Isn't LIfe Strange?

Tony Hendra (who plays manager Ian Faith) writes in his memoir "Father Joe" that he attempted suicide the night before the first day of filming. He credits the joy he experienced in making the film with bringing him back from his depression.

Well that's a shocker. Looking up trivia from This is Spinal Tap I was stunned to see both the effect that making the movie had on Hendra and also that he wrote Father Joe. It's also funny what inspires you. I was never that interested in reading Father Joe but now it's going on my book list.

Where's the Story?

Get Religion is wondering why no major media source has picked up on a major Vatican story mentioned by John Allen.

Sources indicate that the long-awaited Vatican document on the admission of homosexuals to seminaries is now in the hands of Pope Benedict XVI. The document, which has been condensed from earlier versions, reasserts the response given by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in 2002, in response to a dubium submitted by a bishop on whether a homosexual could be ordained: “A homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency, is not fit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders.”

That reply was published in the November-December 2002 issue of Notitiae, the official publication of the congregation.

It is up to Benedict XVI to decide whether to issue the new document as it stands, to send it back for revision, or to shelve it on the basis that for now such a document is “inopportune.”

No kidding. Not only is that story a hot button for all kinds of secular groups but, naturally, it will be of great interest to Catholics. Get Religion puts it so very well.

So did I miss the story somewhere else?... You see, people tend to forget that sexuality issues in the Catholic world are not strictly a left vs. right affair. It is also a matter of public vs. private... It is hard to overemphasize how important this story is among Catholic politicos.

No word from MSM so far...

Pumping Gas and Seeing Stars

Little John's ongoing story of seeing celebrities while pumping gas in Malibu (circa 1984).

I worked with a 60's burnout who lived in a van with his Bassett hound. He loved the folk music of the 60's and in particular Joni Mitchell. She would come in from time to time and he finally got up the nerve to say something to her. He told her that her music had really touched him and her response was, "Shut up and pump the gas". So much for peace and love!

The Only Interesting Thing

[The Prioress] said, next, as to you and this story you have told me: you have been cruelly treated and betrayed, your childhood has been stolen. The world is oftentimes une patisse emerdee, a shit pie, but this is known, this is boring. The only interesting thing is how we use the suffering that is inevitable in life.

Valley of the Bones by Michael Gruber

"Why are people so proud of being half assed about their religion?"

This was Rose's question after we'd been talking about various progressive Catholic opinions seen around St. Blogs in the last few days.

Good point.

Saint Thomas Aquinas ... says if a Catholic comes to believe the Church is in error in some essential, officially defined doctrine, it is a mortal sin against conscience, a sin of hypocrisy, for him to remain in the Church and call himself a Catholic, but only a venial sin against knowledge for him to leave the Church in honest but partly culpable error.

Peter Kreeft

Further thoughts about that subject can be found here.

A Heartwarming, True Story

MORRISON - Mark Hickethier knew he was going to have to dig deep for this celebration dinner. "We were out to kill the fatted calf," he said, talking about his big plans...

But no expense was too much for his only son, who's about to ship off to Iraq for his first tour of duty. Matt Hickethier has almost completed training, and has this week to say farewell to his family for about a year.

The young Marine decided to wear his dress blues to the fancy restaurant. His mother and sister wore their finest dresses...

Perhaps it was the dress blues; maybe it was the general revelry and good vibes emanating from the Hickethier table. The truth may never be revealed, but the Hickethiers had certainly drawn attention. A couple at a neighboring table summoned Jason Barba, their server, and made a most unusual request.

"He gave me his credit card and requested I keep the tab open," said Barba. "'Anything that they order is on me.'"

Stephanie Amador, who was waiting on the Hickethier table, said the gentleman who picked up the tab insisted on doing it and also insisted on anonymity. The gesture was not even to be announced until he had finished and departed.

While the servers were impressed by this generous move, the Hickethiers were floored.

"I don't know the motivation, but I do know that it was mind-blowing," said Mark.

... The gesture at The Fort reminded him of the many Americans that support young men like his son.

Read the whole thing here.

Via Always Jason.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me

Every month, The Word Among Us has a different theme. I get as much out of those articles as I do from the daily devotions. This month they examine exactly what "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phillipians 4:13) means and how to live it in our own lives.

This seemed fairly obvious to me until I read the articles and saw it can be applied in just as many ways as there are different sorts of people. I Can Do All Things in Christ, Overcoming a Mountain of Fear, and Whatever is Good and Noble and Pure... are all well worth reading. They also have a very practical "how-to" article that I am going to put here in it's entirety for easy access.

"Your Wounds I Will Heal."
A Method of Prayer for Healing of Memories

Our memory is a great gift from God. The problem is that we are sinners living in a sinful world, and we have all been hurt in the past. These wounds stay in our memories and can be instrumental in developing fears and anxieties within us--fears and anxieties that bind us up and rob us of our joy and confidence in the Lord. But no matter how bleak our memories appear, there is great hope. Jesus died for every scar and every wound, and he is always ready to heal.

If you want to seek this kind of healing, a good way to start is by examining your fears. Ask yourself, "What am I most afraid of? Do my fears prevent me from doing what I know I should do or what I feel God wants me to do? Are there one or two important events in my past that have contributed to this kind of fear?"

Next, replay these past events in your mind as best you can as you begin to pray. Try to picture Jesus with you as this event unfolds. Imagine yourself taking Jesus' hand, and tell him why this event has made you so fearful. Tell him how these fears affect you and why you want to be rid of them. Ask him to take away the fear and the pain.

As you pray through this event, write down what you sense the Lord is saying or doing. How is he reacting as he holds your hand and watches things unfold with you? Do this over and over again as time allows. Don't be afraid to pray for long periods without saying anything. Just try to calm your heart and sense what Jesus is doing in you.

As you go through your day, should you feel fear rising up in you again, put your memory to good use! Recall what you sensed Jesus doing in your prayer. Remember his words of consolation, his gestures of comfort, and the sense of hope and promise you felt as you prayed. Over time, you will see these painful memories healed and your fears melt away.

Blessings and Afflictions

"I dreamed I was getting a guided tour of heaven?" Emmylou says. "I was wearing a jumpsuit and a hard hat and my tour guide, he was the same as I was, and we were in this giant building, kind of an industrial shed like in those boring old movies they used to show us in high school, how they make paper or ice cream. And there was this big huge machine in it, whirring and clanking away, and there was a conveyor belt coming out of one end of it, and on the conveyor belt were rows of golden bricks, but softer: they looked like giant Twinkies, row after row of them, and when they got to the end of the conveyor belt they fell off of it. I looked to see where they were falling to and I saw that there was a big hole in the floor there and through it I could see clouds and blue sky and the earth far below. I asked the guide what the Twinkie things were, and he said they were blessings, and I remember thinking, in the dream, how marvelous is the Lord showering all these blessings down on us. Then we moved on, across an alley and into another big huge shed with the same kind of machine cranking away, the same conveyor belt, the same giant Twinkies falling down, and I said to the guide, 'Oh, these are more blessings,' and he said, 'No, those are afflictions,' and I said, 'Oh, but they look just the same as the blessings,' and he said, 'They are the same!'"

Valley of Bones by Michael Gruber

My partway-through-the-book review is here.

Those Happy Golden Years

My mother received this as an email and started thinking back to what things really were like when she was young and growing up in Cincinnati. She then produced this treasure for her children which I am sharing with y'all.

This makes me think of growing up in Cleveland, taking off for a Saturday with a couple of friends and a sandwich, and riding our bikes through neighborhoods and finding patches of woodlands still left undeveloped. It reminds me of buying a big old Royal Crown soda to go with the sandwich, too. I don't think my parents worried, or I wouldn't have been allow to go. It was a time of scavanger hunt parties, and people even walked places like to the little neighborhood stores that were always just a few blocks away. Not quite as good as Mayberry, but we never came to harm or even a hint of it!

So, even in a large town, suburban life was pretty easygoing. I also remember living in the outskirts of Cleveland before baby Brenda, and riding downtown on the trolley: I took my sister Beverly to ballet class, and bought baby clothes for Brenda, too. Cleveland wasn't nearly as nice, but it was still OK as a downtown. The May Company still reigned, and I still remember that I heard "Sleigh Ride" for the first time walking through downtown. Can you imagine a time like that? No cell phones, no street people, no TV.

To speak of one more Cleveland thing, Father was always proud of the fact that he knew Chef Boyardi and used to have lunch at his little downtown eaterie before he became famous.

And speaking of those old days: there were school lunches that were never refrigerated but left in lockers. None of us died from eating them.

Those neighborhood stores were always family run, and their stock was shelved to the ceiling. Tongs were used to reach a high level selection. They had veggies, but only in season, and think what that meant: potatoes, onions, and just a few other things unless it was summer and there were green beans. I don't remember meat, but they did have the super-licious ice cream Drumsticks. (Popsicles, too, but then there was the ice cream cart every afternoon jingling through your neighborhood from which to buy them. Rare treats; money was scarce.)

These stores were literally everywhere. Just walk a few blocks and you'd find one. For families like mine, who didn't have a car, they were a true convenience. When we did supermarket, we had to ride a streetcar and lug bags of groceries to bring them home. Or, as my father and I did, drag a kid's wagon to the store and haul it home, loaded and loudly protesting to the point of embarrassment to a young teen. As "recently" as the early 60's in Wisconsin, there were still neighborhood stores. In the Missouri town where we live now you can still see their ghosts in the older neigborhoods.

Of course there was no AC, so you just sweated, kept the curtains closed, and rested after lunch. Poor Mother, I can't imagine how hard it must have been running a household, ironing, hanging wash out and having dinner on the spot for Father when he came home. I used to sit on the front and steps and watch for him to get off the streetcar. Newspapers were delivered twice a day, and folded into neat little squares. They introduced me to my first Agatha Christie, run as a serial: "What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw". Hmmm, didn't Dickens start out that way?

When we lived in Cleveland Mother could walk one block to a hairdresser, who was the sister of the mayor. I guess life at that time divided itself into living segments: little neighborhoods within a whole that worked for residents. Would it be nice to go back? I think so ( BUT with air conditioning). In some ways we live like that now, not walking but having our own clusters of stores we frequent. Kind of the same, but highly mobilized (and with all those damned cell phones). I have enjoyed, this summer, driving to the houses I do and seeing bevies of kids out on bikes, or a parade of kids with backpacks going to a park event. It's nice to know neighborhoods still exist as such!

Thinking about all this has taken me deep into my young years ... it's been fun. So many memories have been tapped that I didn't even realize were there!

A Fascinating Book

I'm only halfway through so this is just a partial commentary about Valley of the Bones by Michael Gruber. I had to share it though because it is hands-down one of the most interesting books I have read in a very long time, both for technique and content. I first read about it in this month's Crisis magazine. They rarely review fiction and this is a gritty mystery, so my interest was piqued. When the reviewer said it was a really Catholic book, but without the usual trappings found in a mystery I really perked up my ears.

In Miami, a man is hit on the head and thrown from a hotel balcony. When the homicide detective, Paz, goes up to investigate, he finds a woman, Emmylou Dideroff, in the room. She is in a trance, speaking to St. Catherine of Siena, which qualifies her to the detective as both a wacko and a likely murderer. This seems confirmed when they find a bloody weapon on the balcony with Emmylou's fingerprints all over it. She even has a likely motive but denies committing the murder. This is not as open and shut as it seems as Jimmy Paz pursues clues that lead to the international oil market, a FBI watch list, and missionaries in the Sudan.

Aside from the intricate mystery there is the spiritual factor. Emmylou claims to have communion with the devil which leads to her being put in a mental institution where, at the detective's request, she begins writing a confession. However, her confession is more along the lines of St. Augustine's Confessions ... and soon she is filling four notebooks with the story of her life. At this point we meet Lorna Wise, a psychiatrist who is determining Emmylou's fitness for trial. Both Wise and Paz have actual moments of seeing the devil that Emmylou has mentioned but they manage to lie to themselves. Little doubt is left to the reader, though, that what they are experiencing is real. Strange personality changes start coming over Paz who is beginning to wonder if he is possessed and then shaking off the feeling. I am screaming to him, "Wake up and smell the coffee! YES, yes you are!" Obviously this is no ordinary mystery.

Along the way we see Wise's various insecurities, Paz's Cuban-American world and how he relates to the "white" world, insights into police detecting, how men and women relate to each other, and so much more. Most of all, there is a strong spiritual thread throughout that is interesting in itself as each character responds in their own way. This all is being told through four points of view: the detective, the psychiatrist, Emmylou's confessions, and pages from the book Faithful Unto Death: The Story of the Nursing Sisters of the Blood of Christ by Sr. Benedicta Cooley. As I read further I am beginning to see that these are all showing various ways of conversion, of openness to God. This feeling is intensified when we meet Paz's former partner, a strong evangelical Christian who is not afraid to share his faith. Most unusual for a mystery of this sort.

This may sound like a jumble of information but that is part of what makes this book so very interesting. The author is a masterful writer who makes everything come together naturally.

Make no mistake, it is a gritty, adult mystery and has sexual content that may offend some readers, so far most of which is in Emmylou's confessions. However, at this point any offensive content has been relayed with such a lack of passion or detail that I didn't find it bothersome.

I can't wait to see where this book goes because there is literally no telling. Naturally, being vitally interested in faith, the spiritual content is all I need to be glued to the book as it seems very true to life thus far. The intertwining of mystery and personal relationships make it irresistible. I will definitely be picking up Gruber's previous book after I have finished this one.

Purgatory

Purgatory exists because God is both just and merciful.

Purgatory is "like a refiner's fire" (Mal 3:2). It refines and purifies those who at the moment of death are neither good enough for an immediate heaven nor bad enough for hell. "All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven" (CCC 1030). "The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned" (CCC 1031)...

The existence of purgatory logically follows from two facts: our imperfection on earth and our perfection in heaven.

1. At the moment of death, most of us are not completely sanctified (purified, made holy), even though we are justified, or saved by having been baptized into Christ's Body and having thereby received God's supernatural life into our souls, having accepted him by faith and not having rejected him by unrepented mortal sin.
2. But in heaven, we will be perfectly sanctified, with no lingering bad habits or imperfections in our souls.
3. Therefore, for most of us, there must be some additional change, some purification, between death and heaven. This is purgatory.

... Unlike heaven or hell, purgatory is only temporary. Purgatory takes away the temporal punishment still due for our sins after our Baptism, faith, and repentance have already saved us from the eternal punishment due to our sin, that is hell.

Catholic Christianity: A Complete Catechism of Catholic Beliefs based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Peter Kreeft

Glyphnotes

• We’ll just match that PMS 2935 with a screen mix. Huh?


• What the heck is RSS? (Not to be confused with ROUS.)


• I figure there are three type of computer users:
  1. Those that know all the keyboard shortcuts and use them.
  2. Those that use the right mouse button, instead.
  3. Those that have trouble remembering all but the most basic commands.
  If you are in the third category, this short article opens a whole new world into using your computer.

Glyphnotes is Tom's answer to all the questions we see repeatedly in the course of doing graphic design work for print and on the web. Drop by and see what's up over there. It is pretty nifty (and this is not just the devoted wifey speaking). Just click on the sidebar to go to any article. Be sure to let him know if you like it or not ... we love feedback!

Pumping Gas and Seeing Stars

Little John's ongoing story of seeing celebrities while pumping gas in Malibu (circa 1984).

One night (I worked 3-midnight) around 10 pm a limo pulls up. A huge black guy gets out, walks to the ladies room and goes inside. After a minute or so he returns to the limo and opens the door and out steps Dolly Parton. He escorts her to the ladies room and a few minutes later she returns to the limo and they leave. To me it was like a Aesop's fable. The lesson...when you have to go you have to go, no matter how rich or famous.

Bad Car Karma?

In my driving life I have had some of the oddest accidents. Very few were my fault and when they were it was for mundane reasons. However, I have had the oddest things happen when others were busy hitting me.

For instance there was the time when a guy thought he'd get a jump on the light and turn left before the other lanes started up. Trouble is, he ran smack dab into me as I was innocently driving along the lane he couldn't see. That in itself isn't odd, but it was distinctly surreal to be sitting there, trying to figure out if I could open the door this guy had just smashed into when up pounded two men in flannel shirts, waving badges, and saying, "We're undercover cops. We saw the whole thing and will be your witness." So there's something I don't see every day ... or ever.

Or the time that I was driving up to a red light and a man waiting to exit the grocery store parking lot suddenly revved up his car and rammed right into the side of the van. Turns out that he had Alzheimer's and thought he was hitting the brakes. That was the wake-up call for his daughter, riding with him, that something more needed to be done about Dad's condition.

Then there's the time that I was driving by an intersection and a parked car on the other side of the street just burst into flames. I'm talking flames here. It was like something off a Hollywood set. And no one stopped or even seemed to notice. Ok, that wasn't an accident but you have to admit it was freaky.

These are just a few of my car chronicles and luckily I've always come out of it unhurt, even if the car has been totalled. For instance, the time the delivery truck doing 60 hit me, I know my guardian angel was on the case because the entire front of the car was at a distinct angle to the rest of the car ... but I had instinctively hit the brakes just in the nick of time to tear out her rear axle so she couldn't leave the scene ... oh, and to stop her from hitting me dead on.

I'll end with yesterday's story, when I was again innocently driving (I'm always innocent; that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) in the right hand lane toward an intersection, next to one of those gigantically long Mayflower moving vans. I always feel like an idiot because I am nervous about driving next to big trucks. I don't trust the drivers to see me in their mirrors. It's a good thing I was nervously eyeing this one since I was halfway up the length of the van. I noticed right away that my lane was getting narrower and narrower ... because the truck was moving over. Maybe he was just out of his lane for a moment? Nope. He was moving over now! I hit the horn and hit the gas. Caught between a high curb on one side and this immensely long truck on the other I started wondering about crushed vans (and people inside them). He came far enough over to hit my side mirror (good thing it snaps back) and then finally came to a halt. I pulled up even with the cab, opened my window and then we had a very inelegant exchange of screaming at each other. Because he seemed to think that this was my fault and I should have gotten out of the way by going faster (or something). Wrong. So we will see how Mayflower handles this as I pulled up enough to get his license plate before moving on.

I think when my Guardian Angel got assigned they made a point of making sure he was extra good at handling car situations. Thank heavens!

Best Short Movie Review Ever

Harry Knowles at Ain't It Cool gives us a spot-on, succinct review of "Stealth."

Well here it is... down to the final ounce, this film is 7 tons of dumb.

"... she is also just so darn happy!"

The Anchoress took me totally by surprise with some very kind and generous comments. When they come from someone who I admire as much as I do her, well, that just makes me doubly happy! (Couldn't resist that one, ya know.)

Being so darned happy has come up before and led me to reflection of just why that is ... which I am linking to here for anyone who is interested, as well as to my conversion story. Because, as in all things, it is through the grace of God who I can never thank enough for His goodness to me and mine.

Cheers Anchoress and thanks again!

Making Money With Anti-Catholicism

While other forms of bigotry are confined to the world of cranks and conspiracy theorists, anti-Church historical polemic makes money for major American publishing houses. Within the last decade, blue-ribbon publishers have produced such works as John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope, Garry Wills' Papal Sin and Why I Am a Catholic, James Carroll's Constantine's Sword, and Daniel J. Goldhagen's A Moral Reckoning. By 2002, readers had access to "a virtual book of the month club on institutional Catholicism, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust." That is in addition to the widespread use of the anti-Catholic pseudo-history in many works on Catholic attitudes to sexuality and gender, on early Christianity, and on medieval history. Obviously this run of anti-Church blockbusters does not mean that America's leading publishers are conspiring to destroy or calumniate Catholicism. The publishers act as they do because they believe that people will buy the books, and the success of authors such as Carroll and Cornwell indicates they are exactly right. Against the charge that the books are purely hostile attacks, the publishers can state, quite accurately, that in most case the authors themselves claim to be loyal Catholics. Wills, Cornwell, and Carroll would all make such an assertion, and their insider status certainly helps to deflect criticism.

But whatever the publishers' motives, the total effect of such an outpouring of deeply hostile books is powerful. Imagine browsing the religion section of a major bookstore and finding Catholicism represented chiefly by these titles. The obvious lesson for the average reader is that the Catholic Church carries a huge burden of guilt for its historical atrocities, that it is a prime motivator of anti-Semitism and a collaborator with Nazism.

The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
by Philip Jenkins

I discovered this when I was first converting and innocently looking over the books at Borders. It didn't take much perusing of book jackets, even to such a newbie as myself, to find that some people who claimed love for the Church were pouring out bitter invective in these same books. As was a matter of dicussion here last week, it took Cardinal Ratzinger being elected Pope to get any of his books into the mainstream stores near me.

Marching Into My Heart

MARCH OF THE PENGUINS
This movie is a fascinating look at what the Emperor penguins endure every year as they go mate and raise their chicks. Frankly, as I watched this I couldn't believe any penguins existed under these circumstances for very long. The fact that they are still here after thousands of years testifies to the innate toughness of these birds. I highly recommend that anyone who is interested in nature films see this movie.

As I watched the penguins enduring things like a winter storm which brought conditions of 80 degrees below zero and 100 mile per hour winds, I kept wondering how the film makers got the footage. We are treated to just a few glimpses of them in the closing credits so do not leave before you see them. They hint at the movie I'd really like to see, that perhaps we will get when the DVD is released ... The Making of March of the Penguins.

My approval of this movie is not unconditional, however, as there is a fly in the ointment. The movie makers seem determined to elicit emotion from the viewer and use the twin bludgeons of unbelievably sentimental music (which at times is incredibly loud) and relentless anthropomorphization. The movie would have been much stronger with a lighter touch on both which accounts for my rating of ...

***
"Liked it despite the absence of flubber..." - Mel Gibson reading Prof. Frink's review

Finding "Church" Everywhere Else

More and more Christians say the usual ways of "doing church" no longer resonate in a contemporary, postmodern culture. Seeking to fill the gap, a growing movement called "the emerging church" is developing new forms of worship and asking new theological questions.

Adherents to the movement don't align themselves with any established denomination. Their rites and worship settings are unconventional – often more coffeehouse or college-dorm ambience than church.

Many emerging churches weave together elements from different religious traditions, especially Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Some are renewing medieval mystical practices such as walking the labyrinth. Some emphasize video images, electronic music and audience participation.

This Dallas Morning News story goes into great detail over the "emergent church" and pastors' alarm as Gen X abandons traditional worship. In this same vein, A Real Big Fish talks about finding church at work with fellow believers.

My reaction to all this is essentially Catholic. Any church that doesn't have the Eucharist is just a building where believers gather. Some may be pretty and some may be plain and some may have coffee and DJs that mix cds for the worshippers ... in fact, some may be like my Catholic women's book club. Jesus is there with any worshippers where two or more are gathered in His name but it isn't the same as having his actual presence in the Eucharist right there with you. Without the Eucharist then one place is just as good as another ... and no place is as good as being in front of the tabernacle.

The Importance of the Body in Christianity

Christ's Resurrection bestows new dignity on our bodies by revealing to us a new, unexpected, and glorious eternal destiny for them ... "In expectation of that day, the believer's body and soul already participate in the dignity of belonging to Christ" (CCC 1004).

In most religions (such as Hinduism), only spirit is immortal. In some (such as Gnosticism), only spirit is good. In some (such as Buddhism), only spirit is real. But for Christians, the body is real, good, and immortal. No religion exalts matter and the body as Christianity does:

1. God created it and declared it "good" (Gen 1).
2. God united man's body with his immortal soul to make one substance, one being.
3. And therefore he made the body immortal like the soul, through resurrection.
4. In sexual intercourse, he uses a material act to make new immortal souls.
5. And he kept his human body forever. Every since Christ took his human nature, body and soul, to heaven in the Ascension, God has a body forever. Christ did not "un-incarnate" when he ascended.
6. He now uses matter to save souls in Baptism and the Eucharist.

... The practical moral consequences of this doctrine of the resurrection as the body's destiny are radical, especially to contemporary culture. "This dignity entails the demand that he should treat with respect his own body, but also the body of every other person" (CCC 1004). "Do you know that your bodies are the members of Christ? ... Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit ...You are not your own' you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body" (1 Cor 6:15, 19-20).

The origin of modern hedonism and materialism (especially the "sexual revolution") is not the discovery of the goodness or greatness of the body, but the denial of it, by the Gnostic separation of body from spirit, by the confinement of religion and morality to subjective intention (the idea that if it is motivated by love, anything is moral). The "materialism" of the playboy really stems from the denial of the sacredness of matter and the body, which is then used as a mere tool, a means to the end of pleasure and excitement. His end is subjectively good feelings in the soul, not the objective good of the body.

Catholic Christianity:A Complete Catechism of Catholic Beliefs based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Peter Kreeft