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sex

“Nefarious: Merchant of Souls” Documentary – Sex Trafficking

By | Culture, The Human Person | No Comments

“But when he knows that he is not only worse than all those in the world, but is also guilty before all people, on behalf of all and for all, for all human sins, the world’s and each person’s, only then will the goal of our unity be achieved. […] Only then will our hearts be moved to a love that is infinite, universal, and knows no satiety.” (4.1.2) – Dostoevsky, “Brothers Karamazov”

Our trivializations of human dignity and human sexuality have far darker consequences than we are willing to admit. Pray for those victimized directly by the sex trade and indirectly by…….us.

by our selfish hedonism
by our private acti

ons that “aren’t hurting any one”
by our sexualization of children
by our careless and thoughtless devaluation of human life and dignity
by our neglect of the health and welfare of real people in our communities
by our foolish belief that we can have a hook-up culture of contraception, abortion, sterilization, pornography, sexualization of the youth, etc….. and yet somehow avoid pedophilia, rape, prostitution, and sex trafficking.

We reap what we sow. None of us can presume to think that this is not our problem.

Our Faith on Tap group watched this chilling documentary last night. Not for young eyes, but the information is important.
From the documentary website:

“Modern slavery.” It sounds like a paradox. Hasn’t humanity progressed? Didn’t we leave slavery dead on the battlefields of the American Civil War? Didn’t social reformers like Lincoln and Wilberforce legislate against such cruelty over a hundred years ago? So we had thought. But, with over 27 million enslaved people in the world, human trafficking is once again the battlefront of the century.

Regardless of nationality, victims are systematically stripped of their identity, battered into gruesome submission, and made to perform humiliating sexual acts on up to 40 strangers every night. Most are held in dingy apartments and brothels, forced to take heavy doses of illegal drugs, and monitored very closely. Victims are often thrown into such ghastly oppression at 13 years old. Some are abducted outright, while others are lured out of poverty, romantically seduced, or sold by their families.

Nefarious, Merchant of Souls, is a hard-hitting documentary that exposes the disturbing trends in modern sex slavery. From the very first scene, Nefarious ushers you into the nightmare of sex slavery that hundreds of thousands experience daily. You’ll see where slaves are sold (often in developed, affluent countries), where they work, and where they are confined. You’ll hear first-hand interviews with real victims and traffickers, along with expert analysis from international humanitarian leaders.

From initial recruitment to victim liberation—and everything in between—the previously veiled underworld of sex slavery is uncovered in the groundbreaking, tell-all Nefarious, Merchant of Souls.

Dominic Jonathan Marcus Grodi

Baby on the way…

By | Journal | 2 Comments

Dominic Jonathan Marcus GrodiToday is the final visit with the OBGYN before my wife Teresa is induced tomorrow morning. Wow! Dominic is going to be here soon.

Early in the pregnancy when the questions arose of “Do we want to find out the sex of the baby?”, I was initially very ambivalent, leaning toward not knowing, if anything. Somehow it just felt more “traditional” or “natural” (or something). I’m not exactly sure why.

My wife’s practicality won out however: she didn’t want to not be able to know and tell people the sex of the baby and end up with a bunch of green, orange and brown baby items. : ) This made sense to me (as much sense as such things can make to a guy) and I happily agreed.

Now here I am, a definite matter of hours before labor begins. As I look back, I am very glad that we found out the sex of the baby and named him: Dominic.

Teresa and I have played with him, sang to him, joked with him, and particularly toward the end, we even began to pick up on his reactions to touch and sound. Giving him a name – Dominic – made the new life – a real person – feel much more like the reality that it is.

I feel that it helped me to get to know my son spiritually and to bring him to God even in the womb. As a father, the times during the pregnancy I actually felt closest to my pre-born son were when I would pray for him and with him. It was a deeply profound spiritual experience to pray for Dominic while recalling some of the Old Testament scriptures such as Isaiah 49:

1 Listen to me, you islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the LORD called me;
from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.

Wow!From the moment of conception, God knew Dominic and spoke his name. From the womb, God had already started him on his path. With this in mind, I prayed not just for safety and health but for the spiritual journey that Dominic had already started.

I make no assertion as to what is “proper” one way or another, but I personally am very glad we were able to get to know Dominic a little more, before he was ever born, by finding out his sex and giving him his name.

Keep Dominic and his mama in your thoughts and prayers as we prepare to meet him face-to-face.

JM