As the boy grew to become a man, he explored the marble chambers that pump power into American politics. <\/p>\n\n
He worked as an intern. He rode the private subway that whisks legislators to the Capitol. He took his share of power lunches. Finally, he decided that his vocation was in a higher court. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cOne day it hit me,\u201d said Father Paul Scalia. \u201cTo save things, it is going to take more than a really good Supreme Court decision. Good thing, too, because we\u2019re not going to have one anytime soon. I am very, very pessimistic about the ability of government policies \u2026 to change things.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
The 30-year-old priest in the Diocese of Arlington (Va.) has not sought the media spotlight to deliver sobering opinions of this kind. This would have been easy because of his last name. Father Paul is one of the nine children of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whose outspoken views on moral issues have made him a hero on the religious right and the bane of the lifestyle left. According to media reports, Father Paul also worked behind the scenes to help Justice Clarence Thomas return to the Roman Catholic faith. <\/p>\n\n
Politics are important, said Scalia. But this is an age in which the moral decisions that shape private and public life are as likely to be affected by MTV and movies, as by high courts and legislatures. <\/p>\n\n
Politics may \u201cmay slow down our cultural decay,\u201d he said. \u201cI am not very optimistic about its ability to stop it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Priests who observe the lives of their people know this, said Scalia, at a meeting to support gays and lesbians who strive to follow Catholic teachings. The 10th annual \u201cHealing for the Homosexual Conference\u201d was sponsored by Parents and Friends, a network of clergy, counselors and parents based in Washington, D.C. But Scalia\u2019s address included few references to homosexuality. Instead he covered a wider range of issues \u2014 from families wrecked by adultery to the pressures that drive girls to hate their own bodies, from Catholics who shack up before marriage to teens hooked on cyber-pornography. <\/p>\n\n
All of these issues are symptoms of a larger problem, he said. Millions of Americans yearn for sexual pleasure and for spirituality. However, many have forgotten that what they do with their bodies profoundly affects the health of their souls. Male and female bodies are not mere machines, like automobiles, that can be used for pleasure and then taken in for tune-ups at gyms and clinics. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cIf the body is just something that I own, then when I am sexually involved, or when my body is sexually involved, I am not,\u201d Scalia said. \u201cSo what does it matter? What does it matter \u2026 if I have sex before marriage? Or if I have sex with someone who is not my spouse, or if I have sex with someone of the same sex? And so on. If the body is just a tool, just an instrument, then what does it matter?\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Every human being, stressed Scalia, is not a \u201csoul encased in a body, but a soul living through a body. \u2026 The body is always to be treated with reverence, because the body is the expression of the image of God. The body is the way that the soul communicates.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
This is a complex message and one that many hear as a radical limitation on personal freedom. This is especially true, he said, in an age in which the Supreme Court \u2014 in its 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision \u2014 has linked liberty to \u201cthe right to define one\u2019s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
With a sarcastic shrug, the priest noted that this decision was based on the \u201cdefining the universe section of the constitution.\u201d He said this has led to \u201ca deadly understanding of freedom\u201d and what Pope John Paul II calls a \u201cculture of death\u201d in which the weak \u2014 the sick, the poor, the elderly and the unborn \u2014 can be crushed by the freedoms of the strong. <\/p>\n\n
Freedom \u201cdoes not mean doing whatever we want,\u201d argued Father Scalia. \u201cFreedom means the ability to do what we ought to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the boy grew to become a man, he explored the marble chambers that pump power into American politics. He worked as an intern. He rode the private subway that whisks legislators to the Capitol. He took his share of power lunches. Finally, he decided that his vocation was in a higher court. \u201cOne day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n