Our newborn child is now two weeks old. The experience of labor, delivery, birth, family leave, sleep deprivation, cuddling, feeding, changing diapers, cat naps, washing miniature clothes, et al, has left many impressions upon me.

One of the deeper impressions has to do with hospitality and gift-giving. We’ve been receiving many generous gifts from many people and places ever since my wife’s first shower. And now the “meals-on-wheels” has kicked in. We’ve never eaten so good.

And having a baby in the house is an exercise in hospitality. Both the hospitality of others, who have been an invaluable help in taking care of our home, and our own hospitality in welcoming friends and family to visit the new addition to our household. All of which has been a exhilarating source of joy and gratitude.

What strikes me, though, is how all this connects with religious ethics. (Yeah, this is what you get when…

America Magazine, a national Catholic weekly, recently published “A Sexual Revolution: One woman’s journey from pro-choice atheist to pro-life Catholic” by Jennifer Fulwiler.

Hers is an interesting chronicle. The beginning of her journey will be familiar, I think, to many in our culture. She writes:

Growing up in secular middle-class America, I understood sex as something disconnected from the idea of creating life. During my entire childhood I did not know anyone who had a baby sibling; and to the extent that neighborhood parents ever talked about pregnancy, it was to say they were glad they were “done.”

In high school sex education class, we learned not that sex creates babies, but that unprotected sex creates babies.

Even recently, before our marriage was blessed in the Catholic Church, my husband and I took a course about building good marriages. It was a video series by a nondenominational Christian group, and the segment called “Good Sex”…