20-something trying to figure out morality

[plinko]

Cool. Thanks guys for your help; this has been informative. I’m sorry to nit-pick on semantics and seemingly go around in circles; I just like to hear multiple voices before coming to my own conclusion. I understand the Church’s perspective now on this particular topic; other questions I have are certainly bound to be asked in other threads. I should probably go talk to a priest or something about my feelings toward certain topics in morality, although the last time I did this, he was very condescending and judgmental. Perhaps it is time to try again.

 

[NEWCATHOLICJEFF]

People argue small words all the time. It’s what the legal world is built on. “Gays are not open to life” you say. By marrying my boyfriend, I am closing him off to life as well. Maybe I should have sex with trees too.

Please don’t insult me; I’m trying to figure out my Catholic faith.

I had no intention of insulting you, which is why my first post had nothing but links for help. Even my second post had a link for help. When you suddenly go off topic from discussing a possible marriage to discussing a totally impossible marriage I figured you were heading down a Gay marriage debate. If this is truly about you, then like the previous post from mine said, you should have all the information that shows you can indeed get married.

God bless you and have a happy and great life with your fiancee…

 

[Newbie2]

People argue small words all the time. It’s what the legal world is built on. “Gays are not open to life” you say. By marrying my boyfriend, I am closing him off to life as well. Maybe I should have sex with trees too.

Please don’t insult me; I’m trying to figure out my Catholic faith.

No. Trees just roll over and fall asleep afterwords.

The key is “openess to life”, as has been said.

Think about it this way; sooner or later, a married couple is going to become infertile…post-menopause, decreased sperm count with age, etc. etc. Does that mean that period of their marriage does not fit the criteria for procreation? Of course not. That would be taking the CCC out of context.

Assuming that fertility=openess to life=procreation is taking the CCC out of context as well. One of the primary goals of marriage is procreation. It is not a necessity. The CCC never says that married couples MUST have children, only that they remain open to the possility of having children.

There are other couples that are “fertile” by any medical measure yet still are unable to conceive. Are they failing in their marriage? Nope.

Perhaps in your case, the context of being open to life incluces the “procreation” of another couple who doesn’t want their baby…Adoption! God doesn’t always work by the rule book.

 

[plinko]

Ok, I’m cool with the whole situation now. Sometimes I need people to help me get over nit-picky details like wordage before I can accept something. Call it perfectionism or being anal…but hey, aren’t those good traits in docs?

I accept that the church is not against couples who cannot conceive (although I do have a problem with being against impotence. There’s more to a relationship than sex.) But is it ok to be in a relationship even if I’m not “open to children”? I said this already but I’ll say it again (might have gotten lost in the shuffle)

I’ve known since 14 that I can’t have kids, therefore I’ve never considered them a possibility and so I’m not open to it. I’ve figured out my life from a career standpoint and the lifestyle I have now/will have in the future would not be fair for a child. By definition then, my future marriage is not open to the possibility of miraculously conceiving a kid. Additionally, in vitro fertilization with a donor egg is not my thing (respect others who do it, but can’t even imagine the emotional investment I would have to make…) Adoption… I’d be welcoming a child who would get a very distant mother. Very unfair to the kid.

It’s such a gray moral area! My boyfriend loves me and loves kids, and is willing to make a sacrifice (giving up future children to be with me). But if the church says a relationship can be founded on just the love between two people, then I’m on board!

 

[BLeev]

Your friend is actually correct. You are perfectly capable of getting married in the eyes of the church, because you are still capable of completing the marriage act. In theory (although incredibly unlikely), a miracle could take place like that of Sarah in the Bible and you would still be capable of carrying children. The only time the church denies couples from getting married is when there is NO conceivable chance of completing the marriage act. For example, if a man was in an accident and he completely lost his genitalia, there would be NO possibility of reproduction. Cases in which marriage are denied for this reason are VERY rare, because there is usually some medical way to help people now for most sexual problems. Further, there is nothing wrong with a marriage that starts out open to life and for one reason or another, one person becomes incapable of completing the marriage act later on. The marriage was still contracted on a valid basis.

Your situation is no different than a 60 year old woman deciding to get married, or remarried after the death of a first husband. It would be unbelievably unlikely for her to get pregnant except by a miracle, but the marriage is still open to life.

I agree. The Church’s vocabulary is on the physical capability of the person to enter into and to finish that act. The only other thing is that your fiancee would have to be aware of this in marriage preparation because you are to give him the right to have children and a family. If kept from him that would be something that could tarnish your consent because there would be a lack of honesty and the fact that he did not know that this would be an issue … if that makes sense.

 

[vera_dicere]

Now, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but a marriage is disallowed for someone who is defintely infertile as the marriage has to be open to life to be valid, ie. open to pregnancy. So a woman who say, lost her uterus to cancer won’t be able to marry.

However, with your situation, there is always the possibilty that you could fall pregnant, if you marry, there’s no 100% that you can’t have children. I flatted with a girl who went through menopause at 17, and that was about 10 years ago, now, just last week I ran into someone who knew her and I found out she’d fallen pregnant!

Even one of my lecturers went through menopause at 41, like all her sisters, her mother and her aunties. But then what happens? She fell pregnant at 50! She thought she was just getting fat until she felt something kick her, and having been prego before, she knew exactly what it was that was doing the kicking! And she was over joyed, a bit worried at her age, but she had wanted more children and was rather upset to early menopause like her female relatives.

So, maybe you can be wed, there’s certainly hope.

of course, if your uterus or ovaries were removed that could cause aproblem.

 

[vera_dicere]

They are against abortion(I am to) AND contraceptives…That’s a lose lose that will only result in more abortions because people aren’t gonna stop having sex(abstinence is goal but it’s not gonna happen).

Did you know that between 50 - 75% of abortions are for contraceptive failure or misuse.

So with 1.2 million abortions in America every year, that’s approximately 500,000 - 800,000 done for contraceptive failure.

Birth control is NOT the friend of the Pro-Lifer.

And abstinence is more than capable of happening, people just have to be educated that their worth doesn’t lie in what’s between their legs.

 

[davidv]

Now, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but a marriage is disallowed for someone who is defintely infertile as the marriage has to be open to life to be valid, ie. open to pregnancy. So a woman who say, lost her uterus to cancer won’t be able to marry.

This is not correct. Impotence and infertility are different. Impotence is a barrier to marriage, infertility is not.

However, with your situation, there is always the possibilty that you could fall pregnant, if you marry, there’s no 100% that you can’t have children. I flatted with a girl who went through menopause at 17, and that was about 10 years ago, now, just last week I ran into someone who knew her and I found out she’d fallen pregnant!

Even one of my lecturers went through menopause at 41, like all her sisters, her mother and her aunties. But then what happens? She fell pregnant at 50! She thought she was just getting fat until she felt something kick her, and having been prego before, she knew exactly what it was that was doing the kicking! And she was over joyed, a bit worried at her age, but she had wanted more children and was rather upset to early menopause like her female relatives.

So, maybe you can be wed, there’s certainly hope.

of course, if your uterus or ovaries were removed that could cause aproblem.

 

[Seatuck]

Cool. Thanks guys for your help; this has been informative. I’m sorry to nit-pick on semantics and seemingly go around in circles; I just like to hear multiple voices before coming to my own conclusion. I understand the Church’s perspective now on this particular topic; other questions I have are certainly bound to be asked in other threads. I should probably go talk to a priest or something about my feelings toward certain topics in morality, although the last time I did this, he was very condescending and judgmental. Perhaps it is time to try again.

You should probably try studying it. The average priest isn’t going to be able to discourse with you in short bites on the the topic to satisfy you .

Start with the Catechism and move to solid Catholic moral theology books. Get recommendations from your priest and from others that are living the faith correctly.

There is a problem with your liking to hear multiple opinion and then making a conclusion. Make sure those are orthodox catholic opinions teaching the truth otherwise you might come to the wrong conclusion. Watch out for relativism.

 

[Seatuck]

Now, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but a marriage is disallowed for someone who is defintely infertile as the marriage has to be open to life to be valid, ie. open to pregnancy. So a woman who say, lost her uterus to cancer won’t be able to marry.

However, with your situation, there is always the possibilty that you could fall pregnant, if you marry, there’s no 100% that you can’t have children. I flatted with a girl who went through menopause at 17, and that was about 10 years ago, now, just last week I ran into someone who knew her and I found out she’d fallen pregnant!

Even one of my lecturers went through menopause at 41, like all her sisters, her mother and her aunties. But then what happens? She fell pregnant at 50! She thought she was just getting fat until she felt something kick her, and having been prego before, she knew exactly what it was that was doing the kicking! And she was over joyed, a bit worried at her age, but she had wanted more children and was rather upset to early menopause like her female relatives.

So, maybe you can be wed, there’s certainly hope.

of course, if your uterus or ovaries were removed that could cause aproblem.

Vera , someone gave the canon law earlier in this thread. Sterility is not an impediment for marriage.

Also, Catholics are allowed to avail themselves of medical treatment to help with fertility problems. As long as these technologies are moral and help the body do what comes natural and do not replace the marital act or add any people to it. In other words we can take drugs to help us ovulate or regulate but we can’t do anything immoral such as IVF or Artificial Insemination. There are other guidelines of course which Catholics in such a situation need to look into. Perhaps your "flat"friend got some fertility treatments.

 

[Newbie2]

Ok, I’m cool with the whole situation now. Sometimes I need people to help me get over nit-picky details like wordage before I can accept something. Call it perfectionism or being anal…but hey, aren’t those good traits in docs?

I accept that the church is not against couples who cannot conceive (although I do have a problem with being against impotence. There’s more to a relationship than sex.) But is it ok to be in a relationship even if I’m not “open to children”? I said this already but I’ll say it again (might have gotten lost in the shuffle)

I’ve known since 14 that I can’t have kids, therefore I’ve never considered them a possibility and so I’m not open to it. I’ve figured out my life from a career standpoint and the lifestyle I have now/will have in the future would not be fair for a child. By definition then, my future marriage is not open to the possibility of miraculously conceiving a kid. Additionally, in vitro fertilization with a donor egg is not my thing (respect others who do it, but can’t even imagine the emotional investment I would have to make…) Adoption… I’d be welcoming a child who would get a very distant mother. Very unfair to the kid.
It’s such a gray moral area! My boyfriend loves me and loves kids, and is willing to make a sacrifice (giving up future children to be with me). But if the church says a relationship can be founded on just the love between two people, then I’m on board!

I’m not sure that you still understand what “openess to life” means. If you’re sterile, which is apparently the case, and you’d be “open to a miracle” happening, then you’re still open to having a child. What you’re saying, unless I misunderstand, is that you’ve accepted the reality that you cannot have children due to your physiological condition. That is not the same as not being open to having children, unless you were to say, “even if God were to perform a miracle and make me fertile, then I would still not want children”.

Do you think that adoption is unfair to the child being adopted? Don’t really understand what you’re saying here.

 

[choose_to_love]

the key, as has been pointed out already, is in being “ordered to” life, i.e., you are not taking any voluntary steps to render the marriage act sterile. It is my understanding that the Latin for this is more informative; see some Janet Smith on this topic.

“open to life” is a shorthand term that has many limitations, and the “ordered to life” term is more accurate, I think, as it more clearly encompasses NFP and responsible parenthood as set forth in HV.

 

[plinko]

There is a problem with your liking to hear multiple opinion and then making a conclusion.

There is a problem with only accepting one opinion and making a conclusion. If your doctor told you that you had an illness and the only way to fix it was by a surgical procedure that had a high associated death rate, wouldn’t you want a second opinion? If your roof collapsed and you got an estimate for repairs and it was a quarter million dollars, wouldn’t you ask other people what an appropriate amount would be (or would you blindly pay the money)? Multiple opinions and logical formation of conclusions is an intelligent choice.

I’m not sure that you still understand what “openess to life” means. If you’re sterile, which is apparently the case, and you’d be “open to a miracle” happening, then you’re still open to having a child. What you’re saying, unless I misunderstand, is that you’ve accepted the reality that you cannot have children due to your physiological condition. That is not the same as not being open to having children, unless you were to say, “even if God were to perform a miracle and make me fertile, then I would still not want children”.

Do you think that adoption is unfair to the child being adopted? Don’t really understand what you’re saying here.

I guess I really don’t understand what “openness to life” means. I thought I stated pretty clearly my stance on becoming pregnant. My life, as I have it planned out, does not involve being a mother. Period. End of story. It is unrealistic to imagine that I might be miraculously blessed with a child when I don’t have ovaries. It will never happen. Therefore, I am NOT open to having children biologically. Anyone care to help me out here?

People have been suggesting adoption, and I think I might have come across as anti-adoption. This is not the case. I love the concept of adoption and I think it helps out a lot of children in need as well as meeting the emotional needs of the adoptive family. However, the career that I have chosen is not conducive to being a doting mother. My theoretical adopted child would rarely see me, so I think that me personally adopting a child would be unfair for the kid.

 

[Newbie2]

Thanks for the clarification.

Again, openess to life doesn’t mean accepting the reality that, barring a miracle, you are not going to have children. It seems to me that you have accepted that reality, no?

Let me ask it this way:

If God were to say to you, “I will make it so that you can have children”, would you be against having children?

Now perhaps God is very unlikely to do that. Asked another way, IF you were able to have children, would you be open to having them?

If the answer is no, then you are open to having children. If the answer is yes, then you would not be open to having children.

In other words, your openess to having children (biologically) has nothing to do whether or not you are able to biologically have children.

Does that make sense?

Said yet another way, openess=you would if you could (but you can’t). Openess in this sense is a matter of will, not of the body’s ability or non-ability to carry out that will.

 

[plinko]

Thanks for the clarification.

Again, openess to life doesn’t mean accepting the reality that, barring a miracle, you are not going to have children. It seems to me that you have accepted that reality, no?

Let me ask it this way:

If God were to say to you, “I will make it so that you can have children”, would you be against having children?

Now perhaps God is very unlikely to do that. Asked another way, IF you were able to have children, would you be open to having them?

If the answer is no, then you are open to having children. If the answer is yes, then you would not be open to having children.

In other words, your openess to having children (biologically) has nothing to do whether or not you are able to biologically have children.

Does that make sense?

Said yet another way, openess=you would if you could (but you can’t). Openess in this sense is a matter of will, not of the body’s ability or non-ability to carry out that will.

I think I get it now. It’s just such a confusing thing to think about. It’s like saying that I’m open to becoming the President of the US even when I know that’s never going to happen, since it could *potentially *happen, however slim the chance. It will take some time, thinking, and talking to God to really make it clear, but I’m getting closer to understanding. Thanks everyone

 

[Newbie2]

I think I get it now. It’s just such a confusing thing to think about.** It’s like saying that I’m open to becoming the President of the US even when I know that’s never going to happen, since it could *potentially ***happen, however slim the chance. It will take some time, thinking, and talking to God to really make it clear, but I’m getting closer to understanding. Thanks everyone

Yes! Exactly!

Keep praying on it; you’ll get answers.

 

[Seatuck]

There is a problem with only accepting one opinion and making a conclusion. If your doctor told you that you had an illness and the only way to fix it was by a surgical procedure that had a high associated death rate, wouldn’t you want a second opinion? If your roof collapsed and you got an estimate for repairs and it was a quarter million dollars, wouldn’t you ask other people what an appropriate amount would be (or would you blindly pay the money)? Multiple opinions and logical formation of conclusions is an intelligent choice.
.

Not when it comes to the moral teachings of the church. People’s opinions don’t really matter when they are not in line with the church’s teaching on a subject. You can’t poll people to find out if something is moral . Make sure you are getting referred to the actual church teaching. When we decide something is ok or not based on a popularity poll we call that moral relativism. You want to stay away from that.

 

[Cashue]

I guess in order to understand where I’m coming from, I should provide some background. I grew up in a Catholic family and went to Catholic school for 12 years. I’m in medical school right now, and while I still consider myself somewhat Catholic, my science-oriented mind objects to some of the more controversial moral beliefs held by strict believers.

I read some of the transgender thread, which is chock full of medically inaccurate statements, but I don’t want to start that debate here. What I am actually having trouble with is my own personal situation.

I recently got into the debate with a friend over the concept of gay marriage (also not what I’m here to ask about). While debating back and forth, I posited this: The catechism states that “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses ***AND ***the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.” By definition, I would not be allowed to marry because I can’t conceive; I learned that I went through menopause at 14 (yeah, I’m a fascinating case…)

“That’s wrong” he said. “You’re still able to marry because you can engage in the act of marriage” (I’m assuming he meant I am physically able to have sex)

I argued that no, I can’t, because my marriage has to be for the “good of the spouses AND procreation”. He said the AND just means “either or”. But if that’s the case, we’re just arguing semantics and if I can change the meaning of the word “and”, maybe I can change the meaning of the words “man” or “woman”.

My question is thus: The wording as it stands says that I can’t marry because I’m totally and completely infertile. I will never ever have kids, and my boyfriend, should he marry me, would be denied children of his own as well (based on my dried-up ovaries). How does the Catholic church allow such marriages to take place when it clearly goes against the Catechism?

Thanks for any and all answers

You can never marry because marriage is for procreation. You must live a celebate life dedicated to the Lord.

 

[Mamanurse]

So then the Catechism is inaccurate in stating that a marriage is for unity AND procreation? If we can just change our interpretation of the word “and”, I think gay people should be allowed to change their interpretation of the words “man” and “woman”.

See my moral dilemma? It’s unfair for me to say that I can change one word and still be peachy-keen in God’s eyes, but a gay man who has been faithful to his partner for years is not held in the same esteem.

I am re learning my catholic faith, but I think there is no moral dillemma here. Because you (woman) would be marrying a man- you have the ability- if God allowed a miracle to occur, you could become pregnant because God intends men and woman only to marry. If a man were to marry a man there is NO WAY POSSIBLE for them to concieve a child. Same with a female couple, they require sperm, and there is NO way possible for them to concieve.

 

[davidv]

You can never marry because marriage is for procreation. You must live a celebate life dedicated to the Lord.

This is not true. Infertility is not an impediment to marriage.