Interesting view about the pregnant Gloucester teens

Amen, Father! I welcome 17 more Catholics, I recognize the benefits of "natural consequences" and I wish them all the best.... and it certainly has provided a nice platform for addressing some ongoing issues of the world, that we can all use reminding about.... Everything is a gift. God bless us every one.

I love your point of view, Father! When I heard about the kids in Gloucester, and the hue and cry
about "what should we do" for these kids - and how the school nurse and the doctor consulting with
the school had both quit in protest because the school wouldn't allow them to indiscrimiantly hand
out contraceptives to the kids - I thought "Bravo Glouster!" I think the media is insane, making
this into a "tragedy" - these kids are hungry, yearning, feeling lost and empty - and instead of
drugs, or violence, what do they reach for? LIFE! Maybe they're going about every single thing
here the wrong way around - but we are praying for these new lives, and new parents. And if the
school is looking for "solutions" - maybe they should invite Christopher West to the area, and
have a series of Theology of the Body tutorials!! That might do the trick, eh?

What?!?!? Am I missing something here? This sounds contrary to Theology of the Body: "I'm totally against fornication by anybody at any time! My negative attitude towards fornication has everything to do with my Catholic faith. I'm against fornication because God is against it." Must be some definition of the word fornication I'm missing here...

Hi Joan,

Lets look at it this way. These kids need help. The secular world is offering them artificial contraception as a soltion. Do we really think this is the kind of "help" they need? The school probably couldn't offer Theology of the Body seminars - but their parishes COULD - and they NEED - desperately need - the kind of teaching that ToB would offer them - to cherish themselves as unique and wonderful gifts of God - to cherish their sexuality as a gift of God - to realize that when they have sex in NEEDS to be within the bounds of a sacramental marriage because they aren't just "having fun" - or even "only" trying to get pregnant to fill that sucking loneliness inside their hearts - they are cooperating with the Creator of all life in the creation of a new soul. And that is a responsibility that should fill them with awe. If they had that kid of training, then their sexuality would not be something they'd look at so trivially - one would hope. And maybe they wouldn't seek to fill that sense of emptiness and futility - that they seem to have in a town that is rife with a sense of being overwhelmed, due to extreme economic hardship - by abusing the gift of their sexuality, and by taking themselves for granted. The parishes could offer ToB, and advertise it to the entire community - pulling in even the kids that might not be active in their parishes. THIS is the kind of help these kids in this community need. Not birth control. Not the mores and opinions of the secular world. They need to cherish themselves and this immense gift - and they aren't going to get that from a pack of Trojens, like their school nurse was advocating, or Time magazine seemed to imply. The Church has a better, wise, more healthy alternative - and these kids desperately need it. Yes, even the kids who have already made mistakes - because we don't want them making more mistakes. The Lord's mercy is big enough to encompass any error. We need them to go forward into a brighter future - and they need positive lessons like ToB to do that.

It is, as you say, a disgrace. But not to this one community - to our society as a whole - which pushes sexuality on children as a substitute for beauty and love. Our society has taught these children that their sexuality is a commodity, to be bought and sold, or given away to further some other purpose - like any other object in our consumeristic society. That's the real disgrace.