In which Shanners offers a Sunday meditation ...

With the Speccie mob continuing to disappoint - no Flinty, no Giles, just the usual Trumpism and climate science denialism - the pond had to search for a Sunday meditation, and what a relief it was to find at top of digital page, the lizard Oz's equivalent to the Pellists preaching on how to fix the sex problems that bedevil young people …

No need for a Sydney Anglican complimentary woman when Shanners is on hand …

Now it might sound funny to hear a fundamentalist Catholic talk of political correctness in the matter of sex, but that's the lizard Oz for you.

Apparently theological correctness isn't the same as political correctness, and how kind of Shanners to put in a kind word for poor old Harvey and the shocking retrospective blame he's been made to offer …

Once upon a time Catholics would have clucked disapprovingly about male behaviour, but it seems we have returned to the times of Boccaccio and the pestle and the mortar ...

The trouble of course is that there's no longer romance, and all these sexually exuberant young people fornicate like rabbits, so who's to say anything about anything ...

Indeed, indeed, though the pond was disturbed that Shanners was silent on a crucial matter, outlined by the learned Msgr Charles Pope here …

The usual conditions for mortal sin apply (grave matter (which fornication is), sufficient reflection, and full consent of the will). However, we ought not lightly conclude that these conditions are seldom met. I have met with many couples preparing for marriage who are sexually active and I have never found them to be surprised that I rebuke them for this. They know it is wrong. The voice of God stills echoes in their consciences. And as for consent of the will, it can be admitted that some fall occasionally in a weak moment. But consistent fornicating, with no measures taken to prevent it, is not “weakness”; it is sinful neglect of prudence and common sense. 
We are in a sinfully confused cultural setting in which many either celebrate or make little effort to avoid what God calls a very serious sin. The Church cannot lack clarity and pulpits and classrooms have often been silent. Such silence has led to parents themselves being silent. And silence has been taken for approval.

Everyone knows the consequences of mortal sin, yet there's Shanners blithely blathering about the way a little romance would fix up modern sexual mores … as if the problem of getting a drunk young virginal woman down on all fours in an alley, so she could be anally raped, was a matter that could be touched up with a gift of roses and champers afterwards ...

And so to what Shanners should have said:

Let's face it, young men who indulge in pre-marital fornication are destined for eternal hellfire, as are divorced couples, homosexuals, and all the other rabbits out there …and there's a special spot reserved for Harvey, and fuckers who think that fucking is all about putting another notch on the gun.

Sheesh, is it now up to the pond to point out the obvious, the things that every reptile Catholic Boys' Daily columnist should be able to parrot off as if reciting the catechism?

Shanners was in much better form explaining to her son how he wasn't much of a man …and her column about that dreadful New Zealand woman was a meisterwerk …

To make up for the disappointment, the pond decided to wrap up with a few cartoons featuring a very modern marriage …