Sept. 3, 2014

By Kristina Dean
Staff writer

NORFOLK-- In the" Building Strong Families: Marriage, Sex, and the Church" workshop, held July 26, author and speaker Dr. Angela Frank’s talks centered on the message of knowing the reality of the church's teachings and trusting in God and His plan.

Approximately 45 people attended the workshop sponsored by the diocesan offices of Family Life,

Evangelization, and Faith Formation at the Church of the Visitation Parish Center.

During the full-day event, Dr. Frank gave three talks on the church teachings on sexuality, marriage, and contraception.

Dr. Frank tied in society’s focus on contraception with a fear of the future, or lack of trust in God. 

People allow God into all other areas of their lives, but when it comes to money and sex, those are the “last bastions,” she said.

They fear what their futures may look like without contraception, she said.

War in our souls
Dr. Frank said struggles over trusting God with money and our sex lives boils down to the “real war in our souls.”

“How much do we trust that God’s plan will make us happy,” she asked.

God wishes for us to be happy, she said, and we need to know the reality about sex and reproduction.

Sex is meant for emotionally bonding and for reproduction, even when we wish otherwise, she said. If we choose to fight this reality, we set ourselves up for frustration and unhappiness. But if we are open to these realities, we can live healthy and intelligent sex lives.

Our reality is given to us, not created by us, Dr. Frank said. During the sexual revolution, sex became about recreation, and the "no strings attached" sexual movement which separated sex from love. People associated freedom with having more choices.

"In this consumerist view, people equated lots of options with freedom. But it's a lot deeper than Pepsi versus Coke," she said. "The sexual revolution centered around the promise of freedom, but true freedom is the giving of ourselves."

Role of technology
Technology plays a large role in this perception of an incorrect reality, she said.

Using Facebook and texting as examples, Dr. Frank explained that we use technology to control our relationships, creating this second life on-line that has nothing to do with real life.

"People are not connecting at their real selves,” she said. “They may not know who their real self is. This can move easily to sex, which leads to pornography," she said.

This becomes more important than real life relationships, leading to the "phenomenon of hooking up", she said, with the widespread belief that love can be separated from sex with no emotional connection. People feel they are entitled to sex without pregnancy.

"We have a society saturated with contraception," she said. "Our culture is what we get when we think female fertility is the problem.."

Impact on teenagers
Dr. Frank said this especially impacts teenagers who are having sex. They believe that they won't get pregnant, that it won't happen to them.

Three out of ten teenage girls who are having sex will get pregnant by the age of 20, she said.

And there are links between contraception and abortion.

"When contraception is provided, they engage in more risk taking behavior,” she said. “It creates a mindset of 'I have a right to sex without pregnancy." So, when they become pregnant, they are totally unprepared, and they back up contraception by seeking abortion. The abortion is needed to clean up the mess of an unplanned pregnancy," Dr. Frank said.

The purpose of sex
We need to pay attention to the real reality, not what we want sex to be, and not try to make it something it's not, she said. “The purpose of sex is for bonding and reproduction, she said. Its by-product is pleasure. God made it pleasurable to ensure the human race continues.”

Our reproductive systems are biological like an animals, but we are spiritual creatures, which means we have the power to know and to love, Dr. Frank said.

"God gives us guidelines to be happy. If we follow them, everything goes better. We can ask ourselves, 'how can I work with it?' or we can fight against it and produce a culture of  people who are at war with our bodies," Dr. Frank said.

Happiness is deeper than pleasure, it results from giving of yourself, she said. We are meant for a giving of ourselves, and we can't be happy if we fight against that. It's a choice of self-gift versus self-gratification.
"We only find ourselves in giving ourselves away," she said.

About the speaker
Dr. Frank earned a BA in Theology at the University of Dallas, and MA in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America, and a PhD in Theology from Boston College. Since 2007, she has been a professor at St. John's Seminary in Brighton, Mass, which she is currently Director of the Master of Theological Studies for the New Evangelization.

She is the author of Contraception and Catholicism: What the Church Teaches and Why, and Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Legacy: The Control of Female Fertility.

Photos by Kristina Dean
Bishop LaValley joined the participants at the “Building Strong Families: Marriage, Sex, and the Church" workshop, held July 26 in Norfolk. Above, he greets Mary Skillan, campus ministry director in Plattsburgh, and SUNY Plattsburgh students.

Dr. Angela Frank who presented the program is shown with Father Stephen Rocker, pastor in Gouverneur.