SEX ED
WARNING: Contents may be considered offensive & intolerant by secularists and moral relativists
BY KEN WARD

Ken Ward is opinion page editor of the Press Journal in Vero Beach, Fla. A Las Vegas resident from 1990-2002, he was a freelance columnist with the R-J and assistant managing editor at the Sun. E-mail him at kenricward@juno.com  Other stories by Ken Ward

Pope warns of dangers of sex." Yep, that was the headline in my local newspaper, accompanied by a picture of Pope Benedict XVI offering a blessing at St. Peter's Basilica.

I doubt he would have blessed news coverage that suggested he was talking smack about sexual relations. Wouldn't be very Catholic. Or human.

As a Mormon, I have no pipeline to the Vatican, but news that the pontiff was bad-mouthing sex just didn't seem right to me.

While priests and nuns take a vow of celibacy, the church, as I understand it, teaches the joy of sex as it applies to marital relations and procreation. As in: Be fruitful and multiply. Big Catholic families (like big Mormon families) would seem to be a faithful fulfillment of that heavenly directive.

I searched the Associated Press story for answers, but, amid its extended discussion of "Marxist-inspired liberation theology," I couldn't find any quotations to explain the titillating headline.

Turning to the "Bible" of daily journalism, The New York Times, I located a quite different account. Topped with a much less sexy headline - "Benedict's first encyclical shuns strictures of orthodoxy" - this longer story contained what the AP dispatch missed.

Reporting the pope's comments at length, the article said Benedict placed sex between married men and women at the center of God's plan.

"Love is indeed 'ecstasy,'" the pope declared, "not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving and, thus, toward authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God."

His text continued: "'Eros' is somehow rooted in man's very nature. Adam is a seeker who 'abandons his mother and father' in order to find woman; only together do the two represent complete humanity and become 'one flesh.' ... From the standpoint of creation, 'eros' directs man toward marriage, to a bond which is unique and definitive; thus, and only thus, does it fulfill its deepest purpose.

"Corresponding to the image of a monotheistic God is monogamous marriage. Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa. God's way of loving becomes the measure of human love. This close connection between 'eros' and marriage in the Bible has practically no equivalent in extrabiblical literature."

The theme throughout is that marriage is a sacred relationship between a man and a woman, and that sexual fidelity within the marital covenant is a guilt-free key to happiness.

This, of course, flies in the face of worldly wisdom, which all too often mocks marriage while prizing individualism, narcissism and hedonism - all of which drive us down to the animal plane.

As the Times noted (perhaps with some regret?), the pontiff's 71-page encyclical never mentions the politically divisive issues of abortion, homosexuality or contraception. Instead, his "God is Love" message was relentlessly positive.

And far from warning about sex, Benedict celebrates it ... within marriage. He notes that as men and women cleave together physically, their love reflects God's love for his children. As they labor for each other and for family, husband and wife, mother and father, honor the Savior's sacrifice and heed the divine call to love their neighbor.

After hearing the inaugural encyclical, the Rev. Joseph Fessio, editor of the conservative St. Ignatius Press, was struck at how the pope's teaching contrasted with the media's characterization of Benedict as a hard-liner, a Vatican enforcer, a Nazi.

"I can suggest a subhead for all the major media: Is this the 'Panzer Cardinal?'" Fessio told the Times.

I don't presume to know what this all portends for the pope, the Catholic Church or its politics, but it has to be good for humanity. And it's especially refreshing to see such poetic passages grace the pages of the popular press.

Even the severely secular Times applauded Benedict's words as "a gentle, erudite meditation on love and charity." I'd agree, and I have the faith to believe such counsel makes this planet a better place. LW