Catholic women and their views on sex, divorce and patriarchy show a generational divide, a recent Australian University of Newcastle study found. Older women want reform, but younger Catholic women are more conservative. They want the rules on sex, contraception and the priesthood to remain as they are. About the study The study surveyed 17,200 Read more
In January, America published an article I wrote on the theme of inclusion in the life of the church. Since that time, the positions I presented have received both substantial support and significant opposition. The majority of those criticizing my article focused on its treatment of the exclusion of those who are divorced and remarried Read more
US Cardinal Robert McElroy is a heretic, hints a US Catholic bishop in an essay called ‘Imagining a Heretical Cardinal’. In his ‘First Things’ magazine article, conservative prelate and canon lawyer Thomas Paprocki (pictured) cites an unnamed cardinal’s views on how the Church should minister to LGBTQ people and divorced and remarried Catholics. While he Read more
The pleasure we get from enjoying food and sex is “divine”, says Pope Francis. These pleasures have unjustly fallen victim to “overzealousness” on the part of the Church in the past which is “a wrong interpretation of the Christian message,” he says in a newly-published book of interviews with Carlo Petrini, an Italian culinary writer. Read more
My first relationship to desire was to give in to it. As a teenager in the early aughts, I believed that life was found by identifying my desires and rushing toward their satisfaction. I played this out in academics and especially in sexuality. My life beat to the pulse of Ariana Grande’s chant, “I see Read more
One pope was a father of 10 through multiple mistresses, a man who purchased the papacy with mule-loads of silver. It is said that Alexander VI, the most debauched of the Borgia pontiffs, elected in 1492, even had an affair with one of his daughters. Another pope contracted syphilis during his reign — a “disease Read more
“Do parents have a say in when their teens start having sex?” asked a recent headline in the Lifestyle section of the Sydney Morning Herald. No, answered Kasey Edwards, mother of two daughters aged 8 and 3: As anyone who has ever been a teenager could attest, if a teenager really wants to have sex then they Read more
Young people helping the Vatican hierarchy prepare for next year’s Synod say the bishops should be open to hearing young people talk about sex, love and sexuality. The theme for the October 2018 conference is “Young people, faith, and vocational discernment”. To involve young people in planning and preparation for the conference, the Secretariat General of Read more
Newly released last week, to muted publicity, was a comprehensive, reliable and rigorous Cochrane review of studies reviewing school-based interventions on sex education. This was a large review, combining peer-reviewed data from more than 55,000 young people from around the world. Cochrane reviews are internationally recognized as the highest standard in evidence-based health care resources. Read more
When a therapist friend told Allison Havey that her then 13-year-old son was almost certainly viewing online pornography, she felt angry. “I was offended because I thought, why would he be doing that? It’s deviant behaviour and he’s not deviant.” What Allison now knows is that it’s natural for boys to want to look at Read more