God created man in his image, in the divine image he created them; male and female he created them: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1: 28).
This is the very first thing that God chooses to say about us in the Bible! That He created us in His own divine image. Man and woman were created as the crown of creation, invited to become one flesh, joined together to bring forth new life and love in a sacramental, visible sign of Trinitarian communion and to transfer this love throughout creation.
In the Theology of the Body John Paull II wrote,
The human body, with its sex—its masculinity and femininity—seen in the very mystery of creation, is not only a source of fruitfulness and of procreation, as in the whole natural order, but contains “from the beginning” the “spousal” attribute, that is, the power to express love: precisely that love in which the human person becomes a gift—and through this gift—fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence. (JPII, Man and Woman, He Created Them, No. 15.1)
It’s safe to say that the vast majority of modern men and women have lost this glorious vision of their sexuality. Tragically, this includes their sense of the awe and wonder of the human body, including its masculinity and femininity.
Today man struggles to even define what a woman is. Somehow what was obvious to man throughout human history has become quite confusing. Take the battle of the bathroom’s being fought in the U.S. Capitol, where congresswoman Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, introduced a resolution to ban transgender individuals in the U.S. Capitol from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity, instead opting for biological reality.
How did we get here?
The answer is slowly, and then all at once. For instance, Rep. Nancy Mace made this statement on social media, “we support gay marriage, and voted for the Respect for Marriage Act twice. However, if you think protecting women is discrimination, you are the problem. We don’t care if you’re trans, if you have balls we don’t want you in the women’s bathroom.” To which pro-life advocate Abby Johnson replied, “So, it doesn’t matter in marriage, but it matters in the bathroom??? It doesn’t matter in a holy sacrament, but it matters where you urinate?? No, Nancy. It matters everywhere. You have missed the lesson on the ‘slippery slope.’”
First it happened slowly, and then all at once. Katy Faust added, “If gender doesn’t matter in marriage, it doesn’t matter anywhere. You got the trans madness because of gay marriage.”
To which I added, “it goes even deeper…it all comes down to ‘the Contraceptive mentality.’ If sex doesn’t lead to babies and bonding, it leads to anything and everything…and in the end nothing.”
Of course, Pope Paul VI warned about this slippery slope years ago in Humanae Vitae. This short encyclical, rejected by many at the time, was not originally written to be a prophetic but a clarifying document. Amazingly, it contained a clearly prophetic vision of what would happen to marriages, families, and civilization as a whole if they fell under the spell of “the contraceptive mentality.”
I will expand on this in a future article, but in brief Pope Paul VI made four general “prophecies” about what would happen if the Church’s teaching on contraception were ignored. First, that it would lead to infidelity and the general lowering of all morality, beginning with sexual morality. Second, it would lead to a loss of respect for women. Third, the abuse of power by the state and public authorities would follow, and his fourth and final warning that contraception would lead man to think that he had unlimited dominion over his own body.
We have witnessed all four “prophecies” come true, and none are more startling than the darkened state of modern man who is confused by his own biological sex, and no longer knows which bathroom to use. As Pope JPII describes, this reflects…
[The] distressing perplexity of a man who no longer knows who he is, where he came from and where he is going. Hence we not infrequently witness the fearful plunging of the human person into situations of gradual self-destruction. According to some, it appears that one no longer need acknowledge the enduring absoluteness of any moral value. All around us we encounter contempt for human life; abortion, euthanasia, pornography, the selling and buying of children as a commodity, or for their body parts. Indeed, something more serious has happened: man is no longer convinced that truth exists and that only in truth can he find salvation. The saving power of the truth is contested and freedom alone, uprooted from any objectivity, is left to decide by itself what is good and what is evil. (Cf. Veritatis Splendor 84.2)
When man rejected the simple unchanging and eternal truth that marriage is a sacred sign and that the one flesh marital union joins the couple, bodies and souls, with divine grace in a holy act meant for babies and bonding, man no longer knows who he is or for what purpose he exits. The fact remains that until Christians return to the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman and the one flesh union as a free, total, faithful and fruitful act of life-giving-love, then our culture and way of life will continue to decline. It is inevitable…as recent history has made abundantly clear.
Someone asked, “Jack, what are the odds of this great cultural reversal and healing happening?” I replied, “with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt 19.26).
