AboutBro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM, L.Th. Expertise I am a Catholic apologist, catechist, spiritual director, and spiritual warfare/deliverance counselor holding a degree of Licentiate in Theology. Questions dealing with the Catholic Faith will be answered according to official Church teachings, where such official teachings exist, and according to solid principles taught by the Church and the saints on areas where there is no specific Church teaching. I am a one-hundred-percent loyal and obedient to the Pope and Magisterium of the Church. If you want to know the TRUE SCOOP of Church teaching, here is the place to get it.
2) Apologetics and Catechesis primarily offered through a Catholic Q&A (plus volunteering on expert.com); and
3) Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare: involving many things ranging from investigating "haunted houses," to counseling with demonized people, to dealing with spiritual warfare issues in our society.
Experience
Experience in the area Apologetics: I was a Baptist preacher, Bible teacher, and evangelist for 15 years before converting to the Catholic Church in 1992.
As a Catholic I have been teaching Bible, Catechetics, apologetics, and evangelism for 14 years. I also have 24 years of pastoral counseling experience and 14 years experience as a Catholic Spiritual Director.
Experience in Spiritual Warfare Counseling: I have been in deliverance ministry since 1986 as a Baptist. After converting to the Catholic Church I continued the spiritual warfare work including counseling, writing, consulting, and teaching workshops, and training Deliverance Counsellors.
In 2002 we began a new apostolate called the St. Padre Pio Center for Deliverance Counseling. This agency offers counseling to those persons who are demonized, and offers training for people who feel called by God to become Deliverance Counsellors. As director of the St. Padre Pio Center I was featured in a series of interviews on Spirtual Warfare on Ave Maria Radio.
Organizational Memberships: In Religion: Catholic Society of Evangelists, Institute on Religious Life, Adoremus: Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Coming Home Network, The Blue Army of our Lady of Fatima, Apostleship of Prayer, Confraternity of Mary, Queen of All Hearts (Montfort Fathers), Confraternity of the Brown Scapular
In Counseling: American Counseling Association, Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling, the International Society for Mental Health Online, and the former National Psychiatric Association. Brother is also currently working with two other counselors to form a new association called the American Nouthethic Association of Catholic Counselors. This association is not yet operational.
In Website Design: HTML Writers Guild, the International Webmasters Association, and the Good News Web Designers Association.
In Creative Writing: Academy of American Poets, the Association of Authors and Publishers, and is listed as Editor and Publisher of St. Michael House Press and Writers House Press in the International Directory of Small Presses and Little Magazines and the WritersNet Online Directory
Religious Book Publications include: +"Regula Sanctus Michaelis" (The Rule of St. Michael) +"Three Secret Strategies of Satan and Other Essays" +"St. Michael's Spiritual Warfare Prayer Catalog" +"Hope, Help, Victory: A Spiritual Warfare Workshop" +"St. Michael’s Deliverance Counseling Manual" +If God Wants This of Me: The Story of a Baptist Minister Turn Catholic Friar" (forthcoming)
Poetry Publications and Credits: Book: "Only Silence is Shame" Magazines & Readings: published in various magazines and conducted numerous readings
Listed: "Who's Who is U.S. Editors, Writers, and Poets" and the "International Authors and Poets Who's Who" out of London in the 1980s Award: Recipient of the prestigious Kaltenborn Foundation Grant.
Other Publications: Book: "The Wilder Letters" (book of essays)
Book: "The Falling Torch: Our Democracy in Crisis"
Question My wife and I were married in the Catholic Church, are practicing Catholics and have been married 34 years. We have four children (all grown and on their own). My wife has gone through menopause. I am unable to maintain an erection to complete vaginal intercourse. By Church teaching, are we able to achieve orgasm by other means?
Answer Dear Tony:
Sorry for the delay in answering. I had a major computer crash and was offline for a few days.
The teaching of the Church on marital sexuality and chastity orders orgasm to vaginal intercourse.
As part of foreplay you may, however, caress your wife to orgasm, but any caresses she give you in foreplay may not end in ejaculation. This foreplay, however, must be "fore-play", that is leading to vaginal intercourse.
If it is not possible for you to penetrate your wife's vagina due to impotence, alternate methods of orgasm are not permitted. All sexual arousal and stimulation must lead to vaginal intercourse. This is not to be confused with tenderness and affection such as kisses and hugs. But that sort of stimulation that causes erotic arousal and that normally leads to orgasm or vagina intercourse must be avoided if vaginal intercourse is not intended, or not possible.
Fr. Matthew Habiger, OSB (from EWTN Q&A) makes this observation: "Marital chastity means more than avoiding adultery, contraception and sterilization. It also calls for some self-control and self-mastery. Some sex drives are to be resisted. Every human being has to learn that from puberty onwards. Married couples are no exception to this."
When sex cannot be performed in a moral way, then the married couple are called to a chastity within their marriage -- that is, called to self-control and self-mastery to avoid sin.
I would recommend you talk with your doctor. Some conditions of partial impotence are treatable.
