Here is latest from Father Thomas Loya. It is a rather brazen, if not unusual example of what has become part of the “tradition” for many of the American propagators of that pungent and turbid concoction that is mislabeled Theology of the Body.
With defenders like Father Thomas Loya, does Christopher West need critics?
Mary Victrix 
Loya’s Tabor Institute Web site has extremely graphic images flashing in the header (don’t visit it).
I can’t trust his teachings.
No surprise. This is the direction the TOB Team USA runaway train is headed.
I wonder if John Paul II’s intent was for his teachings to be used in such a way that could increase Playboy magazine subscriptions amongst Catholics.
Father Loya and the whole TOB crowd are out to lunch.
Thank you Father for exposing yet another speaker who is causing great confusion in the Church. I did not know that it has reached the Byzantine Rite (I am a Byzantine Catholic). I appreciate your unique insight that the very people you are coarse and profane with the mystery of sexuality are also the same with the Liturgy. West and Co. are actually doing more harm than good. How does all their preoccupation with the sexual sphere and their ideologically reading of sex into everything (a reduction of everything to that sphere) shore up with the Sermon on the Mount? Jesus’ radical command of custody of the eyes and heart cannot tolerate such coarse, banal, ungentlemanly treatment of the sexual sphere.
I’m at a loss for words – Thanks Father for pointing these things out.
I remember an old saying that Satan puts a little truth into every lie. I think that might be what’s happening with Christopher West and all of the TOB stuff. There is truth to what they are saying but it’s packaged inside of a lie. The danger is that we can see the tidbits of truth and then get sucked into the lie.
Yes, all of God’s creation is beautiful … but we can admire it in very different ways. I personally admire the sunset in a very different way than I admire a newborn baby and different still than I might admire adults of both sexes. The trouble I see here is that they’re pulling the beauty out of its proper context. Certainly a married couple can admire one another’s beauty … but it’s when you start to covet someone else that it becomes a problem. It’s rather foolish to allow yourself the ability to really LOOK as this priest suggests and then think you can take the next step at hearing DA COACH kick you in the franny. Perhaps there are people that can do this but it’s probably precious few. Not to mention the fact that it can become just a good ol’ bad habit … kind of like me with cookies. I can’t have just one cookie. It’s best I not put the taste in my mouth because once I do, I quickly lose count. My craving for that food erases all sense of reason at that moment.
Terry,
Yes, It was quite breathtaking. No comment necessary. Father Loya is a goldmine for us TOB USA critics who are looking to have our points illustrated.
Jen,
Those who pointed Fr. Loya’s letter out to me, mentioned how it struck them as misogynistic. I mean what woman wants to be the one gawked at or to be imagined as a cranky old crone at the advice of a priest?
I wouldn’t believe it, if it weren’t for similar experiences.
Father Angelo,
Sad to say, but there are many women who do want to be gawked at. As I’ve looked deeper and deeper into the behaviors of teens and young adults, I am thoroughly shocked at what girls and women will do for the attention of men. It’s really beyond me. I have cried over it because I just don’t know how we got to this and how we can repair it. It breaks my heart to see girls just sell themselves (not literally) so cheaply … really, give themselves away. They allow themselves not only to be gawked at, but to be publicly groped. Now, I have had the great misfortune of being groped twice in my younger years and I felt SO violated and angry. But these girls don’t have that reaction what-so-ever. This behavior is not confined to the young either. My husband works with women in their 40’s and 50’s who come to work and brag about their ‘escapades’ over the weekend.
That’s why when I hear that TOB is trying to save us from prudery I cannot help but ask, ‘What rock did you crawl out from under?’ I’d just LOVE to see a little prudery, thank you very much.
Jen,
Yes, it is all true. But it is strange that a priest would advise men to take advantage of it.
Yes … it is strange for a priest to do such a thing … it is tragic for a priest to do such a thing. my guess is that the priest struggles with it himself and has justified himself with this rationale. Maybe the Holy Father will extend the Year of the Priest for another year! I’m not kidding. However, I also wish he’d have a year of Holy Matrimony.
More than ever, we need our Church priests to guide people properly. Thank you for doing just that.
Well,
Satan unfortunately isn’t an idiot. The destruction of the family, specifically, the removal of the father from the home (through work, divorce or neglect),the removal of the father (who understands to a far greater degree then women the potential carnality of the male mind)as the head of the home and protector of his family… has left both sons and daughters easy prey to the author of this world. Satan has used female vanity and lust for power, to convince women/mothers, that being provacative and seductive is ’empowering’. Daughters who are left without any fatherly affection or protection and without any sense of where their truth worth lies now dress to’empower’ and become easy prey in their quest for male attention/affection. Sons who are left without any real strong male, moral leadership are encouraged to indulge in the carnality of the world and fall prey as well. The theological truth that we are temples of the Holy Spirit, that we are created in the same image and likeness of God, that we have tremendous value as a unique individuals created to glorify HIM – is now a forgotten truth. We need to rebuild the authentic Christian human family, one family at a time…