In today’s increasingly narcissistic culture, the focus on the ego is overwhelmingly pervasive. And the greatest victim of the age of narcissism is the family. The contraceptive mentality has become the scourge of Western civilization, creating a demographic crisis and poisoning modern man’s philosophical outlook. Contraceptives propagate erotic egotism, leading to its natural end—abortion, the deliberate destruction of a human life.
When sex begins and ends with the self, we make allowances for the technologies of narcissism: birth control pills, condoms, and abortions. This contraceptive attitude is fundamentally at odds with the attitude of true love: life-giving love as an expression of a full gift of self. “The body is a Temple of God,” writes Fulton Sheen; “with some modern minds, man is merely a beast.” Today’s cultural arbiters would have us believe that the deep spiritual communion of the conjugal act is merely sexual satisfaction for beasts. The contraceptive mentality violates the sanctity of the human person and the body as a temple.
Consider the outcomes of the two approaches. Viewing the body as a temple of God opens the way for a cultivation of both emotional and physical chastity, protected by prayer and bolstered by the promise of love while dating, and consummating your wedding night with a spouse who promises to love you until death. Viewing the body as a beast of pleasure embraces the pursuit of boundless sexual pleasures with strangers, protected by condoms and abortions, and maybe ending up married someday after you’ve sown your wild oats. Which story has a better ending?
Samantha Schroeder, Personal Love and the Call to Chastity
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