Roman Catholic couples are being encouraged to pray together before they have sex.

A book published by a prominent Church group invites those setting out on married life to recite the specially-composed Prayer Before Making Love.

It is aimed at ‘purifying their intentions’ so that the act is not about selfishness or hedonism . . .

The article even includes a how-to photo.

As a part of comprehensive sex education, I believe our children need to learn exactly what it means when Dad says to Mom, “Let us Pray.”

That makes as much sense as getting advice from a vegan on the best way to roast a pig or asking a lesbian for advice on jerking off.

Sorry to be crude but I find it fascinating that people go to PRIESTS for sex, marriage and relationship counseling.

anal and oral sex lack dignity because they abuse their partners as instrumentalities of pleasure for non-procreative potential.

There ya go! It’s all about procreative potential, although if I recall, the chatechism was okay with it as long as it was an act of foreplay leading to “procreative potential”. So Fr. Becker is a bit off.

But yes, you can see the whole obsession over sex that is, well, strange and unhealthy, to say the least.

While the idea may be off-putting among some Protestants, the Catholic view of sex as prayer, I think, has some very attractive features from a spirituality standpoint. And from a more practical point of view, I offer my condolences to anyone who has never had the feeling of having been in the company of angels in the afterglow.

I would get them bonding over “the Bible says its sin” and overlooking doctrinal differences. But the priests and Bishops they’ve had so far seem to be making NOM’s rallies all about Catholic doctrine.

Oh, hey, I feel another commentary coming on.

Bingo! :-) Once you ground social policy arguments in religious beliefs, then the next logical question is whose religion should prevail!

That is why Catholics have historically been reluctant to enter into overt politics (and why most of the Catholic laity are still reluctant to do so). Historically, they were never on the winning end in the English-speaking world.

So yes, NOM’s very open Catholic-centrism is an odd thing to see. Imagine if the Mormons had put on a public rally in San Diego talking about Celestial marraiges?

I asked NOM in a blog comment (which, no surprise, was moderated into the digital garbage) why nobody from NOM is reporting on what their actual message is.

As to the content of this guy’s message – utter tripe.

I don’t see anything wrong with thinking God was in the presence of the conception of her child. Isn’t conceiving a child a often the product of a loving physical union? The problem lies in deifying a specific sexual act to the preclusion of all other sex acts.