Why do you write so much about sexuality?  Do you have an obsessive mind?

I write about sexuality because I can’t think of anything more fundamental to the ordering of society than the ordering of the family.  If you don’t understand what sexuality has to do with the ordering of the family, there’s the problem.

Bonus link:  Second half of interview in World magazine

Transexual:  A person who identifies as a member of the other sex.

Transracial:  A person who identifies as a member of another race.

Transpresleyan:  A person who identifies as Elvis Presley.

Mondays are for answering letters.  This isn’t exactly a letter, but I think it's close enough; it’s a question I have been asked frequently, most recently when I was speaking about natural law at Acton Institute’s annual conference on the foundations of a free and virtuous society.

Everyone admits that pain is educational:  Since I feel agony when I put my hand into the fire, I don’t do it again.  Curiously, we are much more reluctant to admit that there is such a thing as natural disgust, and disgust is educational too.  St. John Chrysostom makes this point exactly in his Homily on First Timothy:

One sometimes hears otherwise faithful persons say that although they never speak to their friends about their faith, they try to live in such a way that their lives will be a witness to the Gospel.

A bogus quote from St. Francis of Assissi is often used in support of this idea.  No, he did not say “Always preach the Gospel, and when necessary, use words.”