Conservative pundit Matt Walsh recently contended that “we have to recapture the long-lost art of saying ‘no.’” He argued that our culture is “no”-averse: “Most people in our culture . . . don’t know how to say ‘no.’ They were never told ‘no’ as kids. They never tell their own kids ‘no.’ They never tell anyone ‘no.’ They tolerate everything. They accept everything. And they leave a tip whenever the prompt comes up because they don’t want to say ‘no.’”
Walsh’s immediate point was about tipping culture, but he touched on something deeper—something that extends into society, and even into the Church.
Parenthood today has shifted from raising “good” children to raising children who “explore” and “maximize” their possibilities. It’s why, as Tim Carney notes in Family Unfriendly, modern parenting has become so hard, harder than it need be. Many parents have adopted what Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman call “acceptance parenting,” prizing training for “success” over moral formation. As I have noted, this new model leaves parents ambivalent and children without firm boundaries.
That wasn’t the case for many of us who grew up in more traditional communities. Raised in an Eastern European neighborhood in a rust-belt New Jersey town, I knew the definitive parental answer to “why can’t I do X?”: “Because I said so.” There was no Socratic back and forth. “No” meant “no.” Mama locuta, causa finita est.
The same pattern has unfolded in the Church. My earliest catechism classes, still touched by the Felician Sisters and the Baltimore Catechism, gave me clear ecclesiastical “nos.” Later catechesis, by contrast, often avoided them. And I don’t think this was just a quirk of my Jersey parish. Many faithful Catholics today note how rarely they hear a firm “no” from the pulpit or in official teaching.
Yet Christianity’s moral core has always included prohibition. The most classic distillation of Judeo-Christian moral teaching, the Ten Commandments, are mostly negative: Eight of ten begin with “Thou shalt not.” This isn’t an outdated legalism. It’s the language of a Father who loves his children and wants their ultimate happiness. Jesus himself said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Prohibitions protect the road to salvation by giving it guardrails against going over moral cliffs.
Think of it this way. If I want to get from Manhattan to New Jersey, I can choose the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, or the George Washington Bridge. The right choice depends on traffic and circumstance. But one thing is certain: If I insist on taking the Brooklyn Bridge, I will never arrive. Saying “no” to that option is not negativity—it’s truth in service of my destination.
A clear “no” is not unloving. It can be the deepest form of charity, because it protects others from harm and directs them toward the good. Dialogue has its place, but when dialogue becomes endless hedging—“maybe,” “we’ll see,” “who am I to judge?”—moral absolutes melt away. They are elevated—and simultaneously demoted—into “aspirational ideals.”
Children instinctively know how to exploit such softness: If one parent won’t yield, they run to the other, hoping for a “maybe” instead of a “no.” Adults do the same with Church teaching. What was once a prohibition becomes a mere “ideal,” eventually a dead letter. That is how much of sexual ethics has been handled in practice: still “on the books,” but rarely spoken of, as if it were unrealistic.
Our culture avoids “confrontation,” that is, division based on disagreement over matters more fundamental than small talk. It prefers to “accentuate the positive,” even when it means leading people astray. The Church risks doing the same. The irony is that while churches seek to downplay “negativity,” the secular sexual ethics of consent preached on so many college campuses starts with the postulate, “no means no!”
In the post-Vatican II Church, we seem to have privileged endless conversation over the simplicity of “no.” Some claim this is more “adult.” But the Church is not merely a partner in dialogue. She is a mother. And like any good mother, she sometimes has to say “no,” firmly and without apology, even when her children resist.
It is here that our Church-of-continual-dialogue—especially when faced with the temptations of interminable “synodality”—might do well to recover some traditional parenting skills. Not as legalism. Not as repression. But as an act of love, truth, and fidelity to Christ, who taught plainly: “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No’” (Matt. 5:37), a lost artform worthy of recovery.
