Just when you thought things couldn’t get any crazier…
The past week has been filled with allegations of sexual assault against Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore.
And then Democrat Senator Al Franken was accused (and confessed) to groping a woman in 2003, with rumors of more allegations possibly to come. In the last few hours, Sylvester Stallone became the latest Hollywood celebrity to fall.
The fog of the sexual revolution is finally beginning to lift.
And, no surprise, the culture we see around us looks like a cesspool.
For years, Catholics and other Christians sounded the alarm bells, warning of the consequences of abandoning long-established rules and mores involving human sexuality. We insisted that sex is sacred, and properly reserved for marriage between a man and a woman. We defended the dignity of women who are objectified by pornography and abused by abortion — and warned that modesty, manners, and morals matter. But our society was hellbent on running through every red light — ignoring the repeated warning signs of STDs, broken homes, addictions, and the ever-coarsening culture around us.
Even worse: Those among us who offered a constructive criticism of this libertine spirit of our age were scorned, mocked, and ostracized. Remember the relentless media howls when it was discovered that Vice President Pence refused to dine alone with any woman other than his wife?
Sadly, as we now know, Harvey Weinstein never had such a policy.
For the past 50 years, America has been drowning in a wave of pornography, contraception, casual sex, raunchy television, movies, books, and art. Even those of us who do our best to avoid this sewage cannot escape. And of course, even our own Church was ensnared by these lies and, in some cases, still seems to struggle to overcome its false allure.
While our lawmakers cannot suddenly make the whole country moral, it’s worth acknowledging how much damage our political leaders have done. Politicians from both political parties have helped fuel and fund the problems around us. Everything from publicly-funded sex education, to refusing to enforce obscenity laws, to the billions handed over to abortion giant Planned Parenthood. The list is long…
So much more can be and should be said.
We are reaping the rotten fruits of a culture that has rejected God and his plan for men and women. And we find ourselves pretending to be outraged so we can score political points.
William F. Buckley famously described conservatism as “standing athwart history, yelling stop.” I suspect that’s how you feel today. I too want to shout from the rooftops: STOP!
There is a better way.
This is the mission of our work. To propose, lead, and fight for a better path. A society which treats women with respect and dignity, not as an object to be discarded when she is no longer useful. A culture that treats sex as something sacred, not a casual encounter for selfish gratification. A culture that puts mothers on a pedestal and doesn’t treat pregnancy as a “punishment.”
This is the gift of our Faith. It shows us the way.
We have our work cut out for us. But the “solutions” of our adversaries have failed. Now is our time.
Come Holy Spirit.
Be with us and renew the face of the earth.