What It Means to Be A “Better Person”
In reference to the two previous New Oxford Notes, it’s funny how things come together. Meet Donna Freitas, a professor of religion at St. Michael’s College in Colchester, in the Diocese of Burlington, Vermont. According to a story on her in the Times Argus newspaper (Jan. 30) of Vermont, she’s written a new book called Becoming the Goddess of Inner Poise.
We pretty much know what the goddess is. But what is “inner poise”? Freitas defines it in part as “challenging yourself to be a better person.”(Garofalo and Seder, you gotta get this dame on your show.) So how do you become a better person? Well, for example, by having a better body image and better relationships. She writes in her book that abstinence until marriage is unrealistic because women marry later or don’t marry at all: “To deny ourselves as sexual beings until well into our 30s and 40s is, for most of us, simply an unrealistic and outdated expectation.” Freitas wants women to have free sex, guilt-free.
So, obviously, women need contraception and abortion-on-demand (just in case).
You May Also Enjoy
When we privilege writing over personal encounter, we run the risk of setting up what is written as the arbiter of what counts and what doesn’t.
God in the flesh does not look like God, and He very often does not exercise divine power, even in His own defense.
Ed. Note: The following remarks were presented to the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops on June…