Marital Debt is Not Church Teaching

What is this idea of marital debt? Where is it in the Catechism, or in other official magisterial Church documents? (Hint: It's not actually there!) What does a belief in marital debt do to a married Catholic or Christian woman?

In this episode, Sarah tackles marital debt head-on, debunking the idea that obligation sex for wives is the teaching of the Church. She shares quotes from official church teachings and looks to a common quote from the Supplement to the Summa (not actually written by St. Thomas Aquinas, but by one of his students) that is used to support an obligation sex idea of marital debt. 

At the end of the episode, she shares additional podcasts you can listen to in order to learn more about how marital debt is not official Catholic Church teaching.

These are:

Managing Your Fertility Episodes 66-68: "Dr. Tim Pawl: Can I say No to s*x with my spouse? aka the marital debt!" 3 part series.

MissHappyCatholic: Marital Debt Deep Dive Parts 1 + 2: Facts and Fictions

MORE RESOURCES

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)

Model-free lingerie! Get 10% off with my affiliate link for Mentionables.

Transcript

0:53

Today we are talking about the marital debt. I'm going to address some misconceptions about the marital debt and describe what it is, what the church actually teaches, uh, what people think the church teaches, and maybe explore a bit of why or, or where they may have gotten these ideas. I'm going to look into some of the effects and consequences that. Are common when an obligation sex lifestyle is lived in a marriage. Um, but also just talk about your freedom and I'll point you to some additional resources. So I hope this is helpful for you. I had a coaching client in my, my Delight class this last spring who told me, um, when we sat down for our first. Individual coaching call. Um, she said that already things had improved so much in her marriage, in her sex life, from listening to my podcast and that of my friend Ellen Holloway, charting towards intimacy. Shout out to Ellen. She has a fantastic podcast, but this woman, this wife who I was coaching said just. Realizing that she wasn't obliged and that she could say no, gave her a sense of freedom that already was helping her in her love life, and like three quarters of her problems were solved from that. Plus learning that you need a lot more foreplay than she and a lot of people. I'd realized. So that's what I hope this episode can do for you is clarify what the church actually teaches. Give you a sense of freedom and peace, lift unnecessary burdens, and and also gently speak to those who firmly hold this belief that marital debt. Church teaching. So the first step here is we're going to look at what is this idea of marital debt that's going around. So the, the idea consists of this, the idea is that. Marital debt means that when a spouse requests sex from the other spouse, that the other spouse is obliged to provide it to do it, and usually, usually this is framed in terms of the wife being obliged to say yes when a husband initiates love making. And there are some additional aspects to this that get wrapped into this idea. So the, the stakes are raised because in a lot of formulations of this idea of marital debt, the wife is told that she, it is a sin for her. To say no, that she is obliged, morally obliged to say yes to her husband's request for love making. There's initiation that she doesn't. It is a sin. She is sinning, maybe mortally maybe ally. In some traditional circles, there are these conditions that are laid out such that the wife, I, I think if the husband is. Okay. If it's within six weeks of the birth of the child or the husband is not in his right mind, drunk or high, or if the the spouses lack sufficient privacy, or if the husband or the spouse has committed adultery and you haven't been able to forgive them, then those are conditions that many traditionalist priests say, excuse you. From the marital debt that if you decline your husband's request, then it's no longer mortal sin. But otherwise it is mortal sin, I would say. I've also heard women tell me that they have heard, again from tradit, a traditional priest who has a podcast that that's a sin for the wife to decline love making unless there's grave reason. And I thought that was really interesting because that grave reason language that is actually taken from Humane Vita, that's actually a mistranslation of humane vita's explanation that spouses can use natural family planning, fertility awareness methods, periodic continence to avoid pregnancy if they have a just cause. So one translation of just cause was. Grave reason, but that's not the most accurate translation anyway, so it was an inaccurate translation taken out of context. So, okay, so that, I hope that helps you understand what this idea of marital debt is that's going around. Okay. One more aspect to it. If the wife declines, not only does she sin by saying no, she may be causing her husband to sin. Because then he might go have an affair. He might commit adultery. He might watch porn and masturbate. Who knows what he might do, but it's her fault. She has caused him to sin. So as you can see, there's just a lot of moral obligation laid on the wife. So even if she's tired, has a migraine, is sick there could be any number of reasons. Maybe they had a fight and haven't made up. Uh, there are a lot of reasons a wife might not want to make love with her husband. Maybe, you know, they haven't like, warmed up the sexual environment of their marriage with romance and flirting and affection and acts of kindness and care for each other. There's been just a lack of emotional intimacy and a lack of care and connection. And, and warmth and affection, right? Then it would feel like making love to a stranger, right? If your husband. Out of that context then approaches you with a request for love making. So that would be a reason, right? Like a, a legitimate reason a wife would want to say no, but under this idea of marital debt, that it would be sinful for her to say no. And she is not allowed to say no. And you know, if, if she does, it's in full. Okay. So let me know. Reach out to me if I have, if, if you have heard a different. Formulation of marital debt. Um, you can reach out to me and, and present what it is that you heard, but this is what I am gathering from what people are telling me they believe about marital debt. Interesting. I did not learn anything about marital debt when I was in grad school studying some Catholic sexual ethics and. I had no idea people were thinking this until later. I got into helping women with their, helping Catholic women with their love lives in marriage. Then I started coming across clients of mine, students of mine, women who were sharing that this is what they believed and how they were living in their marriages. I was really stunned because. I never came across this in studying Catholic sexual ethics. And that brings me to point number two. What does the church actually teach? So in her official documents, in the catechism of the Catholic church, in her magisterial documents that treat sexual morality. Such as Humane Vita, such as Gaia sp ti Canobie from the early 19 hundreds. And um, yeah, just anywhere that there's official church statements on sexual morality and the meaning and theology of sex. This is the picture of sex that the church presents. Sex is designed to be a mu, a total. Mutual personal gift of self in which the procreative and unit of aspects of sex are intrinsically integrated. Sex is designed to be total faithful, fruitful, and free. We are called to integrate our sexuality through the virtue of chastity into our whole person so that we live chastity in whatever state of life we are called, and so that. Sex is oriented towards its true meaning, which is expressing the bond of love between husband and wife, and also being the means of procreation. Sex is meant to be a truly human activity. The church uses that phrase truly human in the catechism, which uses the will. In which the spouse has used their will to express their emotional and spiritual intimacy to renew and express their covenant of love that they made with their marriage Vows and love involves willing, the good of the other regarding the good of the other. So again, this is the picture of sex that we get. The statements on sex that we get from GPE 48, the catechism of the Catholic Church, human Vita, and any other official Catholic church statement on sex. Notice what is absent. There is no official church document that says that. Spouses are obliged to have sex with each other under the pain of sin upon refusal. That is not actually in church teaching. The very closest we get is in Costi Canobie, and I will read you the excerpt here. It's in paragraph 23, I believe. Actually paragraph 25 of Ti Canobie. So the previous paragraphs have been all about the duties of married life, about chastity between spouses, about how their love for each other, that they're joined in as holy and pure, not as adulterers, love each other, but as Christ love the church. And that's hearkening back to Ephesians five. In paragraph 23 of Kasti Canobie, there's a quote actually from Ephesians five. Where the author writes, husbands, love your wives as Christ, also love the church. Not for the sake of his own advantage, but seeking only the good of his spouse. So then actually right in the middle of paragraph 23. The Pope Pro, the love then of which we are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment, nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart, which is expressed in action. Since love is proved by deets, like this is all pointing towards this picture that I just portrayed for you of sax being the, a physical expression of this inner emotional and spiritual love and connection. Between the spouses, but it's kind of squishy in the sense of when we read this discussion of married love here and in other church documents, it's kind of hard to tell us specifically when the document is speaking about sex or when it's talking about. Married love more broadly speaking, and I think that's really telling. That's really important.'cause they should be of a piece, right? They like, they should all flow seamlessly. So here, for example, again, as I read further in Costi Canobie 23, this outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help, but must go further, must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life. So that through their partnership in life, they may advance evermore and more in virtue and above all, that they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbor on which indeed depended the whole law and the prophets. Okay, so, and then the, this paragraph concludes by talking about this universal call to holiness. It's actually a prefigurement, like a little foreshadowing of what will get much more clearly in Vatican Two that every Christian is called to holiness. As here Kostic, it says, for all men of every condition in whatever honorable walk of life they may be, can and ought to imitate that most perfect example of holiness placed before man by God, namely Christ, our Lord, and by God's grace to arrive at the summit of perfection, as is proved by the example, set us of many saints. So really we're looking at how can we grow in loving God and our neighbor more holy, more. Fully more perfectly that in this beautiful vocation of marriage we're called to help each other achieve holiness, and we support each other in that. Okay, so then in the context of that, COSTI Canobie 25 does quote. It says, by the same love, it's necessary that all the other rights and duties of the marriage state be regulated as the words of the apostle let the husband render the debt to the wife and the wife also in like manner to the husband express not only a law of justice, but of charity, and then we talk. Then paragraph 26 talks about domestic society being confirmed by this bond of love and there should be an order of love in the home. Okay, it notice. That it does not say if the wife does not have sex with the husband when he initiates it, then she's sinning. No, in fact, there's not really any other gloss or explanation or like conditions given to this quote. Husband render the debt to the wife and the wife, manner to the husband. It's just sort of placed there without explanation in the context of this. Description of married love as part of, you know, growing in holiness and loving God, a neighbor, and forming our domestic society, family life to be after the order of love. Okay, so that is as close as we get to any mention of the marital debt in any church document. Except actually I will say there's maybe a passing illusion. And this is in paragraph nine of Humane Vita. Remember human vita is the 1968 church document, which reiterates the church's consistent moral prohibition of artificial birth control and states that periodic continents for, you know, natural family planning is a elicit means of avoiding pregnancy when the couples discern they have a just reason to do so. Anyway, in paragraph nine. There's the description of me love again. It's talking about this love is spiritual and fully human. It's, it says it's not merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It's above all an act of the free will. So that the whose trust is such that is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow so that husband and wife become in a way, one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment. This is just, um, right. Doesn't that sound like an echo and development of what I just read in Costi Canobie about growing and holiness. And, you know, loving better in the order of love, loving God and neighbor. Um, the husband and wife, you know, are called to attain their human fulfillment that is holiness. So then a little further on, in paragraph nine, it says, Pope Saint Pope Paul six writes, it is a love which is total, that very special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything, allowing no unreasonable exceptions and not thinking solely of their own convenience. So, and then he says whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself. So here he is not talking about sex specifically, but I guess you could see in here like that part of it's not always convenient, right? When we. We share everything with each other, right? So, and I, I can totally see that it's not always convenient to you know, to, to grow in unity in your married life, including at the sexual level. But, both spouses, you know, should be willing to stretch a bit like in various ways, whether this means husbands learning about lengthening the time of foreplay and you know, not just seeking your own convenience for quick foreplay and quick orgasm, but really considering what your wife. Um, you know, what is for her good. And then also wives as well, right? You might have a hundred things on your to-do list, and I know about that to-do list so Well, and I, one thing I know about it is it is never ending. It is a trick list'cause you think when I get to the bottom of that list then I can rest, then I can enjoy life, then I can do fun things. Then I can take time for things that are less important. That the sneaky thing about that list, there is no end to it. And so wives, we do need to learn to stretch in the terms of like putting that list down, realizing it'll be there when I get back. I can take time out for prayer, self care, fun, rest. And love making and the world's gonna go on and, you know, it might not be convenient to you to do those things when you're thinking, ah, if I can just get to the end of the list, then I'll win. But, um, anyway, there are lots of ways that we can stretch and do things for each other's good, not out of our own convenience. And that includes. Preferences and habits around lovemaking, but it should be mutual. I, there's such a clear picture of mutuality in all these church documents. And I just wanna point out again, nowhere in this document, human vita, nowhere in the catechism. Does it say that the wife always has to have sex with her husband whenever he wants, whenever he initiates this, it's not in there. Um, or the reverse. Right? Or that the husband always has to have to have sex with his wife when she initiates. So marital debt, according to the idea that I laid out earlier in this episode, that's actually not church teaching. So this brings me to my third point, which is why do people think that marital debt is church teaching? If you believe this, who, who told you this? Where did you get this? Was it a friend, a podcaster? Was it, was it a priest or clergy member? It was somebody, right, but it wasn't. Official church teaching. You didn't read it in the catechism'cause it's not there now. A lot of people in discussions about marital debt point to St. Thomas Aquinas and they point specifically to these words that are actually in the supplement to the Suma Theologica. And they actually, while people assume these are aquinas's words. Interestingly, this supplement was actually not written by St. Thomas Aquinas. This was written by a student of his and scholars think possibly it was written by a Fra Aldo Deep Erno, or, yeah. Or some other disciple of St. Thomas. So in this supplement to the Summa, uh, it St. Thomas Aquinas does say that. He does discuss marital debt and he, he's kind of putting forth these teachings about the spouses as like they have power over each other, like a master's power over the slave, which obviously that is not church teaching. We have this mutual dignity view of husband and wife that is an official church teaching, but anyway. In that context, the supplement, the author of the supplement, probably a student of St. Thomas QAs, does say Rendering the debt is an obligation of precept. And he is speaking about having sex here when he talks about rendering the debt. So this is where a lot of people do get this idea that marital debt, according to the idea, you know, according to the explanation I put forth earlier in this episode, is church teaching. They base it here in this supplement to the summa. And the explanation given here in the Summa is about how marriage was instituted to fulfill an office of nature the author does say that. The husband and wife owe each other this debt. He says that, however, though requiring the debt is not sufficient grounds for the wife to, for forbid her husband to join the crusades, but she could go along with him if she wanted. So that's kind of interesting, right? Like if this debt is a precept, the marital debt, giving each other sex when, when requested is important morally, I guess it's not. As important as, uh, helping the church out by going off on the Crusades. Um, but the, yeah, the wife could go along with her husband on the crusades if she thinks that, you know, being deprived of him. And his husbandly attention sexually would lay her open to moral danger. And then the. Author of this supplement says that the wife is even obliged to render the debt to the husband. If he's infected with leprosy, regardless of the harm it would pose to her as well as any offspring, any children, they would conceive. But then later he says that it is forbidden that a, um, that the husband. Should not have sex with a woman who is menstruating because of her uncles, and then he thinks that that would be harmful to offspring born. I mean, this was just. Untrue beliefs about menstruation being harmful back in the Middle Ages. So, uh, it's, it is interesting though, right? Like the, the wife is not excused from the marital debt if her husband has leprosy because yeah, I don't know why she's not excused, but it would be harmful to her. But the husband is excused from rendering the marital debt to a wife if she's having her period, because it could be harmful to him. And to children there. So that's kind of interesting. And then another teaching here in this supplement about sex is that it oppresses the reason and thus renders one less fit for spiritual things. So this is another incorrect and untrue idea about sex and its meaning and its characteristics that is not supported by church teaching. And also another thing to note here is that the author of the supplement says that it is inappropriate to ask for the debt, so to request sex, dear in the holy time or a feast day. It's not a mortal sin, but it's probably a venial sin and. The author says when the wife asks for the debt during a feal time, as far as he husband is concerned, he does not consent but s unwillingly and with grief that which is exacted of him and consequently he does not sin. So if he has sex with his wife because she asks for sex during a feast time, as long as he's not really enjoying it and he does it just'cause she's asking, but not'cause he wants to and doesn't enjoy it, then, then he's not sinning. Right. I think it's interesting to note that during the Middle Ages there were a lot of times when it was not okay to have sex between married couples, like during Lent, for example, on Sundays, on Holy Days, on fast days. These were all not days that were okay for having sex, and it's just so interesting to me like why is this idea of marital debt, which is. Yeah. Which it doesn't even say in the supplement that it's a sin to withhold the marital debt. It just says it's a precept, that the marital debt is a precept. But anyway, why does that come down to the 21st century, but not these other medieval obligations or moral rules about sex that were. In the church at the time, like commonly practiced and observed and believed in the church at the time about avoiding sex on Sundays, avoiding sex during Lent. Like I have not heard any traditionalist podcaster, you know, talk about how, Hey guys, while we're smoking our cigars and talking about Aquinas, remember, don't have sex with your wife during Lent. Like, I do not, did not hear that in there or on Sundays. Um, or deacons who are married. Shouldn't be having sex, like according to these medieval precepts you are supposed to abstain from sex for a few days before attending mass, right? Or at least like a married deacon. Um. Okay here, St. Jerome wrote that for a minister to have relations with his wife, it renders him unfit to approach the Eucharist for communion because of the carnal nature of the act. So this was back when St. Jerome was writing in the early church, there were a lot of married priests, and St. Jerome also said husband shouldn't have sex with his wife during menstruation because their child would have leprosy and be evidence of their sin of coming together. Like none of that made it to the 21st century. And, and it's just interesting to me, like why, why this obligation on women on wives to have sex with their husbands? How did that, like, it just, it just seems really suspicious to me, right? Like it seems really, like it was made up of this, this rule revived, contrived, made up. By certain men to oblige women and while they themselves are not obliging themselves to you know, to abstain for lengthy periods of the liturgical year or, you know, times during the week or times during. Her, his wife's cycle. I don't know. I don't know why or how the marital debt came to be a commonly held belief today and why it came to be believed as church teaching, but it's not, and I'm sorry if someone told you that because it's not true and it lays a burden on you that the church does not lay on you. It makes me think of what Jesus said. When he was, um, when Jesus was talking about those religious teachers who laid burdens on the people that were heavy and hard to bear. Because it, it, it really is a heavy burden to go around thinking, oh my gosh, anytime my husband wants to have sex with me, I gotta do it no matter what I feel like or what I'm feeling. Like, you know, what my body is feeling like, what my heart's feeling like. Okay. But I do wanna say that if this is working out for you in your marriage, you have been living by, you've been, you've believed that marital debt is church teaching. You've believed obligation sex is what you need to do, and it's working out for you in your marriage. It's not sinful. I'm not saying it's, it's against church teaching to always say yes. You're not sinning by doing that, but you don't have to do it. You are free to say no, you are not obliged. Yeah, I just, I wanna relieve the burden of those who wives who think that they can't say no, because what we do know is that there can be great harms that come from obligation sex. Women doing this are often. Required to dissociate themselves from their bodies and from their hearts. And this can increase the likelihood of vaginismus. It can decrease the likelihood of her enjoying sex. And that just messes with the brain's reward system. You know, if you're enjoying sex and you get that reward of the pleasure that codes into your brain, and it wires in this association that sex is. Great. Sex is something I like. I want to have sex. I'm looking forward to when the stars align, you know, when, when, um, the situation works out so that we can have sex. That is a great thing. I am right, but when you have obligation sex and you're forced to have a lot of sex that you don't like, that you're not enjoying. But you're obliged to do, then the opposite happens in our brain. No reward center bene, you know, benefits kick in. And instead this association is wired in the wife's brain that, oh, sex is that chore I have to do before I get to sleep, before I get to do something nice for myself. And I don't really like it, and it's such a drag, and I just have to get through it. And then more. And the more times that happens, the more times that groove is. It's furrowed deeper into the brain and that association between sex and chore is just solidified more and more, makes it harder for the body to go through all its responses that it needs to go through to make sex pleasant. Comfortable and pleasurable. Like think, think about when we sit down to a good meal. You smell the steam coming off of the chicken. You see the butter glistening on the mashed potatoes. You see that crisp, bright lettuce and the salad, you're sitting down, you pray grace. The table is made. You're there with those you love what starts happening in your body. Maybe as you're finishing the, um, grace before meals already, you're starting to salivate. Already, your digestive responses are kicking in to help facilitate you receiving this food and getting nourishment from it. You start to salivate, like all these other processes happen within you. Your brain triggers them, their cues through your senses, and then your body's digestive processes kick in. The same thing can happen with sex. If we have. Experiences or beliefs or associations that are positive about sex. Then when it's time to have sex again, we're like, oh yeah. Hmm. This is gonna be nice. And it's easier for your body to, you know, get lubricated as a woman and for your muscles, your vaginal wall muscles to relax and for you to get into pleasure mode, right? Anyway, obligation sex harms, all that. Or it can, it's likely to. Uh, Sheila Greg Wire a Christian author, uh, and speaker, she found in her surveys that women in evangelical Christian circles who believed in obligation sex and you know, marriages heard those messages were more likely. To develop vaginismus that the rates are higher in those Christian communities in the Protestant world that that propose this. And I recommend to you to Google Sheila, Greg Wire's obligation sex blog post series. It's on her bare marriage.com website. Google, Sheila, Greg, wire obligation Sex, and there's a whole series of articles that explains what the belief is and why it is harmful and all of this accords with our Catholic views. I just wanna reassure you of that, what I've read in those articles, yes, we can read that with peace as Catholics because she's not teaching anything in there that goes against our Catholic faith. Okay. And then where else you can go to get more information, or if you want to delve further into this idea of marital debt and why it's not actually church teaching, I will direct you to my friend Bridget Acker's podcast, managing Your Fertility episode 66 and 67 with Dr. Tim Pauls. She. Invited him on as a guest. He's a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is a Catholic professor teaches moral psychology as well, and he really gave a great two part interview to Bridget for her podcast that I encourage you to listen to as well. There's another great series. That I encourage you to check out, which is a YouTube podcast. And this is on the podcast Hope by hosted by Mrs. Miss Happy Catholic. So search Miss Happy Catholic Marriage debt, deep dive, part one and part two, and they dive into these facts and fictions about marital debt. I think you'll find a lot there. And like I said, like, because I can't point you to anything in the catechism. In Canon law or any official church documents about marital debt.'cause it's not there. Aside from that one little quote from the New Testament that I mentioned in Costi Canobie, which didn't even say, you know, the language around it. Didn't say, this quote means wives, you better have sex with your husband when he wants, otherwise it's a sin. That's, that's not what the church said there in quoting that. But anyway, I hope that's helpful for you. I. I just, I know it's really hard when something we believe is challenged, we feel a belief attack and we get defensive. Or we might, we might feel a lot of feelings. Maybe you might feel upset or angry or confused if this is something that you have always believed and now you're hearing me say, actually this is not church teaching. Um, I encourage you to sit with that. Pray about it. Ask yourself why you believe this, who told you, and then really pray and ask God's guidance, ask for help to be faithful to his true church, which he, you know, God faithfully guides us through the magisterium of the church. And we have, we have the catechism, we have the authoritative magisterial documents of the church there. I. I just really encourage you to trust that above whatever sources told you that marital debt is church teaching, um, because they, maybe they were misinformed themselves, you know, they might have had really good intentions and, you know, be sincere themselves, but. Yeah, I just to reiterate, it wasn't St. Thomas Aquinas's own words. It was a supplement written by Thomas Aquin, written by a student of his that addresses marital debt in the the Summa. It's a supplement to the Summa, and even so, even if it was his own words, it's not true that anything any Saint says is therefore church teaching. The church wisely reviews what Saints teach. And, you know, their, their writings and teachings and incorporates with wisdom, you know, from those into church teaching or as you know, as support or examples or quotes. And Thomas Quinn is isn't quoted by the catechism as saying marital debt is church teaching, uh, in, in this way. So it's, it's not there. Yeah. So I, anyway. I just, this has been a tricky thing for me to address'cause I know people really hold this so firmly and I can tell you I have received. All caps emails from people emailing me saying, I am leading people astray because I'm not holding up marital debt. And I just, I know people feel really passionately about this and hold it strongly. Uh, please be kind and charitable in how you reach out to me. I'm just a human woman. Also, I promise you, if I receive an email that's in all caps, I'm, I'm gonna delete it. But if you write me respectfully, I will read it and if I have time, I'll respond. But anyway, I just want to lift unnecessary burdens, lift a burden that you may be bearing, that the church is not laying upon you. And I just, I do this with charity and respect and tenderness, knowing that our Lord Jesus, he loves you so much. He loves you so much, wives. And I think it pains him seeing you. You know, he knows you're a good woman and it pains him seeing you, feeling burdened and having to use your body or feel used in your body in his name. That's not what he wants for you. Anyway, I hope. I hope the message is clear. God bless you. I hope you'll find delight today and I'll see you in the next episode, which will also be controversial, and which also I might get people coming after me about, because I'm going to address the false idea that you can use NFP with contraceptive mentality. So that should be fun. All right. God bless.