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Those Were the Days of Giants! A Brief Reflection on the Fasting and Abstinence that were once common in Advent and LentBy: Msgr. Charles Pope I was explaining to a new Catholic recently that the color purple (violet) used in advent is akin to its use in Lent, in that both are considered penitential seasons. Hence we are to give special attention to our sins and our need for salvation. Traditionally we would also take part in penitential practices of fasting and abstinence.Of course, in recent decades Advent has almost wholly lost any real penitential practices. There is no...

Madison - Schools that teach sexual education would have to promote marriage and tell students abstinence is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy, under a bill the Senate passed Wednesday. The Republican-backed measure passed on a party-line 17-15 vote and now goes to the Republican-run Assembly. It would allow schools to teach abstinence-only courses, which has been banned in Wisconsin since last year under a law Democrats passed when they controlled state government. Also Wednesday, the Senate passed a bill creating an elected comptroller to keep an eye on Milwaukee County's finances. A law approved last year requires sex...

A young Christian at an purity rally spreads the word. True love doesn’t wait after all. That’s the implication in the upcoming October issue of an evangelical magazine that claims that young, unmarried Christians are having premarital sex almost as much as their non-Christian peers. The article in Relevant magazine, entitled “(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It,” cited several studies examining the sexual activity of single Christians. One of the biggest surprises was a December 2009 study, conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which included information on sexual activity. While the study’s primary report did not explore...

Florida has allocated money authorized by Obamacare for abstinence education provided by 13 different groups. Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott and the Legislature accepted the $2.5 million grant per year from fiscal year 2010 through 2014, and Florida’s Department of Health has used the money by giving 13 grants of $150,000 each. Florida’s Abstinence Education Program encourages children between ages 9 and 18 to abstain from sex before marriage. In addition, it educates young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability. Planned Parenthood of North Florida CEO Staci Fox criticized Florida’s decision to...

Take a look at the Obama Administration’s newest grant announcement for marriage education. Everything looks okay until page 29. There, listed as one of the “Unallowable Activities,” is abstinence education. Wait a second. One would expect that with the name Healthy Marriage and Relationship Grants, these programs would aim to promote, well, healthy marriage and relationships. But then why ban educators from talking to youth about delaying sexual activity—a factor associated with stronger marriages—not to mention helping youth avoid a host of other social ills? As Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association stated: Preventing youth from receiving sexual...

Sarah Palin is going to be a grandmother again - her 22-year-old son Track is expecting his first child. The Republican politician’s new 21-year-old daughter-in-law Britta Hanson appears heavily pregnant in newly-posted photos on a friend's Facebook account. The news comes two months after the high school sweethearts married in a small ceremony on a ski slope in Hatcher Pass, Alaska. A picture captioned 'my beautiful britta pie!' which appears to have been taken after a baby shower, shows the expectant mother smiling brightly and surrounded by gifts. Another shows Britta holding up a small hoodie as she smiles at...

Recently a former Ramapo High School teacher ran afoul of the law by giving a sexually explicit book to a high school girl. The ex-teacher was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child, among other things. Meanwhile, Clarkstown high school students are reading a book that contains all kinds of sexually explicit episodes, including graphic depictions of heterosexual and homosexual encounters, forced oral sex, masturbation, and bestiality. But there is no outcry from the masses in Clarkstown, because this book (which I will not name, to deny it undeserved publicity) is part of the high school English...

Online dating is nothing new, but the $1.8 billion industry is growing—and diversifying—by leaps and bounds. There are dating sites for cheaters, dating sites for millionaires, and dating sites for Christians. The are dating sites for specific ethnic groups, dating sites for divorcees, and dating sites for age groups. Now, there are even dating sites exclusively for virgins and abstinent singles. WeWaited.com and WeAbstain.com are catering to singles on the dating scene that are looking for someone of the opposite sex that holds the same values. While WeWaited.com targets virgins looking for other virgins to date, WeAbstain.com focuses on singles...

What is it to do fasting and abstinence? And, when do I do it? What does it mean to "fast"?To fast is to do without food.  Its purpose is to experience the effects of not eating.  It also serves to be a penance or a sacrifice - for the purpose of strengthening us.  When we don't eat, for even a little while, we get hungry.  When we get hungry, we have a heightened sense of awareness.  If, when we eat too much, we have a sluggish feeling, when we fast, we have a feeling of alertness.  Fasting is a wonderful...

Fewer teens and young adults are having sex, a government survey shows, and theories abound for why they're doing it less. Experts say this generation may be more cautious than their predecessors, more aware of sexually spread diseases. Or perhaps emphasis on abstinence in the past decade has had some influence. Or maybe they're just too busy. "It's not even on my radar," said 17-year-old Abbey King of Hinsdale, Ill., a competitive swimmer who starts her day at 5 a.m. and falls into bed at 10:30 p.m. after swimming, school, weight lifting, running, more swimming, homework and a volunteer gig...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--The number of commitments by African youth to biblical purity through True Love Waits International stands at more than 959,000 since LifeWay Christian Resources launched its strategic initiative there in the summer of 2007. During that three-and-a-half-year period, more than 1.6 million young people in Africa heard the True Love Waits message promoting sexual abstinence until marriage. In addition, nearly 46,000 married adults have committed to faithfulness, and more than 41,600 decisions to follow Jesus Christ have been recorded by True Love Waits team members. From April to October 2010, the total grew by more than 70,000 African...

Washington University in St. Louis canceled abstinence advocate Bristol Palin’s speaking engagement amid much outcry over her qualifications and payment. The university withdrew her invitation after students began to protest her scheduled February appearance as part of Student Sexual Responsibility Week. Scott Elman, president of Student Health Advisory Committee, told WU’s school paper that the decision to cancel Palin’s appearance was “100 percent mutual.” Elman said the SHAC initially invited Palin because they felt a big name would draw more people to hear a message about abstinence. But both parties agreed that the controversy would overshadow the event’s intended message...

More than 10 percent of teens who said they were abstinent also tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease, says a study in Pediatrics released Monday — a figure public health advocates say justifies screening all teens for such diseases. Study author Jessica McDermott Sales, a research assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at Emory University, said STD screenings should happen, regardless of what they say about their sexual histories. "These infections can have some pretty major consequences for young people … . It's worth the urine test," she said. The study was based on...

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found a decided link between celibacy and good grades. Among high school students who earn mostly A’s, 32 percent have had intercourse, compared with 69 percent of their peers with D’s and F’s. And on risk-taking measures like consuming alcohol or using condoms, the better students were also the more cautious. The study doesn’t point fingers. “We don’t know whether students get good grades because they’re not engaging in risk behaviors,” says Nancy Brener, a health scientist at the C.D.C., or whether sex is part of a downward spiral....

Sluthood wasn't always considered a virtue. Most normal, rational people look at sleeping around as something sad and wrong. It's not healthy, physically or mentally, it can be damaging to a young girl's reputation, and it can also be incredibly dangerous. Women that sleep around oftentimes end up feeling used and regret their choices when they get older and decide to settle down. Other women end up contracting STDs, which may or may not be treatable. For these reasons and more, being a slut is understandably looked down upon -- it can be genuinely harmful. Today's pseudo-feminists, however, have...

They may live in a sexually charged culture that essentially encourages them to have sex, but nearly 70 percent of high school-age teens are virgins, according to a new study of the nation's sexual habits. Published in the October issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the study surveyed 820 adolescents nationwide via the Internet, a confidential method the researchers say is more likely to produce honest answers compared to a face-to-face or phone interview. Parents had to give consent. The study found that 69.7 percent of boys and 68.4 percent of girls ages 16-17 have never had intercourse. Among...

Sex. Some of us do it, most of us like it and we all think about it…. A lot. I know I do (though I was told that it’s normal). Gettin’ busy really isn’t the taboo subject that it once was. Whereas once upon a time the conversation was relegated to whispers behind closed doors, nowadays it’s discussed openly and without shame. As a stand-up comedian, I’ve seen hacks openly depict the most depraved, explicit sexual acts they can think of just to get a laugh out of the audience. Clearly, telling wiener jokes is no longer the treading of...

Kansas (Impossible News) -- A highly innovative approach is now being tested in rural Kansas schools when it comes to abstinence education. The new "Ooooh, That's Gross!" program is designed to connect with kindergarten through 6th grade students. Children are taken out to the farm to watch livestock during the mating season. As you can imagine, answers to the many questions they ask are intended to repulse the children and give them the heeby jeebies when it comes to physical contact with the opposite sex. Then after the field trip they are given a "Dick is icky" or Jane is...

Wednesday September 1, 2010 Minn. Governor Snubs Federal Grant for Condom-Pushing Sex Ed Pawlenty orders state to reject Obamacare "to the fullest extent possible" By Kathleen GilbertST. PAUL, Minnesota, September 1, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnestota has triggered the ire of the local Planned Parenthood for refusing a federal grant under the new health care law to fund sex education that would push contraceptive use. Pawlenty, who has ordered the state to reject the federal health care legislation "to the fullest extent possible," is instead opting for an abstinence-centered education program.The governor declined to apply for...

A government study shows that more than two-thirds of parents support abstinence education. Unfortunately, the other third seems to be giving and getting federal grants. Maybe that’s why the feds held up the release of the survey for nearly two years. “A nearly two-year-old, federally-funded survey of teen and parent attitudes about sex has prompted new outrage among abstinence education supporters, just as federal funding for their programs is ending,” Ben Penn reported in “Youth Today, the newspaper on Youth Work” on August 26, 2010. “The report, dated February 2009, was released Monday by the U.S. Administration for Children and...

Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families were keeping the lid on the results of a new study they funded until they received a flood of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests sparked by the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA), according to LifeNews.com.The tax-funded study found that 70 percent of parents believe sexual intercourse should be delayed until marriage and that parental attitudes on such issues are the most important determinant of how adolescents view them as well. according to LifeNews.com.The study was discussed at a recent meeting of the American Public...

Complete title: Government Study Withheld for Year: 70 Percent of Parents and 54 Percent of Teens Say Sex Before Marriage is Wrong (CNSNews.com) - Seventy percent of American parents and 53.5 percent of American adolescents believe sex before marriage is wrong, according to a federally funded study released Monday by the Administration of Children and Families, an agency within the Health and Human Services Department. The survey asked American parents and adolescents whether they strongly agreed, somewhat agreed, somewhat disagreed or strongly disagreed wih the statement that "having sexual intercourse is something only married people should."  Among parents, 47.6 percent strongly agreed and 22.2 percent somewhat agreed,...

Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families were keeping the lid on the results of a new study they funded until they received a flood of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests sparked by the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA), according to LifeNews.com. The tax-funded study found that 70 percent of parents believe sexual intercourse should be delayed until marriage and that parental attitudes on such issues are the most important determinant of how adolescents view them as well. according to LifeNews.com. The study was discussed at a recent meeting of the...

Obama, Congress Cut $ for 176 Abstinence Programs Despite New Study Washington, DC -- More than 176 abstinence education programs will lose funding for their outreaches to youth and young adults on September 30 because Congress and the Obama Administration canceled all grants going to abstinence-centered programming in their FY2010 budget. http://LifeNews.com/nat6659.html

The Obama administration is, once again, entangled in controversy over sex education.Yet this time, it is not about what the administration is trying to implement, but about what it is withholding – and apparently for political reasons.A taxpayer-funded study that indicates parental and adolescent support of abstinence education is not being released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as it does not support the administration’s objective – or that of vocal “safe sex” activists – of eliminating all abstinence-education funding.The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a division of HHS, funded a survey of 1,000...

Analysis shows need for increased focus on sexuality, not social skills, in study and treatment of young sex offendersWASHINGTON – Adolescent sex offenders are often stereotyped and treated as socially inept, but new research negates this image, finding that they are more likely to be characterized by atypical sexual interests -- such as desire for prepubescent children, coercive sex with peers and adults, and exposing their genitals to strangers. Adolescent sex offenders are also more likely to have a history of sexual abuse themselves, been exposed to sexual violence in their families, and experienced early exposure to sex or pornography....

From his Greene County home, Rich Wyler has spent eight years organizing private weekend camps throughout the country to rid men of sexual attraction to other men. Wyler, the founder of the nonprofit People Can Change, has hosted camps throughout the United States and in England, including several in the Charlottesville area. More than 1,300 men have attended. Many participants in the Journey Into Manhood camps blame their gay feelings on childhood experiences. Some were molested. Others felt shunned by male adults or peers. Like Wyler, most of Wyler’s volunteer staff members have fought same-sex attraction. Some participants believe bad...

The former Freeland High School teacher charged in connection to having a sexual relationship with a student appeared in the Midland County District Court this afternoon to be arraigned on eight charges of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Marcie Lynn Rousseau, 33, Freeland, was arraigned by Judge Stephen P. Carras, who set bond at $80,000 cash or surety. Other bond conditions are no contact with the victim or children under the age of 18 who are not related to her unless the youngster’s parents are present and no use of the Internet social networking website FaceBook. She is represented by Saginaw...

www.LibertyJuice.com I was surprised and delighted to read that many college girls are finally learning that they hold value, that their bodies aren’t little playthings for slobbering and sweaty young men, and that giving themselves over for one night stands comes with an emotional price that often lingers for a long time. It’s not been a popular message these days in high schools or college campuses, as more often than not, we’ve seen young people tossed candy-flavored condoms and sent off with a wink. The songs, shows and movies our youth watch and listen to glorify sexual promiscuity without consequence....

Bristol Palin is joining the speakers circuit and will command between $15,000 and $30,000 for each appearance, Palin family attorney Thomas Van Flein says. Van Flein confirmed a report by celebrity news website RadarOnline that said the daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has signed with Single Source Speakers. He added that her exact fees will depend on factors such as the group she's addressing and what she must do to prepare. Briston Palin, now 19, was thrust into the spotlight as a pregnant teenager during her mother's unsuccessful vice presidential campaign in 2008. She gave birth to a...

MAUSTON, Wis. (AP) -- Mike Taake has taught sex education for 30 years, and he says he knows what doesn't work: just telling kids to wait. The Mauston High School health teacher has used abstinence-only and comprehensive curriculums, and he said students need all the information they can get about sex to make the best choices. But teaching them about contraceptives could land him and other teachers in court...

Teen Birth Rates Fall in 2008 After Two Year Increase, Abstinence Credited Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Teen birth rates fell in 2008 after increasing during the two years prior, the Centers for Disease Control said today, and backers of abstinence education credit their programs as making an impact. The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics reported today that the full birth rate fell two percent in 2008. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat6225.html

Not So Fast Malcolm A. Kline, April 5, 2010 Recently we reported that the health care bill made funding available for abstinence education. Well, apparently, the feds are looking for something more “comprehensive� to bankroll. “Today the Office of Adolescent Health released a funding announcement for the $75 million in competitive grants to be awarded to ‘evidenced based’ programs under the new Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program,� the National Abstinence Education Association reported Friday, April 02, 2010. “NAEA reviewed the announcement and provides a summary here.� “The announcement makes clear that all grantees must select from a specific list of curricula...

A cardinal seen as a future candidate for the papacy has broken a Vatican taboo by raising the possibility that priestly celibacy is among the causes of the sex abuse scandal sweeping the Roman Catholic Church.

ROME, MARCH 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Priestly celibacy is not psychologically dangerous, and in fact, sexual behavior based on "anything goes" is what is truly destructive to the personality. This is the affirmation made by Dr. Aquilino Polaino Lorente, a physician and psychiatrist who teaches courses on psychopathology at the University of St. Paul in Madrid. The psychiatrist -- best known for his work in children's and family psychology -- was a speaker at the two-day conference held last week at Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. The conference, "Priestly Celibacy: Theology and Life," was sponsored by the Congregation for...

A group that thinks an ad celebrating Tim Tebow's life is bad news for women might be a little out of touch with what women really want. That helps explain why the National Organization for Women and other feminist groups have vehemently opposed abstinence education while failing to notice that a culture of casual sex hasn't been so liberating for women. Just ask the 29-year-old Briton living in America whose anonymous account appeared in her country's left-wing Guardian newspaper. "(M)y sexual liberation was perversely trapping me in destructive relationships, while intimacy had become something elusive, insubstantial, disappointing, surreal," she writes....

Gender and sexuality have caused divisions in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Same-sex unions are upheld in some churches and not in others; the same is true for gay clergy. While there are more than 3,300 churches that affirm lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender congregants, 57 percent of Protestant clergy hardly ever discuss issues specific to the gay and lesbian community. But according to "Sexuality and Religion 2020," a report released this week, they probably should. The report was published by the Westport, Conn.-based Religious Institute, a national interfaith network of more than 5,000 clergy and religious leaders....

Alarmed by a recent well-publicized study showing that abstinence education succeeded while “safe sex” and “comprehensive” sex-ed programs failed, the Left has abandoned its “abstinence doesn’t work” claim and drawn up a new line of defense. Consider what the New York Times had to say. According to its editorialists, the newly evaluated abstinence program succeeded because it was “freed from the moralistic overtones and ideological restrictions” of prior abstinence education. You can bet that anyone who pontificates about “moralistic overtones” in abstinence education has never held an actual abstinence curriculum in his hands, let alone read one. Why does abstinence...

Stimulated Avatars of Abandon Malcolm A. Kline, February 11, 2010 With evidence mounting that abstinence education helps prevent all of the maladies that government and school officials claim that they want to protect us from, these worthies are doing their utmost to give us…even more of the same policies that produced those outcomes in the first place. “Finally, why is it that public school students, who know so much more about sex than those dunces in the parochial schools, are precisely the ones walking around with the highest rates of illegitimacy, abortion and herpes?” Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic...

Dramatic new evidence that abstinence-only sex education can succeed in public schools ought to be good news for Texas, right? After all, state law requires an emphasis on abstinence, and most school districts stop there. But education experts caution that the program tested is very different from the curriculum offered in many Texas schools. And while elements can be found in some North Texas classrooms, not even the researchers can say for certain which parts of their specially designed program made it work. Advocates of abstinence-only classes praised the study, published last week in the latest issue of the Archives...

Surprise (to some)! Abstinence education actually works. According to a new University of Pennsylvania study published in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, abstinence only education helps to prevent teen pregnancy even if it does not include a religious message. The study showed that 33 percent of sixth and seventh graders who took an abstinence-only course had sex within two years of the course compared to 52 percent who were taught only "safer sex" and 42 percent who were taught both abstinence and safer sex.

This week, the media gave us what appeared to be startling news: Research, appearing in a journal published by the American Medical Association, showed (shock!) that abstinence programs dramatically reduced teen sexual activity. No one knowledgeable about abstinence education, however, would find this startling. In fact, eleven previous sound studies showed strong positive effects from abstinence programs. The mainstream media simply ignored them. Unfortunately, the most recent story came too late — President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have already terminated the federal government’s abstinence programs. What other story has the mainstream media ignored? The big one concerns the...

Abstinence-only sex education has been a favorite target of the cultural elite, who argued it was naive at best and dangerous at worst. Now, a new study published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine suggests that encouraging young teens to just say no to sex may be the most effective method at delaying early sexual activity. The study, the first of its kind to employ rigorous research methods in a controlled setting, showed that programs that encouraged 12- to 14-year-old students to refrain from sexual activity "until they are ready" were more effective than other approaches. The study...

I’ve never been a fan of abstinence education, not that I care much for the alternatives. The whole idea that an educational system that has landed us in 12th place in international science tests could bring down America’s world-class teen pregnancy rate has always struck me as a dubious proposition, no matter what curriculum was being used. This past week’s mini-drama surrounding the release of two conflicting studies related to sex education highlights another reason for skepticism on the subject: the limits of social science, especially when filtered through the largely liberal media. Last Tuesday, the Guttmacher Institute issued a...

Somebody up there has a wicked sense of humor. How else do you explain the release this week of a new study by John B. Jemmott III proving that an abstinence-only education program works? First President Obama slashes virtually all federal funding for abstinence-only education programs in 2010. ("It's about time that evidence-based management -- and sanity -- return to family planning programs," applauded Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.) Then just last week, the Guttmacher Institute -- which is affiliated with Planned Parenthood, but usually does good science anyway -- reported that teen pregnancy rates are once again rising. Oddly, with...

(Feb. 2) -- What if abstinence-only programs actually work? That's the question facing educators this week after a groundbreaking study found that students who take classes emphasizing abstinence are less likely to have sex than those who take classes teaching safe sex. Although the effectiveness and virtues of sex-ed versus abstinence-only curricula have long been the subject of fierce debate in American schools, the federal study, published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, is the first of its kind to suggest that programs encouraging students to abstain from having sex altogether are successful. Just under half of the...

Sex education classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abstinent can convince a significant proportion to delay sexual activity, researchers reported Monday in a landmark study that could have major implications for the nation's embattled efforts to protect young people against unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. In the first carefully designed study to evaluate the controversial approach to sex ed, researchers found that only about a third of 6th and 7th graders who went through sessions focused on abstinence started having sex in the next two years. In contrast, nearly half of students who got other classes, including...

Oprah Winfrey, the daytime television guru who encourages viewers daily by telling them they have the power to achieve any goal they might set for themselves, questioned Bristol Palin’s goal of abstaining from sex until marriage in a recent interview: “In a Jan. 22 interview, Oprah criticized Bristol Palin, the teen daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, for recently telling In Touch Weekly that she was pledging abstinence until marriage. ‘I kind of bristled,’ Oprah began, ‘when I saw this—where you said, ‘I’m not going to have sex until I’m married. I can guarantee it’ ... I’m just...

Did you know that penance is not only for Lent and Advent? And that we Catholics are not only supposed to be doing penance on the Fridays of Lent? Of course, penance is good to do at many times for many reasons.  But in fact, canon law requires us to do some form of penance every Friday of the year. Canon 1250—All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the universal Church. Canon 1251—Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to...

In the spring of 1998, I publicly revealed that the orgasm is not the crowning achievement of my life. Having been bombarded for months with the “spin” regarding Bill Clinton’s most infamous national sex scandal, I felt compelled to make my own statement. I was sickened by the excuses. “It was just a lie about sex.” “Everybody cheats.” “Boys will be boys.” “That depends on what the definition of the word ‘is’ is.” And my favorite; “If I were Clinton, I’d have done it, too.” To which I quickly responded, “And I wouldn’t want you to be President, either.” I...