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Question:

Dear Father Angelo,

I am sorry about the late hour, but it has been for some time that I wanted to write to you and here I am.  I am 23 years old, I am still young and I have many 

experiences to live, but when I look at our society, I feel discouraged.  The reason is that I feel I have a vocation for marriage, but all I see around me are extremely immature guys, and I ask myself why in such a comfortable society where we cannot complain about anything both young men and women have to be so immature?

 Then, a question I have been asking myself for a long time….why do guys only think about sex in recent years?

I was engaged once, but now, I am tired of having someone next to me because all these guys think and care about is sex, despite seeing the seriousness and the good intentions of a girl who does not aspire to all this.

I thank you in advance and I wish you a good evening.


Father Angelo’s answer

Dear friend,

  1. Without romanticizing the past as if once there was only purity and holiness, it is before everyone’s eyes that in the last decades there has been an acceleration towards moral degradation.

I repeat again “without romanticizing the past”, because as a consequence of the original sin, the man has suffered in the sexual aspect, more than any other aspects of his being, a particular wound.

  1.  S.Thomas says that “As a result of original justice, the reason had perfect hold over the lower parts of the soul, while reason itself was perfected by God, and was subject to Him. Now this same original justice was forfeited through the sin of our first parent, as already stated (I-II: 81: 2; so that all the powers of the soul are left, as it were, destitute of their proper order, whereby they are naturally directed to virtue; which destitution is called a wounding nature (Summa teologiae, I-II, 85, 3).

And he also reminds that “through sin, the reason is obscured, especially in practical matters, the will hardened to evil, good actions become more difficult and concupiscence more impetuous” (Ib).

  1.  However, in the past it was relatively common that a girl would arrive at her marriage in virginity.

Many were the circumstances that helped in this direction.

Nowadays, however, the opposite happens.

There has been the so-called sexual revolution beginning in ‘68 with the claim of legitimacy of any type of sexual activity, that should be done with the sexual partner you want (etero or omo), as much as you want and, in some extreme espressions, also with how many you want, or even simultaneously.

  1.  I am not going to analyze the underlying reasons that led to this, nor the weight that some movements or lobbies had in this change of mentality, and above all of behavior.

But without any doubt, one of the main reasons is the oblivion of God and the meaning of life.

This is the reason why children and teenagers in some of your schools are directed towards devastating practices.

  1. The Second Vatican Council put the finger on the sore spot when affirming that “When God is forgotten, however, the creature itself grows unintelligible” (GS 36).

Deprived also of the moral light, of the sense of good and evil.

While it is God Himself, as the origin and end of man, the foundation of morality, of the science that states what is good and what is evil.

It is good what brings man to his goal (the communion with God).

Evil is what leads man to the separation from God.

  1. Pope John Paul II pointed in the secularism as the cause of the loss of the sense of sin.

And he defined secularism as a humanism that alienates us from God.

  1. Another reality has been added to this cultural climate that in the past did not exist: the sex industry.

           By sex industry we mean, first of all, the pornography in its different forms, but also the marketing of everything that reduces a human being into an object of erotic pleasure, including sexual tourism.

  1. And this is accompanied by many silences.

           By the silence on how much in this matter is not according to God.

           By the silence on purity and on the value of chastity.

           And by the silence on the goal that all of us are called to reach and that requires 

           vigilance, asceticism, fighting and prayer.

           All of this makes it possible for the young people to totally fall prey of other 

           messages.

  1. Despite everything, however, there are young people who, helped by their families,  by movements and ecclesiastical association, by parishes and God’s grace, grow up well.

Yes, with God’s grace. Because in every age the Lord keeps for Himself a small flock so that they may become a ferment and a point of reference for all.

  1.  For your future, I am sure the Lord will not leave you alone.

 For you also, he is preparing and preserving the young man with whom you can build a Christian family, outstretched to the renewal of the society and to the sanctity.

Through prayer and a holy life, you’ll be able to see on your own the path that will lead you to meet him.

In my pastoral experience, I have seen that it often happens this way.

I assure you of my prayer, also, and I bless you.

Father Angelo