As many Catholics know, the three children of Fatima had a vision in 1917 of many souls falling into hell.  In fact, they described it as a multitude of souls falling "into hell like snowflakes."  Bl. Jacinta (a Fatima visionary who died young) said, “The sins which cause most souls to go to hell are the sins of the flesh.”  Fr. Bernard Kunkel then adds the following: "Our Blessed Mother knew in advance the moral havoc that would follow the introduction of these unholy fashions. This is why she came personally at Fatima in 1917 to forewarn us. At the same time she gave the answer in advance to the question, 'Is [...]

Nota Bene: My last blog post showed that modesty is actually a means of cultural empowerment for women, not a means of making them overly-subservient. Ladies, if you're going to have thin-skin reading the still-binding modesty-norms of the Catholic Church, please re-read part I to understand that this blog is not about oppression but freedom (cf Gal 5:1) One summer evening, a couple years before I knew I would ever live in Florida, I was passing through the city of St. Augustine, south of Jacksonville. That evening, I went in to pray at North America's first Cathedral. It is stunningly beautiful. Later, I came outside the Cathedral to find the small [...]

Before jumping into the tough topic of modesty, I want to set the stage in a sociological manner. Let's consider romance in any culture, be it Catholic or pagan. It is universally accepted in every culture's romance that the person least-invested in the relationship is the one with the most control. Imagine two 20 year olds approaching engagement in any civilized country today or two hundred years ago. It is always the one who is least "in-love" who controls the advance of this relationshiop. The one most in-love (be it the man or the woman) wants to get married. The lover less "in-love" maintains the veto power in moving forward, [...]

Just in time for the Olympics, I have some good things to say about the clothing of female athletes below, but you'll have to wait for that. Many of you know the historical roots of the bikini:  French engineer Louis Réard worked in his mother's lingerie shop in the 1940s.  There, he designed and got the word "bikini" from the name of the first post-bellum atomic-bomb site, Bikini Atoll, for obvious reasons.  He tried to find a French model to first debut his invention in 1946, but he could not find one.  He ultimately had to hire a stripper.  It took a while for the bikini to catch on in the United States.  As [...]