(Catholic Culture) — The Christian worldview that leads us toward our heavenly destination includes beautiful poetry, parables, and portraits of our humanity, families, and culture. In recent decades, we’ve seen the contrasting re-emergence of an inexplicable – and hideous – edifice bearing the diabolical marks of self-inflicted violence.

The family forms the foundation of healthy communities and nations because “God created man in his own image… male and female he created them.” God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen. 1:27-28) God created men and women to marry and have children for their happiness.

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God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Adam delights in his union with Eve: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (cf. Gen. 2). Marriage is a holy and beautiful ensemble of human bonding and babies (in the inseparable order of cause and effect).

After the Fall, the world descended into chaos and confusion. The inability to bear children is among the many effects of Original Sin. But even deprivations witness to God’s truths. The account of Abraham’s wife, Sarah, freed of her barrenness (like Elizabeth in the Gospel) reaffirms that children are God’s gifts for parental stewardship, not possessive ownership. Hence, by the grace of God and Abraham’s obedience, Abraham becomes the father of many nations.

During their comical antics of demon worship, the false prophets of Baal harmed themselves: “They cried aloud, and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.” (1 Kings 18:28) Demon worship and mutilation are blood brothers.

The Prophet Elijah demonstrated the power of worship of the one God: “Answer me, O Lord… that this people may know that thou, O Lord, art God, and that thou hast turned their hearts back.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt offering.” “And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, ‘The Lord, he is God…’” (1 Kings 18:37-39) Worship in obedience to God’s will, with His grace, restores our humanity.

In the Gospel, an unclean spirit possessed a man out of the tombs, and “no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out, and bruising himself with stones.” (Lk. 5:1-5) The demons hate life, wallow in corruption, and deface the beauty of God’s handiwork by prompting self-inflicted violence.

The natural and beautiful love between a husband and his wife and a priest and his Church enrage the demons. The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah defy the laws of marriage and pervert the beauty and poetry of marital love. The era of God’s destructive wrath by fire and brimstone may have subsided, but the unnatural and self-destructive behavior of Sodom continues.

The so-called LGBT ideology wallows in unnatural relations between members of the same sex, demands horrible mutilation, wages chemical warfare against healthy bodies, and denies children a normal upbringing. Self-inflicted violence pays homage to their bloodlust. But the consumer mentality pretends we have the right to self-identify as men or women, to own babies, sacrifice them to appease the demons, and harvest them as commodities.

Recently every Republican in the U.S. Senate – including several Catholics – issued a shocking joint statement supporting continued nationwide access to in vitro fertilization (IVF). Popular slang refers to IVF technology as “test tube babies,” conceived apart from the physical bond of marital love. Several ova are placed in a petri dish and fertilized using immoral means. Technicians select the best prospect for gestation and dispose of or freeze the remainder. The glorified medical cattlemen manipulate the conception, implant the fertilized ova, and a baby is born. But the baby’s brothers and sisters are dead or in cold storage, perhaps awaiting implantation in an LGBT incubator.

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The IVF industrial complex violates God’s law, deforms the natural relations of men, women, and children, disposes of unwanted babies, and treats humans as animals. Some suggest that IVF technology is “pro-life.” If so, Doctor Frankenstein’s techniques are also pro-life. Authentic science exalts – but does not mutilate – the handiwork of God.

Chastity exalts but never mutilates marriage. Chastity is the virtue that regulates our reproductive inclinations and attractions according to our God-given state of life. A marriage founded on chastity – despite failures, brings forth the gift of children. The health of the Church and families is mutually dependent.

The Church, assisted by many chaste celibate priests, gives birth to spiritual children. Priestly celibacy imitates Jesus. The prospect of marriage attracts the priest, but he denies marriage for himself to dedicate his entire life to proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

We commonly hear that there are “many good, holy, and celibate seminarians and priests with homosexual tendencies.” Everyone must struggle to avoid sin regardless of sinful inclinations. But even a chaste candidate for the priesthood with pronounced same-sex tendencies is incapable of promising celibacy in the fullness of its meaning. The promise to give up holy matrimony is irrelevant to anyone incapable of marriage. This is a logical conclusion, not hateful bigotry.

Worse, many truncate the definition of celibacy and studiously avoid identifying Christian chastity as its foundational component. Celibacy (“not married”), divorced from chastity, facilitates the double lives of priests who use the priesthood as a playground for depravity. Exterior appearances of celibacy easily shield unrepented direct violations of their sacred promise.

After the Fall of Adam and Eve, the darkness of evil often eclipses God’s radiant beauty and plan for our happiness. But only for a time. The authentic Christian understanding of the sacraments of matrimony and holy orders outshines every form of diabolical self-inflicted violence.

“From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.’ So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Mk. 10:5-9)

Reprinted with permission from Catholic Culture.