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Barratt Family's avatar

I can’t help wondering: why did she stay? This seems to be two stories, not one. The second is how so many students are pursuing a credential, not knowledge.

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Pariah's avatar

Simple story, that one: they want to be able to live indoors and eat, they have already spent money and time on pursuing a career, and they don't want to lose the career. These are career path programs, not knowledge path.

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C. L. H. Daniels's avatar

Therapy could well be a calling. At its root, it is supposed to be a discipline about helping people. Perhaps she hopes to suffer through her education so that she can take away whatever parts were practical and worthwhile to apply to the task of helping people while discarding the ideologically corrupted parts.

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James Peery Cover's avatar

Maybe she has figured out if it is this bad at a Jesuit University, then it must be worse elsewhere.

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Babar's avatar

Should the Jesuits be suppressed again?

From GROK:

The Jesuits, formally known as the Society of Jesus, were suppressed by Pope Clement XIV on July 21, 1773, through the papal brief Dominus ac Redemptor. This act dissolved the order globally, driven by political pressures from European powers like France, Spain, and Portugal, who viewed the Jesuits as overly influential in politics, education, and religion. Their wealth, missionary activities, and perceived loyalty to the Pope over secular rulers fueled tensions, leading to their expulsion from several countries before the papal suppression.

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, played a significant role in mitigating the suppression’s impact. She refused to enforce the papal brief in the Russian Empire, particularly in territories like Poland-Lithuania (acquired during the First Partition of Poland in 1772), where Jesuits were active. Catherine valued the Jesuits’ educational contributions and saw them as useful for consolidating her rule over Catholic populations. She issued an edict in 1773 protecting the Jesuits, allowing them to continue operating schools and missions in Russia. This defiance preserved a remnant of the order, with about 200 Jesuits finding refuge under her protection.

The suppression lasted until 1814, when Pope Pius VII restored the Society of Jesus worldwide via the bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum. Catherine’s actions ensured the Jesuits’ survival in Russia, providing continuity for the order during this period.

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JonF311's avatar

Catherine the Great was an Orthodox ruler. She owed no obedience to the Pope and could do as she pleased in defiance of anything coming out of Rome.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

You can't expect an AI source to be conversant in such nuances. :)

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Theodore Iacobuzio's avatar

Yes, but Russia was in possession of most of Poland, which, as you know, is a Catholic country.

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JonF311's avatar

True, but also irrelevant as to the religious obligations of the Russian ruler.

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Theodore Iacobuzio's avatar

She protected the Order. Stop this. Stop.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

But it is relevant as to WHERE she protected them. The Jesuits didn't all run to St. Petersburg, though I am sure some did.

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William Tighe's avatar

I think she protected them mostly in Poland, but her "benevolence" neutered any Jesuit-inspired resistance to the suppression of Byzantine-rite Catholic churches in today's Belarus and central Ukraine.

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Tony's avatar

It’s sort of interesting that truly perverse practices mock the best parts of normal life, like asking and receiving forgiveness, it’s always surprising to me that these people can’t see something so obvious that they’re just deeply sad that the real thing has been denied them somehow

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Bobby Lime's avatar

Also, genuine service, and the responsibility which is part of authority.

These people are so deeply lost that I have hope for them. I suspect that sad submissive woman is likelier to be more responsive to the call of The Holy Spirit than her chronological equal who had the benefit of being raised by ethical, sane and loving parents, married a man from a similar background, and thinks it's ridiculous that she might need redemption.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

And they are desperate for affirmation, especially from the "straight, normal" world. They think the more they get that, the more they can ignore that still, small voice calling them to repent.

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Andrew's avatar

They want to dominate the "straight normal" world.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

Yup. And they are frightened that it is all coming apart, hence their reaction to TRump, their desperaton at the yawning indifference over "Pride" events/month, etc.

And the thing is, the activists do not represent the community at large. They really do want to mind their own business and quietly liye their own lives. They do not claim common cause with the rainbow clad, assless chaps twerking in front o toddlers.

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Andrew's avatar

"They do not claim common cause with the rainbow clad, assless chaps twerking in front o toddlers."

The latter are compulsives, like any other addict. The idea that one has to affirm compulsive behavior when it comes to sexuality is as absurd as it would be with any other addiction (though we seem to be getting to the same place with food addicts)

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Tee Stoney's avatar

Yup. "Body positiity." That gluttony is no longer sin, either. Interesting how all this is about transgression.

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Andrew's avatar

Well I guess since vomitoriums are out....

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David of Bithynia's avatar

Thank you for sharing this, I have trouble explaining to my friends here in Türkiye the moral rot that is devouring the West, especially in academia. This story is like an MRI image of a malignant moral tumor.

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Steve the Pilot's avatar

I've been on Georgia the last couple of weeks and I've loved talking politics with them. A lot of them want to join the EU to avoid being under the influence of Russia. And who can blame them after their history? But then Brussels and the US will just push rainbow flag stuff on them (through our conversations I can definitely see the assumptions of modernity creeping in). I hope to God they don't lose themselves like the rest of the west has.

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Mark Marshall's avatar

One of my favorite popes is Clement XIV. He suppressed the Jesuits.

Sadly Pius VII restored them.

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Alcuin's avatar

The Jesuits of 1773 were not the Jesuits of today. I don't quite see that secular political power forcing the Church to shut down perhaps its most effective missionaries was a boon.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

Just...gross. What is up with the Jesuits?

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

Most Jesuit colleges and universities are Jesuit the way that Harvard and Yale are Puritan. At this point the Jesuits on campus are a token that is retained for marketing purposes.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

Not unlike "Catholic hospitals." A couple of nuns on the board doesn't make it Catholic. An entire nursing order do everything from CEO to emptying bedpans would be a Catholic hospital.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

Exactly. There are Catholic schools and hospitals that really are Catholic despite the loss of religious orders, but it cannot be assumed to be true. Then again, that can be said of some in religious orders too.

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Derek Leaberry's avatar

That's a very succinct way of explaining it. Harvard and Yale's current leadership would laugh at the Puritans of the 17th Century if they knew how to laugh.

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Tom Potts's avatar

Princeton had a similar background as a seminary for Reformed Protestant Ministers. When their professors lost track of their mission and started adopting false theology, then J Gresham Machen left Princeton to form Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia in the 1920’s to reform back to original principles. He also helped to lead traditional Reformed Presbyterian churches to form a new new Denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in the 1930’s, when the PC-USA denied the infallibility of Holy Scriptures and started teaching heresy in their churches. Theology matters far more than current fads or whims of our degenerate society. Live Not By Lies.

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Bobby Lime's avatar

You probably know that H.L. Mencken, of all people, thought well of Machen's book, "Christianity and Liberalism."

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Tom Potts's avatar

So, why don’t the real traditional Roman Catholics form a new university which does uphold Christian teachings and practices? And then cut off all association with Jesuit universities? Remove the Roman Catholic fig leafs and admit they do not serve the purposes of Jesus Christ and His great commandment described in Matthew 28?

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Alcuin's avatar

These already exist nationwide; they are rarely in the news.

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Scuds Lonigan's avatar

Exactly right.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

This has already happened in the case of a few hospitals. I would bet that a large movement in this direction will require a new generation of bishops, and I think we are seeing signs that is about to happen.

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Tom Potts's avatar

Well, the new Bishop of Rome Leo should just do it before the Lavender Curia mafia stops him. Live not by lies. Sodom was an event in time and in reality. Abraham’s nephew Lot was a degenerate slacker also and chose to live in that city. His daughters raped Lot himself. I have been near to the Sodom plain, in Arad and Masada. Leo should clean out the homosexual rot. Leo III from Constantinople stopped the islamic invasion of Europe by the Saracen Arabs in the 8th century Anno Domini. Is the new Roman Leo a Christian? We will find out.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

Yes we will find out.

Even if Leo starts the purge (by cutting out the mafia from the promotion process) he won’t live to see the conclusion, it will take a few generations to make any real progress.

One caution: the Catholic Churches are more decentralized than most outsiders understand.

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Derek Leaberry's avatar

Christendom outside Front Royal VA. As you drive on Route 66, you can see the new and lovely Cathedral from the highway.

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John Downing's avatar

You mean like Notre Dame?

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Bobby Lime's avatar

I live in the area, and though the Basilica may be the most beautiful room in the world, I remember a Sunday in 2008 ( ! ), when a guy from my church who was a doctoral student there had to go to the campus for a few minutes before he dropped me off.

This was at about 1:00 PM, and as I looked over the large clot of students and parents, I was taken by the thought that I had never seen so many people who looked empty at best, demonic at worst.

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Madjack's avatar

How sad. How perverse. The stables must be swept clean. I just don’t know if the Catholic Church is salvageable.

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JonF311's avatar

The Catholic Church survived the Renaissance era of corruption, and it survived the "pornocracy" which was even worse.

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Derek Leaberry's avatar

The Catholic Church has a lot more resilience than Montgomery Ward or Texaco or Howard Johnson's Restaurants.

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JonF311's avatar

Believe it or not there's a Texaco gas station almost a stone's throw from my house.

I do remember "Monkey" Ward (my Dad called it that), and even Howard Johnsons.

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Derek Leaberry's avatar

Chevron bought Texaco but I assume they let some continue to operate as Texacos. I haven't seen a Texaco for 30 years. Roy Roger's was bought by the parent company of Hardee's in 1990 and experienced a decline in sales. Some Roy Roger's retained the name and remain open. I haven't eaten at a Roy Roger's for forty years but the food was better their than Hardee's.

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JonF311's avatar

A friend of mine in Baltimore managed a Roy Roger's in Frederick 2014-2018. But you don't see many of those around. A&W is another chain that's all but gone

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Derek Leaberry's avatar

Roy Roger's was formed by the Marriott Corporation which eventually got out of the restaurant business and did quite well in the hotel business. I just looked it up and Roy Roger's, with a headquarters in Frederick, has 41 restaurants, more than half of them in Maryland. Marriott started with Hot Shoppes and Jr. Hot Shoppes after the war. My folks would have frequented them.

A & W is a dying franchise. There is an A & W's in Charles Town WV. It shares space with a Long John Silver's, an odd combination.

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Derek Leaberry's avatar

My Halifax, Nova Scotia grandfather loved Howard Johnson's hot turkey sandwiches. For a boy who grew up in Halifax, that was probably a luxury item. The last Howard Johnson's restaurant closed about eight years ago.

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Alcuin's avatar

Few, if any, American 'Catholic' universities and 'Catholic' hospitals are under the control of the bishops of their respective dioceses. It's usually a largely secular board, indifferent to Church doctrine. Seems this came about due to fears of losing funding due to 'separation of church and state'. The most a bishop can legally do against a contrary board is try to revoke the name 'Catholic' from a wayward institution.

Pope John Paul II's 1990 attempt to reform Catholic colleges/universities was mostly ignored.

All that to say, much of the issue is institutions presenting themselves as Catholic which are no such thing or vestigial at best.

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Derek Leaberry's avatar

William Peter Blatty, writer of "The Exorcist", tried to get Georgetown's Catholic and Jesuit status revoked. He failed. Blatty was problematic as a Catholic himself. He was divorced three times and married four times.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

I've been told that he was my uncle's roommate there.

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Phillip's avatar

My local Catholic hospital allows prescription of birth control to minors. However, they ask doctors to change the diagnosis on the prescription to dysfunctional uterine bleeding so pharmacists in the hospital don't have to fill for birth control. That's the best they get in the direction of Catholic.

They also promote transgender care, moral relativism, Critical Race Theory and "all whites bad" thinking. They support gay marriage.

And they actively fundraise touting their Catholic label.

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Alcuin's avatar

And if you dig into the board membership, I can guess what you'll find there. Also, probably trying to stay out of trouble with accreditation boards, keep the staff happy, etc.

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James's avatar

20 years ago, I worked as an MD at the local Catholic hospital, affiliated with the Franciscans. As a Protestant who went to a Catholic high school, I was still amazed by the moral “flexibility” that the hospital administrators had in allowing sterilization procedures routinely, under the guise of “women’s health.” Seems like your local hospital has just carried on in embracing the zeitgeist.

So much for not being conformed to the world (Romans 12).

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William Tighe's avatar

"Pope John Paul II's 1990 attempt to reform Catholic colleges/universities was mostly ignored."

His attempts didn't amount to much beyond exhortation. He (or another pope) might have interdicted any such "Catholic" university (which would mean prohibiting the celebration of most sacraments in most circumstances "on campus") or might have encouraged US Catholic bishops to recover the Church's "improperly alienated" property, which was what these universities were (and are?). There was much discussion in conservative Catholic circles at that time (the late 60s) about how binding Canon Law on these matters was flouted (or simply ignored) in the course of the secularization of these institutions, and how lawsuits such as those hypothecated might have succeeded, given precedents in American property law about deference to hierarchical control in matters of Church property - and all such Catholic universities were clearly and explicitly under Church control in their articles of incorporation.

Of course, that would have meant the closure of these colleges and universities as a result of bankruptcy and legal fees. But so what? Back in the day I entertained pleasant fantasies about Boston College University (its legal name) becoming Boston College University of the Seventh-Day Adventists after its closing-down sale, or my own alma mater becoming Georgetown University of the Unification Church.

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Tom Potts's avatar

Perhaps that is because the limits of power in postmodern society doesn't allow for church discipline as it did in former centuries. That might be a good thing. Church discipline works in Christian churches that are ruled by observant Christian congregations with active Elders, just like in the early Christian churches. Our church does have active elders that rule our church whom do practice active church discipline, in love. The purpose of church discipline is to bring folks back in to our church, with love.

Mega churches and other large institutional churches may not experience this.

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Just a guy's avatar

Some of my biggest heroes of the Faith were Jesuits: St. Edmund Campion, St. Isaac Jogues, Blessed Miguel Pro, and many others. Now they have turned into probably the biggest scandal factory in the Church. I know from personal experience that their nonsense happens at the high school level too.

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Buddy S.'s avatar

Charles Chiniquy, an ex-priest turned rabidly anti-Catholic Protestant minister, claimed that Lincoln told him the Church of Rome was a threat to American liberty.

Anyone read Charles Chiniquy’s book ‘Fifty Years in the Church of Rome?’ Jesuits are covered in the book. Pope Francis was Jesuit wasn’t he? I really enjoyed the book and it seems like it’s getting harder to find. I’m not sure a catholic would like it, perhaps a very traditional catholic would though. The author who was a priest wasn’t fond of the Jesuits.

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William Tighe's avatar

FDR famously remarked somewhere - were you, Charlie Rosenberg, the source of my information on this? - that Catholics and Jews were both tolerated in the United States, a Protestant nation, "on sufferance?"

Cf.: https://discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2023/2/1/morgenthau-diaries/

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Buddy S.'s avatar

Thanks for the link Mr. William. The book is an interesting read. It did make me want to find out more about the Jesuits but do need to be careful about going down rabbit holes.

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Thomas's avatar

I have a friend who is pursing a degree like this also. She is a Christian and I believe going to a Christian school online. She is a mother and in her late 20's. She is saying it is even hard to find Christian resources to use int he classroom and what she does find is not taught by the professors. It has disheartened her to say the least but she is pushing on so she can offer a Christian version of counseling. I have not heard her talk about anything this perverse though.

Can we also not all just agree that anal is a disgusting and a perversion? I am not sure legalizing it was ever a good idea.

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JonF311's avatar

Re: I am not sure legalizing it was ever a good idea.

The law has much better things to do than concern itself with such private matters especially as such a law could only be enforced by means of a panopticon which would vastly worse than any amount of kinky sex. (And uneforceable laws bring with them a host of their own ills)

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Thomas's avatar

It seems to not have a host of problems for years. It went largely unenforced but it for sure at least let people know that we, as a society, do not approve of said behavior. Even unenforced it served to set a boundary on what is acceptable to society.

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JonF311's avatar

Well, these days only a minority of people find it objectionable whether they indulge in it or not. And the purpose of the Law is not to be an arbiter of tastes. That verges on totalitarian.

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Thomas's avatar

The law is supposed to set boundaries on what is acceptable or not and then enforce that. It can change. Under your definition any law is totalitarian. It is better to ban it only have it stand in the breach of defining what is acceptable or not and never be enforced than not.

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JonF311's avatar

The Law is not omni-competent, and we set boundaries on where the Law can go precisely to avoid the dangers of totalitarianism. That does not mean such matters are unimportant, only that the Law is an inapt, or even dangerous tool to introduce to them. You would not (I hope) want to make laws defining matters of theology as was often done in earlier eras, and yet those are matters of no little importance in the ultimate scheme of things. You wrote that you find anal sex disgusting. OK, sure that's up to your taste and preferences, but why should mere tastes and preferences be written into law? There are people who find meat disgusting-- should we have laws imposing vegetarianism on all of us perforce to make such people feel better? I was brought up to believe that "Mind your own business" is a major social stricture. It seems to me that stricture applies very much so in matters of sex, outside really extreme areas like rape. The conservative coalition was once described as the"Leave us alone" coalition-- but apparently you are not a remember of that coalition.

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Thomas's avatar

Anal sex is not only disgusting but it is harmful. Those that engage in it often have health problems as a result, women more than men. It is not just taste but harm reduction.

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John Downing's avatar

Please encourage and pray for your friend. We cannot save psychology, which 100% deserves saving, by abandoning it. I too am a Christian therapist. They exist, and they are sought after.

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Thomas's avatar

I am. She is doing well and she is on to her internship where she has to get so many hours under a certified instructor.

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John Downing's avatar

Great!

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Simon's avatar

I am interested in this area. Can you recommend any sources that integrate psychology with a biblical worldview?

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Drewm368's avatar

You’re training *therapists*. Do you want your marriage and family therapists to go on and on about the glories of modesty and abstinence, or do you want them to understand how to do *sex therapy* to address problems in your relationship?? Why would you go to them unless they were experts on sexuality?

Human Sexuality is a class all therapists (LMFT, LMHC, LCSW, LPC, etc) have to take. You have to examine your own relationship to sexuality in order to be able to help *anyone* explore theirs. Talking openly and honestly about your sexuality is normalizing that for *future therapists* so that they are able to explore their own relationship to their sexuality as to help others do that in future *sex therapy* sessions they will be hosting. That’s literally the job of an LMFT.

Don’t mishear me, I’m 1000% sure some weirdo has taken this principle way too far and gets off on talking about their sexuality in front of a group of people. That’s probably a problem somewhere. On the other hand, a marriage and family therapist has to have a good understanding of sexuality in order to help ANYONE. People go to marriage counseling for sexual problems constantly. You have to understand your own sexuality before you can help that couple in front of you understand their sexuality. You have to understand things like Kink, psychodynamic theories of sexuality, sexual surrogacy, etc. That’s a prerequisite to be able to perform the job of *sex therapy*. What else would you want this person to be doing?

Framing this as “postmodern neomarxist critical theory” is absolutely absurd and is going to lead to substandard therapist training if implemented by right wing politicians. If this girl wanted to be protected from the world of *sex therapy* she should not have chosen a career path that includes *sex therapy*. There are thousands of people who work for Churches as unlicensed “Christian counselors” for exactly this reason. Go do that if you are uncomfortable with dealing with sexuality.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

"Probably a problem somewhere."

Like the place Rod brought up? Probably?

LOL.

This is not therapy. This is exhibition, of the most transgressive, unholy kind.

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Drewm368's avatar

That is not conservatives issue with this and you know it. They’re objecting to this kind of knowledge being a requirement for being a therapist because it doesn’t line up with their personal beliefs.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

I don't in fact "know it." I know you believe it and can look at this trash and somehow think it is "therapy" and "education." That's because people like you are part of the problem. You don't solve anything. You perpetuate and affirm.

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Drewm368's avatar

You’re an authoritarian if you do not believe that people should be able to have sex however they please. This is America, go to Uganda or Saudi Arabia with that bullshit.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

And you are an authoritarian if you believe that people cannot be allowed to criticize. Live your private life however you wish. Parades and other exhibitions are not "private."

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Drewm368's avatar

Criticize it all day long. To say that it shouldn’t happen AT ALL and that anyone who does sex therapy is “part of the problem” is atrocious. Do you know how many school shooters have been stopped because their sexual frustration was allowed to be dealt with by a qualified LMFT? I would guess thousands. Not allowing this stuff to exist is how you get the insane levels of barbaric criminality you do in the fundamentalist Islamic world.

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JonF311's avatar

Re: Do you want your marriage and family therapists to go on and on about the glories of modesty and abstinence, or do you want them to understand how to do *sex therapy* to address problems in your relationship?

Sure, they need to be able to delve into matters sexual. But I'll go out on a limb and suggest that most people's sex lives don't revolve around dominatrices and dungeons.

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Drewm368's avatar

But some people do have weird sexual preferences and tastes, it is much more common than you might imagine! You have to be able to at least conceptually understand this work to be an LMFT.

Based on what I’ve read today the woman in question should not be a therapist. Thousands of other conservative Christians have taken this exact class and made it out fine, the curriculum is mandated by the APA (or ACA, or NASW, or whatever it is) and is pretty standard nationwide. Those conservatives were able to compartmentalize their own values in the service of future client’s who may not share those values. Not imposing your values on a client is ethical counseling 101. This girl has proven she cannot do that, and thus shouldn’t be a therapist.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

"But some people do have weird sexual preferences and tastes, it is much more common than you might imagine!"

No, most people do have weird sexual temptations. I would agree it is extremely common, but they are a 'preference' only if people yield to them. If people don't yield (I'm going to skip how to do this without 'repression' since that would take at least a page) then it remains a temptation only.

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Drewm368's avatar

And then they shoot up a school or commit a terrorist attack and we all wonder why. That’s a ridiculous take.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

No, the vast majority don't. How many schools were shot up when Freud wrote 'Civilization and its Discontents"? None. You are being absurd, if there is any causality it is that school shootings began AFTER the dehumanization of the sexual revolution began.

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Drewm368's avatar

Do you want to live in 1939? Or whenever Freud wrote that? I’m obviously using “shoot up a school” hyperbolically.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

NO, it is ridiculous to believe that it is an either/or choice, that we are mechanisms that MUST choose one sin or another.

No Christian theology preaches that. It is against everything Christ and the rest of Scripture instructs.

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Drewm368's avatar

Ok, but you’re using the Bible as a science textbook. That’s not what it’s for.

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Scuds Lonigan's avatar

Geez, talk about a ridiculous take.

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William Tighe's avatar

Is this what they teach in The Episcopal Church nowadays?

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Drewm368's avatar

I actually go to a Lutheran Church nowadays, ECLA and ECUSA are in communion with one another though. They do not teach about sex therapy as that’s not the purpose of those institutions.

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Thomas's avatar

You don't have to understand it to know it is a perversion and should be called as much. Therapists need to be able to call a spade a spade and tell people that this stuff is wrong.

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Drewm368's avatar

If that worked 10/10 times, there would be no need to go to therapy in the first place. Even granting your morality (which I do not), you would still need Catholics equipped to provide “secular” sex therapy for Catholics struggling with their own sex lives.

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William Tighe's avatar

"you would still need Catholics equipped to provide “secular” sex therapy for Catholics struggling with their own sex lives"

Somehow you left out the word "ignorant" (or "former" or "unbelieving") before the first occurrence of "Catholics" in your screed, as also would be the case if we were speaking of Orthodox rather than Catholics, as you must know yourself from your religious peregrinations.

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Drewm368's avatar

Ok

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Tom Potts's avatar

Credentials of evil are worthless.

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Drewm368's avatar

That’s one opinion.

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JonF311's avatar

Oh good grief, therapists are not evil! Some of us here, including Rod himself, including me, have gone to therapy.

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Bobby Lime's avatar

Hey, buddy, I learned about such things reading PLAYBOY magazine in the late 1960s. The writing was far less indecorous, too.

You know you're talking a line of complete bullshit. It reminds me of the equally dishonest bromide against capital punishment in the same period, that "we have to keep them alive so we can STUDY them, and perhaps learn how to prevent more tragedies in the future!"

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Drewm368's avatar

Which part?

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Trevor Tollison's avatar

I agree! What's the matter with just normal sex? Is the weird stuff just another product of our sex-saturated culture? Yeesh, there's too much of that stuff as it is.

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Joshua King's avatar

Yes it's a product of our culture and saying anything goes and should be in our faces. To a degree, I don't care what goes on between consenting adults as long as it's not illegal. But I don't want to hear about it all the time and have it shoved in my face. That goes for straight people, gay people, and whoever else. We need to bring shame back to society.

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Scuds Lonigan's avatar

There is nothing about this post that surprises me. Nothing.

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Diane Coleman's avatar

As soon as I read “ I am a subject matter expert in this domain; I know of what I speak” I guessed what would follow.

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Drewm368's avatar

I am a subject matter expert in this particular area. Is that bad? Not challenging this stuff is how a Right Wing politician gets it in their head that this stuff must be banned.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

Is that bad? At a minimum, it hints that you are expert in an area that is not shared by the large majority of people, and therefore your ability to advise most people in a one-on-one setting is as limited as their ability to advise you. The main point you seem to be making is that your views should be generalized and the majority of people accept them without hesitancy or qualifications.

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Drewm368's avatar

That is the exact opposite of what I’m saying. You must be able to provide counseling to wide range of sexual appetites and situations. That includes weird kink. That’s not my jam either, but it is someone’s.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

Yeah, well, it doesn't jive with my experience. About ten years ago I had to dump a counsellor who took my account of the difference in my and my wife's sense of humor for a desire for this kind of stuff. I told her she was wrong and she didn't get the message because she was educated in the 'sex uber alles' school.

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Diane Coleman's avatar

Aside from irritation with your annoying defensiveness and inability to listen, I have a problem with your blindness to the fundamental role of a sense of vulnerability in human motivation. In short, we all know people lie—to others and to themselves— about sex, as we generally lie about all subjects involving the revelation of a sense of vulnerability, except those revelations that occur in a context of trust, tested and proven. We lie without realizing it. All. The. Time. The very idea that you can grossly abuse the right to privacy of a bunch of (youngish, and I am assuming you too are quite young, as evidenced by your foolish self-certainty) masters level grad students who have invested an arm and a leg in tuition with the goal of getting professional credentials, and imagine that the output is “honest” is ludicrous. It reflects such an egregiously malformed understanding of the human person it seriously raises the question of whether or not you are fundamentally fit to claim any right to anything approaching “expertise” with respect to any aspect of human behavior. What you are championing is frank abuse, and the championing itself is perceived, correctly, as abusive. There is no such thing as a free lunch: sometimes knowledge gained--and you are very clearly talking about a form of "knowledge" that we know as nihilism-- is wisdom lost. Be a sport and shut this line of commentary down.

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Drewm368's avatar

I need paragraphs before I can comment on this. I will say that expecting *Therapists* being trained to do *therapy* to be as sheltered as you seem to want them is ridiculous. A man or woman who cannot bear to hear the realities of human sexuality in their mid twenties is not ready to be a practicing therapist.

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Diane Coleman's avatar

lol "I can't comment on this, but..." You are out of control, son.

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Drewm368's avatar

It’s very easy to just say “You know Drew, I know things like studies and research say we should study these things, but I don’t like the modern world and think we should go back to 1845, except for when I need a doctor or a new car. All of the other stuff is bad though”. If that’s not what you’re saying then help me understand.

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Bobby Lime's avatar

Comment of all time. I would take my hat off to you if I had a hat.

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Drewm368's avatar

What did you want me to say? Do you want the therapy expert to say “Ew gay butt stuff that’s gross go kill yourself”? You would want the person dealing with the sexual problems in your community to be knowledgeable about the theory and practice of sexuality in order to address problems! How this is controversial in *therapist* training is beyond my comprehension. Shouldn’t be in the K-12 curriculum outside of like high school health class or something, but it definitely should be taught to *therapists*.

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Leah Rose's avatar

Was there anything in this woman's reporting of curriculum demands that was a problem for you? You stand by the requirement to write an 8-10 page autobiographical sexual history to be uploaded to a third party platform? To anonymously critique one's own sexual anatomy to be read aloud by a classmate? You think there's no critical theory takeover in being taught "that “objective, rational, linear thinking,” “delayed gratification,” and making a “plan for the future” are traits of “white culture.”? Nothing questionable in being "required to preface mock therapy sessions by “naming my whiteness”? And there are many ways to teach and address the fact of sexual fetishes without requiring students to partake in voyeuristic experiences of the (porno)graphic fantasies of fetishists. You seem a very unserious mental health counselor if you think her complaints signal she shouldn't be a therapist.

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Drewm368's avatar

I do not trust her framing of these issues. I took this class 5 years ago, it was uncomfortable for sure, but is entirely necessary for anyone who is wanting to specialize in *sex therapy*.

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Leah Rose's avatar

The fact that this class has existed for 5+ years and you perceive it necessary doesn't mean that it truly IS necessary, as constructed. Just because Credentialed People came up with a class everyone is required to take is not evidence that the curriculum itself is worthwhile.

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Drewm368's avatar

Something approaching it is definitely necessary for training therapists. The amount of power that a therapist is given is hard to quantify, you must know yourself as to make sure you don’t hurt a client or exploit one sexually. That’s impossible to do if you haven’t confronted your own sexuality.

You could change the specific assignments all day long, but if you can’t speak about your own sexuality in front of other therapists you’re not going to be able to speak about your clients sex life with any degree of authority. Does that make sense? Like I understand these specific assignments could look different, but you’d need them to do something approaching this.

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Drewm368's avatar

Just so you’re aware, the curriculum for essentially all of the counseling classes in the USA is dictated by CACREP, a nationally standardized accrediting body for anything counselor education related. I trust the judgement of that body to dictate the curriculum for counseling programs. Everything is evidence based, these people are obsessed with peer review and evidence based studies, they didn’t just pull this out of their ass.

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A. Montana's avatar

Right, and we haven't learned anything about the credibility of accrediting bodies in the last five years. Trust the experts...

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Drewm368's avatar

Who else do you want to trust? The non-experts?

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

"...they didn’t just pull this out of their ass."

Oh, I think they did. Another struggle session tool for the Cultural Revolution. All for the best motives, of course.

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Mike A's avatar

“Why would you go to them unless they were experts on sexuality? Jesus Christ.” Drew - maybe you could check your passion with decorum.

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Drewm368's avatar

That’s a fair point, will take out JC of the comment. Thanks for pointing that out respectfully.

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Tom Potts's avatar

Thank you Drew m for saying this so clearly and honestly. You just said you would take JC , Jesus Christ, out of your comments. That sums up your current existence now completely. Absent from Jesus Christ, you are headed to perdition and the lake of fire. While you still breath air in your lungs you can repent and confess your sins, and ask King Jesus to heal you.

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Drewm368's avatar

Hell isn’t real, and also, it really shouldn’t be socially acceptable to say this to someone.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

"He'll isn't real." Again, not what Jesus says. You are a fake Christian.

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Drewm368's avatar

Good thing we don’t have Popes! I would never question your relationship with Jesus, you shouldn’t question mine either.

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Gordon Tremeshko's avatar

I agree in principle, but this specific situation seems pretty ridiculous. I don't know if porny music and writing help one understand human sexuality at anything more than a surface level. "Wet Ass Pussy" isn't the key to understanding and building healthy relationships; quite the contrary.

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Drewm368's avatar

The course is designed to weed out people who cannot deal with their own problems with sexuality. If you cannot handle seeing WAP and talking about your sex life with *other therapists* you have no right to ask others to do that in *therapy sessions*.

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Gordon Tremeshko's avatar

I'm a little skeptical of this. What was the content of this course before WAP dropped? Were previous generations of therapists under-trained or under-prepared due to their lack of exposer to the WAP? Dubious.

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Drewm368's avatar

I’m sure someone played the 2012, or 2021, version of WAP before WAP existed. The point is to confront your own sexual identity, sexual biases, sexual preferences, etc, as you have to have done it yourself to even attempt to help someone else do it.

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Gordon Tremeshko's avatar

Again, sounds sensible in theory. I just am skeptical having everyone watch and read porn-ish stuff is a great way to do that. Like am I going to understand my own literary preferences better if you force me to read some Danielle Steele books? Hell no; I'm just going to resent you for wasting my time on trash. Especially for men, I think, sexuality isn't that complicated. I like small waists, round butts, and big perky titties. Not sure why anyone would need a college level course to understand this!

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Tee Stoney's avatar

I got that about mysel before my first day of school. May not have understood the nuts and bolts, but I got it. Women/girls had a draw to them I could not pin down...but I got around to it eventually.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

The practices described have existed throughout human history -- Emperor Tiberius is reported to have been quite fond of such things. They have sometimes been flaunted by people with power and authority, but generally been considered discreditable. Clearly, they are neither what God intended sexuality for, nor, if you remove God from consideration as a mythical sky god, what evolutionary biology was aiming at. Finally, it demeans human individuality and integrity. Hypothetically, Jesuits may be been practicing this stuff under cover of their vows of celibacy since Ignatius of Loyola, or not long after. Or perhaps not. Nothing described is relevant to any sort of clinical counseling that someone with a troubled life would pay for. Its beyond me why anyone would think it should be taught.

As always, I object to describing this stuff as somehow "left." It would be as much at home among Hitler's SA, or at least some of the SS (which destroyed the SA in part using its penchant for homosexuality as a rationale). Certainly Heydrich indulged in all kinds or perversity. It has nothing to do with the liberation of the working class from capitalist oppression -- which is sought as much by the working class component of the Trump coalition as by anyone. One forgotten reason for working class antipathy to homosexuality is that aristocrats have always felt privileged to visit this stuff (without consent) on their social inferiors. And no, not all homosexuality is sadistic, but lack of concern over consent is the first step.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

Because the Left consistently champions both those practices and getting them out in front of everyone they can, including children.

And you are a bigot unless you give full throated support to such, again, according to the Left.

You may not like it, but facts are facts. This stuff ain't coming from the "Right."

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Dan Jones's avatar

Exclusively from the left, no. Largely and insistently from the left only, yes.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

Its true of course that "they" have been doing all you refer to -- leaving aside how we will label "them." Its also true that they often fancy themselves to be "left." They flatter themselves. When you say this stuff ain't coming from the right, you are being too parochial. Its not coming from the kind of conservatism you embrace, or others you associate and align with. But, e.g., while Rod loves to highlight the theological liberals who are permissive about clergy sexual abuse, particularly as long as it is homosexual in nature, history shows that some very conservative prelates were indulging, and that was a good part of the early abuse crisis. John Paul II was reluctant to believe accounts of clergy sexual abuse because communists used such accusations to discredit the Catholic Church in Poland. No doubt the communists made up insinuations at times, but I expect there were plenty of real instances for them to weaponize. Republican politicians do get caught up in sex scandals, some homosexual. Trump hasn't gone in for the refined precision of the stuff described in this column, but his general sexual depravity was obvious before he became a politician. Many who voted for him rationalized, yes, but they all do that, and at least he'll do some things I want done that the rest won't do. Voters often have to rely on reasoning like that, given the alternatives.

But getting back to "left." The political currents in the US that pass themselves off as "left/liberal" (an oxymoron) and are lampooned as such by their adversaries are not left. In classical Marxist jargon, they are infantile disorders, social fascists, or, a whopper of multisyllabic rhetoric, right wing petit-bourgeois deviationists of an opportunistic proto-social-fascist character. Leaving all Marxist references aside, they are people who long since dismissed the working class as inherently reactionary, assuming for themselves the mantle of "progressive" -- whatever that is. I mean, Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat, a liberal, a progressive, and an open and unapologetic racist. A good meat and potatoes left program would drive these cretins to the margins.

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Joshua King's avatar

On the latter part I completely agree with you and it's why various left leaning parties are having trouble around the world. They propose that they will help out working people but have nothing but contempt for them and their values and that they don't see things the way the elites do. At least aristocrats back in the day were much more open with their contempt.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

Working class movements have often been plagued by bohemian intellectuals who are more interested in shock value and sticking it up the Establishment's nose than in how well children are eating on the east end of London. They stick to revolutionary movements like barnacles and slow everything down.

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Derek Leaberry's avatar

George Orwell, socialist, disliked the faddish lefties that attached themselves to the socialist movement- health food fanatics, nudists, vegetarians, homosexuals and others of that ilk.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

George Orwell was an anarchist, not a socialist, albeit his favorite organization included the word Marxist in its name (POUM). Marx and Bakunin had a curious relationship, antithetical but with some sense of camaraderie. But he disliked faddish lefties for sure, and he was right about that.

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Scuds Lonigan's avatar

"As always, I object to describing this stuff as somehow "left.""

Of course, you do. As a man of the left, you do not want to be associated with it. But just because you find it ugly does not mean it is not 'of the left'. It is. It is definitely of the left.

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Tom Potts's avatar

There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between a communist, a nazi, a fascist, a progressive. They are all leftist socialists who despise the living God Almighty and Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

Communists and socialists seldom agree with each other, and both are mortal enemies of liberalism. Nazis are a horse of a very different color.

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Tom Potts's avatar

They only disagree about who holds the guns to kill the other one. Everything else is pretty much identical.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

No, its not. I would say more, but you haven't.

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Tom Potts's avatar

I disagree. All of these groups hate the living God Yahweh. And wish to kill G*d’s peoples, both our Jewish cousins and Christians as well. You seem to suffer from delusion. Right this moment there is a war between the Islamist leadership in Iran and our close ally Israel. Perhaps you should read the excellent book from Raymond Ibrahim “Sword and Scimitar”. I have been to Israel eight times and love Israeli peoples. I have also been to Istanbul and see the glee of Erdogan to re-establish the Ottomon Caliphate, this time across the entirety of Western Europe. If you don’t see this, then go to your optometrist and get some new glasses. May YHWH bless Israel. And also bless the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Shabbat shalom.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

Its not merely that its ugly. It has nothing to do with improving the income, benefits, living conditions, and educational opportunities or political power of the working class. Its all about trendy intellectuals with six figure incomes amusing themselves at the expense of their perceived social inferiors. I'm not defending "the left," I'm puncturing their balloon, their petty infatuation that they ARE "left."

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Tee Stoney's avatar

Man has been a sinful creature since the Fall.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

Which is why we find depravity left, right, and center, regardless of whatever else various political factions are debating or fighting about.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

But only one publically champions this stuff, makes a big to-do, and tries, with some success, to vilify all those who oppose as "bigots", to be exiled from public participation.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

Yeah, but who are those people and what do they stand for? Kamala Harris is a capitalist tool and darling of Wall Street. I know you are too smart to fall for the line about communist plutocrats, usually with Jewish or something else sandwiched in between as a connector.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

I also know a "no true Scotsman" argument when I see it. I know not all on the Left are exactly the same, but when this filth is supported and pushed by the power elements you control and those who differ are shouted down and shamed, sometimes to serious real world effects, the "ah, but" is performative at best.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

Either you're missing the point, or you are resorting to subterfuge. I prefer to believe the former. Not all Scottish people eat or enjoy haggis. If I argued "no true leftist approves of sexual deviancy" you might have a point, and I wouldn't. But that's not my point. I look at the class of people pushing "this filth," and I don't see anything "left" about them. They like to chatter about privilege, but if anyone has privilege to put on sackcloth and ashes about, it is themselves. They are prosperous, influential, elite, exclusive, and disdain the working class. Ergo, even if they were puritans, they would not be left. A person born and raised in Scotland, or raised with significant Scottish culture by emigrant parents, is still Scottish whether they like haggis or not. A leftist may be sexually deviant, but this political class are not in any sense left.

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Derek Leaberry's avatar

Ancient Greek society was even more drenched in homosexuality. Alexander the Great preferred the boys. Women existed for keeping the home and procreating. And you are right about Tiberius. He enjoyed the boys while holed off at Capri. Ironically, the Son of God lived during the reign of Tiberius and preached a new way to live.

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Charlie Rosenberg's avatar

Greek armies were away from each other for a long time, and soldiers of all ranks found sexual partners among their comrades in arms. Ancient Greek culture did not feature a "sexual orientation" that was fixed like certain modern hypotheses. Men could take men or women for partners, and most took both, for somewhat different purposes. As you say, women to bear heirs and keep the household.

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Tee Stoney's avatar

Pre Christian pagans were decadent savages. This is not shocking.

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Alcuin's avatar

Catholic universities (with some exceptions) and many Catholic high schools have been great places to lose one's faith for decades. More likely to immunize one against deep belief and practice than otherwise. I've seen it in friends and family. Not everywhere and everyone, of course, but enough to establish the trend line.

Keep in mind the 1967 "Land o' Lakes Statement" where Notre Dame's Fr Hesburgh assembled his academic peers to declare independence from any external authority:

"...the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself."

We see the results.

To my knowledge, Pope John Paul II's 1990 Apostolic Constitution "Ex corde Ecclesiae" regarding Catholic colleges and universities has had little impact, but I'll leave it to the Catholic academics here to quantify.

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Sun Love Pax's avatar

I have friends who could tell you all the schools in the area which are actually Catholic and Catholic in name only. They spent so much time researching and visiting. You can’t just look at the name and assume any more. Those days are long gone. It’s sad that we simply can’t trust Catholic institutions to be Catholic.

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Maclin Horton's avatar

I was present when the president of the Catholic college I worked for dismissed Ex Corde, which had just recently been issued, as a non-starter.

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William Tighe's avatar

As I wrote above, in response to Derek Leaberry:

"Pope John Paul II's 1990 attempt to reform Catholic colleges/universities was mostly ignored."

His attempts didn't amount to much beyond exhortation. He (or another pope) might have interdicted any such "Catholic" university (which would mean prohibiting the celebration of most sacraments in most circumstances "on campus") or might have encouraged US Catholic bishops to recover the Church's "improperly alienated" property, which was what these universities were (and are?). There was much discussion in conservative Catholic circles at that time (the late 60s) about how binding Canon Law on these matters was flouted (or simply ignored) in the course of the secularization of these institutions, and how lawsuits such as those hypothecated might have succeeded, given precedents in American property law about deference to hierarchical control in matters of Church property - and all such Catholic universities were clearly and explicitly under Church control in their articles of incorporation.

Of course, that would have meant the closure of these colleges and universities as a result of bankruptcy and legal fees. but so what? Back in the day I entertained pleasant fantasies about Boston College University (its legal name) becoming Boston College University of the Seventh-Day Adventists after its closing-down sale, or my own alma mater becoming Georgetown University of the Unification Church.

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Maclin Horton's avatar

🤣

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William Tighe's avatar

If you scroll back to my comment above in response to Derek Leaberry, it was the the 1967 "Land o' Lakes Statement" that I had in mind. And JP2 might have done more if he were willing to "hagan lio."

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Drewm368's avatar

“I met not long ago a Catholic psychotherapist from a European country (not Hungary) who told me that the law there requires therapists to affirm all trans patients, regardless of the therapists own personal convictions (you couldn’t for example, say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t treat trans patients,” or “my personal convictions won’t allow me to give you the kind of therapy you are seeking”); no, you had to affirm, no matter what your medical judgment is, or lose your license”

This is absolutely not true in any of the 50 states in the USA. I am a subject matter expert in this domain, I know of what I speak. There’s thousands of “Christian counselors” who are licensed and do outstanding work who do not have to go against their convictions in order to maintain licensure. It would be perfectly ok for me to tell a client “Hey, I don’t work with narcissists, here’s a list of people who are good with your personality type” or “Hey, sexuality work isn’t my specialty, here’s some referrals”. Again, you must have the expertise to do this kind of work theoretically to understand what’s going on to become a therapist, you don’t have to actually do this work as a part of your job if you don’t want to though.

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Andrew's avatar

good to know

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Drewm368's avatar

“In Human Sexuality, we were taught that children with six months of “gender distress” should be “affirmed” in their belief that they are of the opposite sex—without deeper assessment, even when trauma or autism was present.”

The point of therapy is to build a *therapeutic relationship* between the client and the therapist. If I won’t even respect their own feelings towards their identity I cannot build a *therapeutic relationship*. This is exactly how you do therapy with someone with a psychotic disorder, or even some personality disorders. You must “Enter into the delusion”. I do not have to believe in their interpretation of reality, I must accept it as their reality and help them navigate *their reality*. That is literally the entire point of therapy.

This is the issue with this stuff, people who are untrained and don’t have the ability or knowledge base to understand what is actually going on just read this stuff and think “Eww gross sex icky”. Pick a different career path! You cannot think “ew gross icky sex stuff in their butt gross” and still be a damn therapist! You aren’t doing therapy if you think that! The client is not being helped if you think that! If you cannot put aside your moralism in sessions, you shouldn’t be a therapist outside of a religious institution. How is this hard to understand?

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A. Montana's avatar

So when someone with anorexia gets counseling they have to be affirmed that they are indeed fat? In order to, in your words "help them navigate *their reality*"?

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Drewm368's avatar

That is not what I said.

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Theodore Iacobuzio's avatar

Sounded like it to me.

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Colleen C.'s avatar

Me too.

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Drewm368's avatar

Because you’re not trained in psychotherapy!!!

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

hahahahaha!!!!

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Ataraxis's avatar

Youngsters have no idea about wisdom that is gained through years of living. Life is much simpler than “experts” think it is.

Patient: I practice this aberrant behavior.

Wise old me: Stop it!

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William Tighe's avatar

I wonder how she would have counselled Rachel Dolezal - remember her? - who was white but identified as black?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal

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Jerry's avatar

Personally, I think the entire concept of "sexual therapy" is nonsensical bullshit tailored to serve a privileged class of bored, confused, self-indulgent, and self-absorbed people.

But leave that aside.

The larger point here is this worthless trash is directly opposed to core Catholic moral teaching and has no place at an institution that calls itself "Catholic."

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Drewm368's avatar

You’ve never met someone with sexual trauma or any kind of sexual shame if you think it’s not a necessary thing that exists. Though you do make a point about this being out of line with Catholic teaching. Even then, you need Catholic therapists who are legally allowed to provide this service to Catholics if you want to keep everything in house.

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Jerry's avatar

I've met people who've suffered sexual trauma. For some of them therapy may be in order, but it has to be genuine therapy...not the quack variety described in Rod's post.

As for "sexual shame," that's a very broad concept which is often abused by the sprawling "therapy" industry.

Again, the stuff recounted in Rod's post has no place on the grounds of a Catholic institution. I don't see how your closing sentence regarding Catholic therapists refutes that point.

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Drewm368's avatar

They have to know how to do sex therapy. Even if they object to it personally, they have to know what it is and how it’s done in order to make proper referrals. They are providing public functions as therapists, not Catholic services.

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Jerry's avatar

First, the stuff described in Rod's post is not "therapy" but rather quackery. They only need to know about it for purposes of understanding how their profession has been abused by those practicing it.

Second, the institution itself has zero obligation to sponsor courses that directly oppose the core teaching of the Catholic Church with regard to sexuality. On the contrary, it is morally obligated NOT to do that...except insofar as the material has instructional value on how NOT to counsel patients.

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Sarhaddon's avatar

Rod makes a good case against the Jesuits, but my question is - how do modern Jesuits even make sense?

Don't these people embrace chastity? So these people embrace radical self-restrictions, implying strong faith, but simultaneously seem to believe in nothing? I would love it if someone with personal contact to this scene could explain to me, how this goes together. If they truly lacked all belief, they would just live life like garden-variety hedonists, no? What attracts such people to a (putatively) strict Christian religious order?

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Tom Potts's avatar

Perhaps they should rename themselves to be the “Order of Epicureans “. They seem to have no relation to Jesus Christ.

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Thomas F Davis's avatar

Many still do. Read the books about Fr. Paul Mankowski, SJ, you will see they are out there, even if they are persecuted by their 'brothers'.

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Alcuin's avatar

Too broad - I've met some excellent Jesuits (very old or rather young, in the main) very sincere in their pursuit of Christ and fidelity to the Gospel, a number of so-so ones and read about some pernicious ones.

As others and myself have pointed out in these comments, Santa Clara is neither run by nor is its course content selected/vetted by Jesuits; its secular board is trading on the name, perhaps dishonestly. Whether Santa Clara deserves to represent itself as Catholic or Jesuit is a valid question.

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