A sound, truly traditional approach to moral questions about marital relations

Michie said:

Don't be led astray by legalists of any stripe​

This post is long. My aim is to offer all I have, which is common sense, on a difficult topic. First we have a super long introduction of my own, followed by links to and excerpts from three related articles I hope you will find helpful to forming a general approach for peaceful resolution. At the end I will add a reflection on how to seek advice in a prudent manner (spoiler: not on social media).

I will restrict the comments to paid subscribers to guard against, well, you can imagine. (If you are a paid subscriber to The School for Housewives, my other Substack, let me know and I will comp you for this one.)

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(There will be no indiscretions here, but this post is not for teens.)

The marriage of a man and a woman is an Edenic union that foreshadows God’s love for His holy Church. To quote the nuptial blessing from the ancient Roman rite:


Worth meditating on.

People ask: what is permitted in the marital embrace?

Continued below.

A sound, truly traditional approach to moral questions about marital relations

Don't be led astray by legalists of any stripe

leilamarielawler.substack.com

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This is a very delicate issue, and Leila Marie Lawler has done an exceptional job of presenting it after Fr. Nix and some other guy attacked her on the subject. Let me just say that moral theologian Germaine Grisez has also done an admirable job of it in his magnum opus. Cookbook theological lightweights will say this is all theological mush, as they did in accusing Leila. But on the other hand theological lightweights like West, or on the other hand, liberal theological lightweights that approve of all sexual deviency. What a husband and wife do is not anything goes but nor is it strictly limited. Leila tastefully explains. I’m not going to go into any more detail than she did, but Fr. Nix, guardian of orthodoxy that he says he is, is too restrictive. It’s not for nothing that the old theological manuals left some things in Latin. Some things are carefully and delicately permitted in Catholic tradition. Not everything.