Sex and Truth

The clever John Robson has written a good piece about JPII, the modern world's sex obsession, and its corresponding rejection of truth. There's no link yet, but it'll be on his site in a few days. Here's an excerpt:

There are seven deadly sins and John Paul II was against them all. I understand why the slothful were too lazy to protest, and when he talked about greed people thought he meant somebody else. But why aren't the wrathful angry? Why instead the biggest flap about God and groins since Jehovah explained circumcision to the Israelites? Why did that same Globe editorial, after gays, rattle off ordaining women, condoms and the rhythm method? It's like the guy who thinks every Rorschach ink blot is a naked woman and when the psychiatrist says he's obsessed with sex he replies, hey doc, you're the one showing all the dirty pictures.

As Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, "Sex is the mysticism of materialism. We are to die in the spirit to be reborn in the flesh, rather than the other way around." A passionate defence of any other deadly sin, in theory or practice, requires intellectual adherence to some putative truth. But lust comes from the brain stem. Orgasms feel good even if you're Jean-Paul Sartre. But then the feeling goes away and you're left thinking: Is that all there is? John Paul said no. And we can't look away, not so much from the content of his belief that Jesus was "the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6) as the fact of it.