Pope Francis recently said, in one of his disquieting comments that sound contemptuous for the Church he is charged to love, that her teachings on sex are “still in diapers.” My mind turns to Christian poets who have written about the love of man and woman, and the moral dangers that beset it, from the troubadours and the Arthurian romancers of the 12th century to such modern Catholic authors as Mauriac, Claudel, Greene, Waugh, Böll, Percy and Francis’ own predecessor, John Paul II.
In my best, my most alive moments, I have a profound sense of belonging. At those moments, I am aware of being truly at home in this universe. I know that I am not an orphan here. There is no longer any doubt in my mind that I belong to this Earth household, in which each member belongs to all others – bugs to beavers, black-eyed Susans to black holes, quarks to quails, lightning to fireflies, humans to hyenas and humus.