The free exchange of consent properly witnessed by the Church establishes the marriage bond. Sexual union consummates it - seals it, completes it, perfects it. Sexual union, then, is where the words of the wedding vows become flesh.

If (environmentalists) want to continue to beat those drums to solicit money from concerned soccer moms, they can do that. The reality on the ground is things are better as a result of Gale Norton's tenure.

Marriage is a living sign that truly communicates the love of Christ and the Church.

Marital love is a reflection of how God loves. It is free, total, faithful and fruitful.

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.'

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.

For those with the purity to see it, a nursing mother is one of the most precious, most beautiful, and most holy of all possible images of woman.