So now you know how I feel about vasectomies and men having elective cosmetic surgery. How about cosmetic surgery in general? Here’s what Catholic Answers says:

Plastic surgery would seem to be warranted if it would provide a significant therapeutic benefit in some regard, either physical (e.g., reconstructive surgery to restore function or utility in cases of accident or birth defect) or psychological. This is provided that the procedure does not damage some other equal or greater good and provided that it is not intrinsically immoral.

Pretty straightforward. But I’ve heard a Catholic woman argue that she had low self-esteem and was depressed until she got breast implants. Then she was...READ MORE

Here is a nice little explanation of what a Catholic wedding looks like, compared to what you might see on TV. No one “gives the bride away,” for instance, because a valid marriage requires that the bride and groom freely give themselves. Likewise, the priest does not pronounce the couple man and wife, because his function is as a witness: The ministers of the sacrament are the man and woman themselves.

For another perspective on what the typical Catholic wedding actually looks like, you might check out this post by Reverend Know-it-all, recently revived by Fr. Z.

My own wedding, almost 14 years ago, was somewhere in between the one described in the first article and the circuses in the...READ MORE

On Tuesday, we talked about what it means to be a woman. Today, let’s examine what passes for being a man. According to the Wall Street Journal:

more men are opting for plastic surgery and other enhancements to lift droopy necks, excise excess body fat, and pin back protruding ears.

Younger men are increasingly viewing cosmetic procedures — generally not covered by insurance — as an acceptable way to make themselves more attractive, or correct embarrassing or unmanly features.

The subject of the article wanted to please his enchanting fiancee, who “playfully” suggested that she’d rather be flayed alive than be captured on film next to someone as repulsive as her 59-year-old...READ MORE

Ready for some good news? (via Pewsitter)

There is only one abortion clinic in North Dakota, and it sees patients on Wednesdays. And so the Catholic diocese of Fargo is opening a small adoration chapel ... right next door.

The chapel will offer Mass at 8 a.m. Wednesdays, followed by Eucharistic adoration and recited prayers until 3:45 p.m. It will be locked the rest of the week.

I am absolutely delighted by this approach: It sidesteps every possible legal struggle and every bogus claim of harassment, and sets aside all the infighting over strategy (Should we show graphic pictures? Should we give baby showers to teenage mothers? Are we allowed to deceive? How pro-life does a candidate...READ MORE

Many years ago, my husband spent part of each week traveling; and even when he was home, he was so blitzed with jet lag that we hardly saw him. Life was pretty awful.

What made it worse was that our landlord was a very old fashioned guy. He was sweet, kind, and generous to a fault—but he had a hard time accepting that I, a woman, was the one who handled business matters at home. I was the one who paid the rent, wrote the checks, knew how much water we used, arranged for parking, mowed the lawn, and so on. But he always insisted on waiting until my husband got home before he would discuss any of these things with us.

It was frustrating, but I didn’t hold it against him—he meant no harm,...READ MORE

One of my favorite parts about my life is that I never, ever, ever fly anywhere. The highest I get off the ground is when I have to hop a little bit to reach the smoke alarm that goes off when dinner is ready.

The last time I flew, it was when my husband and I decided to take our New Hampshire-born toddler to meet her California kin. I was, of course, pregnant; there were, of course, major delays. And so our little family enjoyed the rare pleasure of unexpectedly spending Christmas eve sleeping on the floor of an airport while surly Santa-hatted flight attendants took out their job dissatisfaction on us. The baby screamed with an earache the whole time, I got just the teensiest bit...READ MORE

Unless you are woefully behind on your flimsily-researched Biblical exegesis, you will know that Saturday is it. The end. Finito, adiós al mundo, ka-blammo. The end of the line.

Yes, yes, I realize that the so-called “Jimmy Akin” already covered the story about the scholar who has predicted that the end of the world will be May 21, 2011. What can I say? The man calls himself an apologist, and yet somehow fails to grasp such a simple concept as figurative language. For instance, when Christ says, “Listen, this here is actually, literally, super-de-really my body, and when I say that, I mean that it actually is actually my actual body”—well, that’s what we call a “symbol.”

But when Peter...READ MORE

I really enjoyed this commonsensical piece, “Other People’s Money,” from the Wall Street Journal. The author is “caught” by her father squandering money on individual apples. She asks:

[A]m I profligate? I don’t think so, but Wall Street’s crisis—itself following a surge in gasoline prices and a downturn in the economy—seems to have everyone turning a judgmental eye toward spending habits, their own and, more righteously, those of others.

Finding herself under scrutiny, she reflects on how her she does arrive at her sometimes inconsistent financial choices—and how she judges other people’s choices, too:

In my head, I construct entire budget plans for friends. If they would only quit...READ MORE