I doubt if anyone of any tenderness or imagination can see the hand of a child and not be a little frightened of it. It is awful to think of the essential human energy moving so tiny a thing; it is like imagining that human nature could live in the wing of a butterfly or the leaf of a tree. When we look upon lives so human and yet so small, we feel the same kind of obligation to these creatures that [God] might feel.

A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.

Human progress planned as alternatives (to God’s plan) introduce in justice, evil and violence rising against the divine plan of justice and salvation. And despite transitory and apparent successes, they are reduced to simple machinations destined to dissolution and failure.

The Church’s basic moral principle regarding reproductive technologies is this: if a given technology assists the marital embrace in achieving its natural end, it can be morally acceptable, even praiseworthy. However, if it replaces the marital embrace as the means by which the child is conceived, it’s not in keeping with God’s design.

The idea that ‘preaching the Gospel’ has nothing to do with sex and that ‘preaching about sex’ has nothing to do with the Gospel betrays layers and layers of seriously misguided thinking. When we divorce God’s love from sexual love, as Pope Benedict says, ‘the essence of Christianity’ becomes ‘decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human life.’ (God is Love 7). The ‘gospel’ then becomes cold, aloof, inhuman. In other words, we’re no longer preaching the real Gospel.

Now, this is the most amazing thing when you think about it. Sperm, this little sperm, it does not have an immortal soul. And the ovum, you see, it does not have an immortal soul. And when the two come together, where does that immortal soul come from? The sperm doesn’t carry it. The egg doesn’t carry it. Where does it come from? It comes from a new act of creation by God. In each act of conception, there needs to be a new act of creation by God.

What is the purpose and meaning and nature of sexual intercourse? It seems to me to be quite clear. It’s for two things. It’s for babies and it’s for bonding. And that’s what happens when you have sexual intercourse – you have babies and you bond. My view is, if you don’t want to have babies and you don’t want to bond, then you shouldn’t be having sexual intercourse.

We live in a culture in which condoms can be handed out in schools and Bibles can’t. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about our society.

A woman who sets her rights, the supposed right to privacy or right over her own body, above the life of another human being is saying that a woman’s rights are superior to human rights. She has put herself above the human race, she has made herself the executor over life and death. Is that a woman’s right?

Abortion is a denial of one of those powers which make women women.