“When the Catholic Church insists that it is more sinful to use condoms in the midst of a sexually transmitted epidemic that it is for the same Church to withhold approbation of the use of condoms, it is less suprising that the sexual abuse of minors was handled unethically.”

“Lay Catholics and priests alike expected that Vatican II and the deliberations of a fifty-eight-member commission appointed to study the birth control issue would result in an end to the ban on artificial contraception. Instead, Pope Paul VI, negating the majority report of his own commission, issued the 1968 Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church's birth control prohibitions. Garry Wills asserts that Humanae Vitae was based on a minority report from the commission that emphasized the need for continuity in Church teachings. The teachings could not change because it had been the teaching for so long, and, if it changed, the Church would have to acknowledge that it had been in error about the teaching, and how would they explain what had happened to all the souls supposedly in hell for using artificial birth control?”

“The Church, though, has always held up a mirror in which society can see reflected some of its uglier aspects, and it does not like what it sees. Thus it becomes angry but not, as it should be, with itself, but with the Church. This is particularly noticeable when it comes to issues of personal gratification and sexuality and especially, apart from abortion, when issues of artificial contraception, condoms, and the birth-control pill are discussed. The Church warned in the 1960s that far from creating a more peaceful, content, and sexually fulfilled society, the universal availability of the pill and condoms would lead to the direct opposite. In the decade since, we have seen a seemingly inexorable increase in sexually transmitted diseases, so-called unwanted pregnancies, sexuality-related depression, divorce, family breakdown, pornography addiction, and general unhappiness in the field of sexual relationships. The Church's argument was that far from liberating women, contraception would enable and empower men and reduce the value and dignity of sexuality to the point of transforming what should be a loving and profound act into a mere exchange of bodily fluids. The expunging from the sexual act the possibility of procreation, the Church said, would reduce sexuality to mere self-gratification. Pleasure was vital and God-given but there was also a purpose, a glorious purpose, to sex that went far beyond the merely instant and ultimately selfish.”

“The personal love Christ has for you is infinite - the small difficulty you have regarding the church is finite.... What is happening on the surface of the church will pass, but Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”

“Men who refuse to use condoms do not deserve to be fucked by anyone but other men who refuse to use condoms.”

“Sexual desire is a state not unlike hunger.”

“The difference between noon and midnight is the same as the separation between sex and masturbation. Sexually, you can find me at 6:00 sharp. Bring a condom and a glove—and don’t be late.
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