Up until recently pretty much everyone knew that marriage and family go together, and more specifically, that sexual intercourse and reproduction go together. Most folks recognised that sexuality and children were best safeguarded within the institution of marriage.
Marriage was viewed as the place where human sexuality was regulated and protected, and any children which came forth from such a union were best raised in a married household. Up until a few short decades ago most folks thought this way.
Even the UN thought along these lines. Consider the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. In Article 16 (1) we find these words: “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”
Marriage first, family second. They go together. The old Frank Sinatra song got it right:
Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage
This I tell you brother
You can’t have one without the other
Love and marriage, love and marriage
It’s an institute you can’t disparage
Ask the local gentry
And they will say it’s elementary
Try, try, try to separate them
It’s an illusion
Try, try, try, and you will only come
To this conclusion
Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage
Dad was told by mother
You can’t have one without the other
But today far too many people think you can have one without the other. Modern contraceptives, including the 1960 development that shook the world, the Pill, managed to separate sexual intercourse from reproduction. One could have sex with reckless abandon, and not worry – at least as much – about the consequences (babies).
And soon afterwards reproduction was separated from sexual intercourse. With all the various new Assisted Reproductive Technologies we could create (manufacture) babies without human sexuality, or at least several steps away from it.
What had gone together like horse and carriage for millennia had now been radically put asunder. All this has opened up a can of worms which continues to spiral out of control. The sexual revolution of the 60s has unleashed tremendous damage on everyone: women, men, children and society.
I have written on the negative consequences of all this often. And in my forthcoming book on IVF and surrogacy I will spend a whole lot more time documenting the many real harms of all this. But on a daily basis we see the headlines in the media about where this sexual Brave New World is taking us.
Let me just offer a few vignettes as recently reported in our newspapers. Consider first this bizarre headline: “Rise of the virgin birth”. The story begins as follows:
Dozens of young heterosexual women have had virgin births after undergoing IVF in Britain, it has been reported.
Four major British IVF firms said they had assisted in such cases, with doctors suggesting there have been at least 25 such births in the past five years.
Fertility doctors said single women who had never had sexual intercourse were seeking donor-assisted treatment – at a cost of around £5,000 – because they wanted to have a child now and save sex for a “special relationship”. Others said most of their cases involved women with a fear of sex.
The decision to provide fertility treatment in such cases came under fire from religious groups, who said it undermined the importance of bringing up children in stable marriages. Psychotherapists questioned whether children would be damaged by being brought up by mothers who had never had a relationship.
Care Fertility, which runs five centres across England, is among those reporting such cases. Maha Ragunath, medical director of its clinic in Nottingham, said: “The number of single women I see has doubled over the last decade and single women now account for at least ten per cent of my patients. A lot of them are very young, in their 20s, sometimes studying or doing very ordinary jobs and often living with their parents, rather than career women who have been driven and focused too much on their work.”
“When I ask them why they are coming for treatment, very often the response is that they are ready to have a child and they don’t want to wait around for the right partner to come along,” she told the Mail on Sunday. “A small percentage have never been in a relationship and never had sexual intercourse,” she said.
Children are now merely a commodity. Singles may want a new downtown apartment, a flashy new sports car, or a new baby of their own. All they need is the money and all this can be theirs. Never mind the rights of a child to be raised by his or her own biological mother and father.
Selfish adults aided and abetted by the new ART can simply order a baby as they would a milkshake at McDonald’s or a book at amazon. Single-parent families by demand are now in, and who gives a rip about the wellbeing of the child? As long as the adults are happy.
As another case in point, I just recently wrote about the notorious one-child policy of China, and how they have just ‘relaxed’ this to a two-child policy. This coercive population control program was of course accompanied and carried out by horrific forced abortions and forced sterilisations.
As bad as it all was, we still have human-hating elites in the West who fully support such aims. One US academic thinks it is a shame that China has abandoned this policy, and claims that all people have a moral obligation to have no more than one child.
Bowdoin College philosophy prof Sarah Conly recently had a piece in the Boston Globe entitled “Here’s why China’s one-child policy was a good thing”. She offers the usual alarmism about an overcrowded earth with not enough resources and says we must act now.
While she pays lip service to China’s “unacceptable ways” of enforcing its policies, she obviously thinks China was the role model here, and we all should follow suit. After offering the usual list of gloom, doom and catastrophe if we don’t act immediately, she writes, “Given the damage we are causing, and the suffering we foresee for all those who live after us, it is clear that having more than one child is just something that none of us — Chinese or American — has a moral right to do.”
Of course alarmists like Paul Ehrlich made false predictions a half century ago along the same lines as Conly, and both have recommended extreme measures to save the planet. And both used emotive and chicken little language to push their radical coercive agendas. Conly closed her piece this way:
It’s new for us to think of something as immediately joyful as childbearing as harmful, and it’s hard to change our ideas when we are confronted with new circumstances. This is natural. Natural, but dangerous. We’re in a different world, a world of 7.3 billion and counting, and we need to recognize that and act accordingly. The job of government is not just to give present citizens anything they may want, but to pave the way for a prosperous, stable society for future citizens. Any kind of one-child policy will be unattractive, but the alternative looks to be worse.
Leave it to our elites to pretend to love humanity all the while really showing how much they hate humans. Commenting on her proposal, Wesley J Smith replied: “China has ended its tyrannical one-child policy. Not because it was a profound violation of human rights. The Chinese Communist Party could give a fig about human rights. No, the policy was ended because it hurt China.”
He concluded his article this way:
Even the barbarous abuses in China (far worse than “unacceptable”) did not reduce the number of people in that country. Just slowed the rate of population growth. To really reduce the world’s population would require unremitting tyranny and population cleansings. And here’s the thing: I fear that liberal want-to-be population controllers would willingly engage the most brutal forms of coercion, as we saw last century in the eugenics movement, which was a progressive cause. After all, there’s a planet to save! They just won’t say it.
Yep. On the one hand we have singles demanding their right to a baby with no strings attached, while on the other we have academics telling us how evil we are to want to have babies. This is one seriously messed up world we have, and in both cases babies are the real losers.
8 Replies to “Love and Marriage, Horse and Carriage”
Bill if this has relevance. My latest to bishops.
Once A Priest ??
Most of us would be familiar with the theological statement ‘Once a priest always a priest’. The statement is supported by the ‘indelible mark’ said to be placed on the soul by the Holy Spirit at ordination. It follows that if the Holy Spirit put it there then the Holy Spirit can remove it. Indeed, there is strong Papal support for the argument that, in certain circumstances, the Holy Spirit, not only does, but must remove the mark of office from the soul of a priest or bishop. The explanatory comments to this Papal Decree read as follows:
“During the time of the Council of Trent Pope Paul IV issued his Apostolic Constitution Cum Ex Apostolic Officio of February 15 1559. This 223rd Successor of Peter would die six months later on August 18th. His four year pontificate was highlighted by his promotion of moral reforms. This Papal Bull below also focused on the validity of a prelate or Pope in the event they were in heresy or apostasy. Because it deals with faith and morals and was issued ex cathedra (From the Chair of Peter) therefore is considered, not only infallible, but to be held in perpetuity.”
The Papal document relates heresy to the subsequent loss of office. Persons who were heretics prior to ordination do not receive the office; they are never priests. Thus, the curious scenario of the heretical priest (or bishop) busily flitting around performing his spiritual tasks but with no spiritual effect. He is effectively the spiritual barber’s cat of the ministerial church.
The uniqueness of the priesthood is that it has a divine dimension which directly implicates the person of Christ; other professions don’t have that. Does anyone seriously believe that the priest who is intimate with a single mother of five the night before and then says Sunday Mass will engage the presence of Christ in the Eucharist? The divine dimension is clearly not there. Christ may well be present in the sacred species but it is doubtful that it will have anything to do with that ‘heretical priest’. Christ’s presence is more likely to be a consequence of ‘where two or three are gathered together in my name…’ (Mt 18:20). Of course some tell us that even evil priests (the paedophile priest?) can celebrate a valid mass. That archaic notion treats the Holy Spirit as an idiot and implicates God’s Love in the perpetration of evil.
Jesus warned at Mt 24: 15 thus: ‘When you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation …flee to the mountains.’ The abomination doesn’t have to be a statue of Zeus. It could be a priest leading a grossly immoral life and/or holding heretical views. With these priests it matters not that the public is aware of this. God knows. Secrecy has always been a favourite scandal avoiding weapon of the church. Because God knows, God can and does strip the priest of his covenant relationship with Christ thus rendering them spiritually impotent. In this context morality and heresy are the two sides of the same coin as are priests and bishops.
Indeed, the priesthood sets up a covenant relationship with Christ. The word covenant refers to a sacred family bond. It’s a bit like a marriage in that the betrayal of the bond ends/changes the relationship, forgiveness notwithstanding. The priest and Christ walk together through life and Christ speaks through the priest.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church at 92 states, citing various authorities: “The whole body of the faithful…cannot err in matters of belief….. they manifest a universal consent on matters of faith and morals.” 92 might be the next idea to be consigned to the spiritual wheelie bin. They have to be kidding! Where is the universal consent on the moral issue of same-sex unions? The evidence suggests that a significant proportion of Australian priests ‘put from the rough’. A proportion of these are engaging to some degree of same-sex intimacy and, of course, some become bishops. Will they be working tirelessly to defend two thousand years of Catholic moral teaching or will they present a fifth column for same-sex unions?
A priest is required to take a solemn vow of celibacy; he vows not to marry. His relationship with Christ is like Christ’s relationship with the Church. Marriage is not about sex, marriage is about life. When a person with a same sex attraction vows not to marry he commits blasphemy; he has no intention of marrying anyway. His vow is a blatant lie. Not a good start to priestly life. Should persons with a same-sex orientation be admitted to the priesthood? The overwhelming answer among those who have the say in all this is clearly yes ‘provided they have their sexuality under control.’ And how are the ‘powers that be’ going to verify that? The mind boggles.
How can we know that Christ has walked away from the unfaithful priest? Observe and judge this according to infidelity in a marriage. Does the priest proclaim the true gospel or another Christ? Some teaching we know intuitively to be wrong eg; a priest says of Mary Magdalene ‘these days she would be thought of as the town bike.’ Clearly, he forgot that Mary has a very powerful friend in Jesus Christ. This total lack of reverence is not conclusive but it is instructive. Another comment was: ‘We don’t pray for Muslims to become Christians but to become better Muslims. That’s heresy. Did Jesus die on the cross in place of Mohammed? Another priest contradicting the bible on homosexuality said: ‘The author of the Old Testament (God) was not as enlightened as we are today.’
Have a look at the lifestyle of the priest. Does it honour the covenant? What are his priorities? Does he pray? Is his home in such a state that even a pig would feel uncomfortable there? Does alcohol or pokies feature? Does he have an intimate friend? What videos does he watch? Remember that one of the most favoured entry points for the devil into the life of a priest (or anyone else) is the use of pornography.
What of his sermons? The compromised priest will ear bash you with God’s love and mercy until the cows come home but you will never hear what Jesus had to say about keeping his commandments. You will be told that Old Testament morality doesn’t apply anymore; it’s the ideal that matters. When it comes to moral issues, you can never get a straight answer from him; he has a foot in both camps – so to speak.
Jesus would never permit Satan to announce him: ‘I know who you are – the Holy One of God!’ ‘Be quiet!’ (Mk 1:24-25) so why would we suppose he would permit the heretical priest or bishop to announce him? To put an end to the spiritual abuse of the Catholic faithful, these spiritually impotent clergy should walk off the paddock and leave the sheep in the care of those dedicated and faithful priests and bishops who have the will and courage to walk in friendship with Christ.
Maybe there’s a new slogan in all that: “Save the Planet; kill the human race!”
The best solution for the limited resources on Earth is to stop wasting huge amounts of resources and tax dollars on sinful behavior.
I find it astounding that some academics think we can create a sustainable community on Mars but others think we can’t come anywhere near close to that on Earth (which of course we won’t need to.)
One thing they will never be able to remove no matter how hard they try is that every baby, no matter how it is conceived always has 2 biological parents, one male and one female. No wonder Paul calls sexual sins in all its variations and outcomes “a sin against the body” because it affects the heritage, the parentage of humans. As long as we attempt to change the way God has instituted things and by that attempt to make ourselves wiser than him we will always have to have “unacceptable ways of enforcing policies” because that is inherent in the nature of disobedience to God.
Many Blessings
Ursula Bennett
Thanks for this article. I am currently researching the church’s use of birth control. I was wondering what your view was on birth control in the context of marriage? Or if you have any article on it?
I heard about a meeting at the UN. After the meeting they gave everyone a female condom. This was supposed to be a professional business meeting. It seems very bizarre. If AMP or the Commonwealth Bank have a meeting do they give everyone a female condom? If the Prime Minister has a meeting do they give everyone a female condom? The UN is evil. They are weird and totally obsessed with population control. There is even the program for “Comphrensive Sexuality Education”. I do not think that it could be any more comprehensive if anyone tried to make it more comphrensive. It mentions abortion many times in a program aimed at CHILDREN. Have you done any articles on the UN and Comphrensive Sexuality Education?
Marriage first, family second. They go together. The old Frank Sinatra song got it right:
Bill if this has relevance. My latest to bishops.
Once A Priest ??
Most of us would be familiar with the theological statement ‘Once a priest always a priest’. The statement is supported by the ‘indelible mark’ said to be placed on the soul by the Holy Spirit at ordination. It follows that if the Holy Spirit put it there then the Holy Spirit can remove it. Indeed, there is strong Papal support for the argument that, in certain circumstances, the Holy Spirit, not only does, but must remove the mark of office from the soul of a priest or bishop. The explanatory comments to this Papal Decree read as follows:
“During the time of the Council of Trent Pope Paul IV issued his Apostolic Constitution Cum Ex Apostolic Officio of February 15 1559. This 223rd Successor of Peter would die six months later on August 18th. His four year pontificate was highlighted by his promotion of moral reforms. This Papal Bull below also focused on the validity of a prelate or Pope in the event they were in heresy or apostasy. Because it deals with faith and morals and was issued ex cathedra (From the Chair of Peter) therefore is considered, not only infallible, but to be held in perpetuity.”
The Papal document relates heresy to the subsequent loss of office. Persons who were heretics prior to ordination do not receive the office; they are never priests. Thus, the curious scenario of the heretical priest (or bishop) busily flitting around performing his spiritual tasks but with no spiritual effect. He is effectively the spiritual barber’s cat of the ministerial church.
The uniqueness of the priesthood is that it has a divine dimension which directly implicates the person of Christ; other professions don’t have that. Does anyone seriously believe that the priest who is intimate with a single mother of five the night before and then says Sunday Mass will engage the presence of Christ in the Eucharist? The divine dimension is clearly not there. Christ may well be present in the sacred species but it is doubtful that it will have anything to do with that ‘heretical priest’. Christ’s presence is more likely to be a consequence of ‘where two or three are gathered together in my name…’ (Mt 18:20). Of course some tell us that even evil priests (the paedophile priest?) can celebrate a valid mass. That archaic notion treats the Holy Spirit as an idiot and implicates God’s Love in the perpetration of evil.
Jesus warned at Mt 24: 15 thus: ‘When you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation …flee to the mountains.’ The abomination doesn’t have to be a statue of Zeus. It could be a priest leading a grossly immoral life and/or holding heretical views. With these priests it matters not that the public is aware of this. God knows. Secrecy has always been a favourite scandal avoiding weapon of the church. Because God knows, God can and does strip the priest of his covenant relationship with Christ thus rendering them spiritually impotent. In this context morality and heresy are the two sides of the same coin as are priests and bishops.
Indeed, the priesthood sets up a covenant relationship with Christ. The word covenant refers to a sacred family bond. It’s a bit like a marriage in that the betrayal of the bond ends/changes the relationship, forgiveness notwithstanding. The priest and Christ walk together through life and Christ speaks through the priest.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church at 92 states, citing various authorities: “The whole body of the faithful…cannot err in matters of belief….. they manifest a universal consent on matters of faith and morals.” 92 might be the next idea to be consigned to the spiritual wheelie bin. They have to be kidding! Where is the universal consent on the moral issue of same-sex unions? The evidence suggests that a significant proportion of Australian priests ‘put from the rough’. A proportion of these are engaging to some degree of same-sex intimacy and, of course, some become bishops. Will they be working tirelessly to defend two thousand years of Catholic moral teaching or will they present a fifth column for same-sex unions?
A priest is required to take a solemn vow of celibacy; he vows not to marry. His relationship with Christ is like Christ’s relationship with the Church. Marriage is not about sex, marriage is about life. When a person with a same sex attraction vows not to marry he commits blasphemy; he has no intention of marrying anyway. His vow is a blatant lie. Not a good start to priestly life. Should persons with a same-sex orientation be admitted to the priesthood? The overwhelming answer among those who have the say in all this is clearly yes ‘provided they have their sexuality under control.’ And how are the ‘powers that be’ going to verify that? The mind boggles.
How can we know that Christ has walked away from the unfaithful priest? Observe and judge this according to infidelity in a marriage. Does the priest proclaim the true gospel or another Christ? Some teaching we know intuitively to be wrong eg; a priest says of Mary Magdalene ‘these days she would be thought of as the town bike.’ Clearly, he forgot that Mary has a very powerful friend in Jesus Christ. This total lack of reverence is not conclusive but it is instructive. Another comment was: ‘We don’t pray for Muslims to become Christians but to become better Muslims. That’s heresy. Did Jesus die on the cross in place of Mohammed? Another priest contradicting the bible on homosexuality said: ‘The author of the Old Testament (God) was not as enlightened as we are today.’
Have a look at the lifestyle of the priest. Does it honour the covenant? What are his priorities? Does he pray? Is his home in such a state that even a pig would feel uncomfortable there? Does alcohol or pokies feature? Does he have an intimate friend? What videos does he watch? Remember that one of the most favoured entry points for the devil into the life of a priest (or anyone else) is the use of pornography.
What of his sermons? The compromised priest will ear bash you with God’s love and mercy until the cows come home but you will never hear what Jesus had to say about keeping his commandments. You will be told that Old Testament morality doesn’t apply anymore; it’s the ideal that matters. When it comes to moral issues, you can never get a straight answer from him; he has a foot in both camps – so to speak.
Jesus would never permit Satan to announce him: ‘I know who you are – the Holy One of God!’ ‘Be quiet!’ (Mk 1:24-25) so why would we suppose he would permit the heretical priest or bishop to announce him? To put an end to the spiritual abuse of the Catholic faithful, these spiritually impotent clergy should walk off the paddock and leave the sheep in the care of those dedicated and faithful priests and bishops who have the will and courage to walk in friendship with Christ.
Maybe there’s a new slogan in all that: “Save the Planet; kill the human race!”
The best solution for the limited resources on Earth is to stop wasting huge amounts of resources and tax dollars on sinful behavior.
I find it astounding that some academics think we can create a sustainable community on Mars but others think we can’t come anywhere near close to that on Earth (which of course we won’t need to.)
One thing they will never be able to remove no matter how hard they try is that every baby, no matter how it is conceived always has 2 biological parents, one male and one female. No wonder Paul calls sexual sins in all its variations and outcomes “a sin against the body” because it affects the heritage, the parentage of humans. As long as we attempt to change the way God has instituted things and by that attempt to make ourselves wiser than him we will always have to have “unacceptable ways of enforcing policies” because that is inherent in the nature of disobedience to God.
Many Blessings
Ursula Bennett
Credits for the song:
Songwriters: JAMES VAN HEUSEN, SAMMY CAHN
Love And Marriage lyrics © IMAGEM U.S. LLC
(in case you need them) 🙂
Thanks for this article. I am currently researching the church’s use of birth control. I was wondering what your view was on birth control in the context of marriage? Or if you have any article on it?
Thanks Marissa. See here eg:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2003/03/16/a-review-of-open-embrace-by-sam-and-bethany-torode/
I heard about a meeting at the UN. After the meeting they gave everyone a female condom. This was supposed to be a professional business meeting. It seems very bizarre. If AMP or the Commonwealth Bank have a meeting do they give everyone a female condom? If the Prime Minister has a meeting do they give everyone a female condom? The UN is evil. They are weird and totally obsessed with population control. There is even the program for “Comphrensive Sexuality Education”. I do not think that it could be any more comprehensive if anyone tried to make it more comphrensive. It mentions abortion many times in a program aimed at CHILDREN. Have you done any articles on the UN and Comphrensive Sexuality Education?