In Episode #231 I talked about a watershed essay on the intense danger of AI as a substitute for human relationships. This is already happening in Japan.

The author has removed the piece from her Substack, and it isn’t on the Wayback Machine, but I have reached out via email to see if it will be reposted. If it isn’t, I will write up my own explanation from memory, but the original piece is exhaustive in its explanation, so I’d rather wait to see if it will be available again. —AB

I mentioned this in Episode #231, and watched it last week. I watched it with a 25 year old female guest and her remark was, “Wow! All of the men are so… masculine!” It’s true. It is an undeniable, obvious observable fact that human males in the post-Christian west today are physically feminine. This is due primarily to estrogen from the mass use of the birth control pill being passed through women’s urine into the water supply. Estrogens from consumption of soy products is also a big factor.

Fun fact: the beautiful blonde horse that Maid Marian FitzWater (Olivia de Havilland) is seen riding is Roy Rogers’ horse, Trigger.

This scene hits harder in the 2025 than it used to. And spot Trigger.

And, of course I’m posting this. Arise, Sir Loin of Beef!

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

–C.S. Lewis

Ann,

Podcast 230 is among your finest work.

The local archdiocesan seminary offers masters in theology programs to lay people. There were orthodox rumblings at the time. Benedict was Pope. It was pre-Francis. I was in my early 50s.

A female theology professor (then married, since divorced) taught the class that married couples can do pretty much anything so long as they’re both on board with the given act and that the session… consummated in the customary way. I challenged her in class and was told that I exhibited “pre-Vatican II antiquarianism.”

In a not-so-unrelated episode, the seminary had an auction every year to raise money. Among the biggest draws at the auction was the “Scratch Ticket Tree” where students would buy lottery scratch tickets, donate them to the seminary, and the seminary ladies would clip the tickets to this big metal table top tree like thing. It became by far the most discussed auction item. Never mind Our Lord. “All ya need is a dollar and a dream.”

The head seminary lady came in to the beginning of a class one day to make announcements, including about the upcoming auction and, naturally, the Scratch Ticket Tree. Seeing my disapproving reaction, she singled me out exclaiming in front of the class, “So, Steve! Have you brought in YOUR scratch tickets?”

I replied, “Professor, I’m old enough to remember when that was a mortal sin.”

Thank you, Ann, for your great work and a particularly outstanding episode.

God bless you.

S

Celibacy is to not be married, which must now be explained to be between one human male and one human female.

Chastity is to not sin with regards to sex, both inside and outside of marriage.

Continence is to abstain from the marital embrace by mutual consent in perfect chastity.

Sex is the reproductive act. Tab A into Slot B. Sex means “the act of sexual reproduction”. Nothing else. Every other genital act is…

Sodomy. Let me repeat that. EVERY GENITAL ACT BETWEEN PERSONS OR DONE SOLITARILY THAT IS NOT PENILE-VAGINAL INTERCOURSE TO UNOBSTRUCTED (mechanically or chemically), INTERNAL COMPLETION IS SODOMY.

When a man and woman who are not married to each other engage in the marital embrace, that is, sexual intercourse, this is the mortal sin of fornication.

These concepts, while related, are different from each other and cannot be used interchangeably.

Sodomite priests often snarkily claim that they are not breaking their vows of celibacy because they are not married, and that sodomy is therefore licit for them. They often say this to their victims when they are grooming them. “The only vow I took was to not marry a woman. No problem! Eeew!”

“Chaste sodomy” is an ontological impossibility, as is “homosexual marriage” (pseudogamy).

The only way for a celibate to be chaste is to not engage in any genital activity whatsoever. Period. No spouse, no sex. And obviously all forms of sodomy are mortally sinful always and everywhere, including sodomitical acts between a married man and his wife, no matter how “common” and “normalized” those acts have become in today’s utterly pornographied culture.

Remember this simple phrase: THAT DOESN’T GO THERE. If “that”, say for example a penis, doesn’t have a natural function “there”, say, in a mouth, then that act is sodomy and it is always and everywhere a mortal sin not only against the Sixth Commandment (Divine Law), but primordially against THE NATURAL LAW, meaning that it is cooked into our natures as human beings to know that it is wrong, in the same way that everyone knows that willful murder of innocent persons wrong. No Ph.D. in moral theology needed.

Married couples are called to chastity by only engaging in licit sex with each other which is open to the transmission of life. Sexually active married couples therefore should be and are expected to be chaste.

Continence is to not engage in the marital embrace. Married couples can together choose to be continent, either for a phase or season, or perpetually.

All of the Apostles except St. John were almost certainly married, but upon being ordained priests and bishops by Our Lord immediately entered into perfect perpetual continence with their wives. Thus only St. John was celibate, but all of the Apostles were chaste and continent.

All married priests and deacons were understood to be perfectly and perpetually continent. It went without saying, because it was obvious that a man who offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or served on the altar as a deacon was espoused to Christ and His Church. It is a testament to how far gone a culture is that clerical continence is not instantly understood and naturally assumed with married priests and deacons, and even elicits rage when mentioned.

These terms, especially “celibacy“, are misused today almost as a rule across the board. Words have meaning and are not interchangeable. We should use these words correctly ourselves, and charitably correct others when they misuse them.

I hope this helps.

Christ is the Bridegroom, who loves The Church, His Bride.