By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio – articles – email ) | Oct 07, 2024
Patients use Internet medical portals to make appointments, ask questions of medical personnel, and check laboratory results. But do the medical portal masters follow the science?
The portal masters now ask: What was your sex assigned at birth? (Me: “I don’t remember.”) What are your preferred pronouns? (Me: “Huh? Your Highness?”) Upload a picture of yourself. (I uploaded a picture of my dog.) The portal masters accepted the image without question, so the algorithm recognized my self-identification as a dog. I was horrified. Many medical folks don’t follow the science.
When I went to the non-Catholic doctor for treatment, he was understandably curious (with a hint of skepticism) about his new priest-patient. A priest learns that he is often a curiosity piece, for better or worse. The doctor was particularly interested in Confession.
Priests are like doctors but not as nosy. Doctors heal the body. Priests, in the name of Jesus, heal the soul. Doctors ask patients many necessarily intrusive questions, such as: Do you smoke? Do you drink alcohol? Do you have allergies? What medications do you take? They take blood out of your arm, test it, and tell you to eat less fatty foods and more fruits and vegetables. In Confession, priests merely ask for the nature of the sin and the number and presume the honesty and goodwill of the penitent.
The doctor asked me mildly skeptical questions about the Catholic faith, so I returned the favor. The AI portal master of his practice thinks I self-identify as a dog. I asked him what kind of dog biscuits he’d prescribe. I also asked him if he was in favor of abortion. The more we study medical science, the more we gain certainty that conception creates a new human being. Catholic teaching follows the science. Do you?
He wasn’t amused.
Believing Catholics also follow the true-and-tried conventions of social behavior that have endured for thousands of years. Lying, stealing, and cheating are bad ideas. They are also sins.
Consider marriage and family. The scientific pattern is as old as Adam and Eve. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. Man meets woman. They like each other. They fall in love. They get engaged. They marry. They go on a honeymoon. They have babies. In that order. Nothing complicated. (The secular culture often accuses the Church of hating sex and promoting large families. Say what? More unbelievers should follow the science!) Believing Catholics follow the science because they follow Jesus.
But Jesus does not follow the science. Jesus is the Author of science. All things were created through Him. Science is the study of His handiwork. The Gospel affirms science and expands our understanding of His creation and its meaning.
We cannot understand the dignity of the human person without acknowledging God’s design for the original unity of man and woman. In biblical language, “man” inherently includes both male and female. God created us in His image, and marital unity reflects His generous love.
The Bible uses poetry to reveal the science and joy of human love: “The rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:22-24) God delights in the love between a man and a woman.
After Original Sin, the Old Testament increasingly uses marital imagery to describe the love God has for His people. In the New Testament, Jesus consecrated matrimony with His attendance at the wedding feast in Cana. Jesus reveals the science of marriage. He taught that marriage—like the covenant between Jesus and His Church—carries an unbreakable bond. “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Mt. 19:16) The Church is the family of God with Jesus as the Divine Bridegroom, and the baptized are the children of Holy Mother Church.
Catholic teaching views marriage as the communal fulfillment of man—male and female. Marital imagery even helps us understand the dignity of priestly celibacy. A celibate priest is betrothed to the Church in Jesus.
Marriage and family are the basis of a good culture. The social sciences reveal that babies need a stable family—with a mom and a dad. Hence, the marriage bond protects spouses from erratic and unholy impulses. The marriage bond also protects the security and well-being of children. The social sciences also reveal—with absolute certainty—that the abuse of human sexuality and the breakdown of the family leads to poverty, despair, single mothers, abortion, perversions, disease, gangland violence, and a host of other disorders. When in doubt, follow the science.
New life is a scientific reality. Babies are the outward signs of marital love. Hence, babies are—or should be—inseparable from the marital embrace. “Babies and bonding” in marriage protect the integrity of marriage and the dignity of the human person. In vitro fertilization violates the dignity of the marital embrace. Sex outside of marriage violates the science of family love. Babies have a right to the protection of the marriage bond.
Contraception and same-sex behavior are flip sides of the same coin. They violate the baby-making purpose of human sexuality. The degradation of the purposes of human sexuality leads to the breakdown of families, the corruption of cultures, and the loss of sanctifying grace.
Doctors desire our health. Jesus desires our happiness in this life and in the life to come. His every revelation brings happiness. Even when He teaches us to take up our crosses to follow Him, He teaches us to follow the science. It’s painful to reject our sinful inclinations and to live good and upright lives. Need scientific evidence? Follow Jesus and ask your doctor.
Fr. Jerry Pokorsky is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington who has also served as a financial administrator in the Diocese of Lincoln. Trained in business and accounting, he also holds a Master of Divinity and a Master’s in moral theology. Father Pokorsky co-founded both CREDO and Adoremus, two organizations deeply engaged in authentic liturgical renewal. He writes regularly for a number of Catholic websites and magazines. See full bio.
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