercourse with other than one's wife is a mortal sin." - St. Thomas Aquinas ("Summa Theologica" 13th century A.D.)
"Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body." - 1 Corinthians 6:18
"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." - Mark 7:21-23
"Marriage [is] honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." - Hebrews 13:4
"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience...." - Colossians 3:5-6
"But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." - Ephesians 5:3-5
"[This] I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." - Galatians 5:16-21
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