I am sorry for implying that you were a Christopher West junkie. That was sloppy & unintended.

For some reason after reading the last paragraph of your post, I imagined Rice checking her Google alerts one day and shaking her head about everyone just does not understand. I can’t help thinking that this is a case of “whoever is not against us is for us” rather than the inverse.

I’ll admit that when I read Rice’s comment about gender complementarity in Totb I assumed that she had never actually read it. You are right that her ability to understand Beauty has been damaged, but I worry that my own ability is far to weak to correct Rice’s. I guess that my approach would be to welcome Rice’s attempt at reconciling people with the Church and to suggest that she is completely correct that the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are “entirely adequate” for addressing these issues. Now that I look back at that chapter in the book, I get the feeling that Rice was circling in on truth she was trying to explain, but ended up contradicting herself in an attempt at expressing a mystery. But obviously I really have no idea what I am talking about.

I guess that rambling is a natural result of comments which don’t actually address the main point of a post. And for that you have my apologies.

FWIW, I have never been either a Christopher West junkie (my husband and I thought the first book we read was over the top), nor an Anne Rice hater. The first thing I read of hers was Out of Egypt, and it was a truly holy experience for me, as was the Road to Cana. Those two books made me go read Interview with a Vampire, but I barely got through it; I understood the central conflict, but it just never caught me.

I like what you say, that humility is the queen of virtues. The NFP community has a tendency to self-righteousness and painting things in black & white terms. It’s a painful truth that my husband and I frequently lament, so if I come across sounding just that way, I missed my mark. As for that section of the book, I think the idea has merit, just not in the area of sexuality, for the reasons I stated. As for the total approach, I think it is neither harmful nor ignorant–she’s clearly done a lot of research–far more than I have, and I know quite a lot about my faith. I just think that the sex culture (I hate talking about that, b/c it sounds so reactionary, but you can’t turn around without sex being thrown in your face, so it’s clearly a valid point) has seduced her, and she hasn’t been able to see the beauty, the wholeness, the respect for the total person, male and female, as God created them, that is in the Theology of the Body. It is truly in the middle, if people will only look at it in its entirety, instead of one part. When she talked about the “gender complementarity” in TOB, I shook my head…because gender complementarity is precisely what’s so beautiful, and it’s far more in line with her idea of people being people first. I think she is reacting to a secular, historical view of gender roles, and not the reality of what simply exists.

Oh dear, it is late and I am rambling, and I need some time in front of the tree with my husband. I’ll be interested to hear back from you.

I’ve been struggling with how to approach this issue on the blog. I feel like the NFP crowd tends to preach to its own choir, which really isn’t helpful. This is too hard a change of mindset for most people to accept without groundwork. Which is why I’ve been nibbling at the edges. I know that I have a good sized readership that *isn’t* Catholic, and also Catholics who don’t buy into teachings on birth control. So I want to lay the foundation that would allow people to understand *why.*

What I meant was:

I get frustrated that the only people who seem to be worried about straining the relationship are people like me (and hence we keep rather quiet).

Those who are vocal in the other direction…it never seems like they care whether they strain the relationship with their comments.

My discomfort is the same as yours. I know this is nothing new, but I think the media plays such a huge part in perpetuating the idea that “everyone” is okay with this societal definition of sexuality.