"Christianity Helps Make Love Healthy, Says Pope"

This is the heading for an article on the June 6 ZENIT post. The pope addressed the ecclesial congress of the Diocese of Rome on "The Joy of Faith and the Education of New Generations." His main focus, as seen by ZENIT, is that today's youth must be shown that when the Church talks about love and sexual morality, she is not imposing regulations but opening them to true freedom to love. I think this is the most important morality message that youth need to hear.

Since my wife is pregnant she gets in many interesting conversations. Recently she was talking with a non-Catholic who made the statement about birth control, "That's the beauty of not being Catholic, you're free to just go back on the pill." Statements such as this are exactly what the pope is getting at. The world has a distorted view of freedom. Having a Church that helps you know what evils are limiting to your freedom is not restrictive, it is liberating.

True freedom is accepting a woman's body in all its truth, beauty, and goodness and not trying to stop the way it works. When someone takes a pill to stop her body from doing what it is supposed to do, that is not freedom. That simply makes you a slave to the pill.

This is the beauty of the Church. She is never trying to hold you back. She is always trying to show you just how truly free you can be.

I went to a wedding last night, which always makes me think about how many people simply don't realize the joy that comes in having saved sex for marraige. The joy that you feel on your wedding night, getting to share every part of yourself with your spouse for the first time, and recieveing your spouse for the first time is a joy that can be felt in no other way. This again is true freedom. So many people have no concept of this true joy that sex can be.

This is what the Holy Father is wanting to teach here. True freedom in love. The Church offers help to all who want to recieve it. Now all we have to do is show it to them.