Birth Control and Infallibility

[steve99]

bear06:

I’m just guessing that he’s talking about Karl Rahner who was silenced for his wacky teaching. I don’t think you could say that Rahner is proof of the Church’s teachings.

Don’t think it can be Karl Rahner. He was appointed one of the can official periti, or theological experts of the Vatican II

 

[EtienneGilson]

Della:

Besides, how many members of a commission voted for contraception does not at all mean that they were right. Commissions aren’t the Magisterium, only advisors to it, thank God. I would think the muck that contraception has made of modern marriages and society would be enough proof that it was always a bad idea.

The only sociological studies done which isolate contraception indicate that a lack of contraception has a destabilizing effect on marriages.

Even the anti-contraceptive Couple to Couple league admits as much: The Couple to Couple League has had many requests for data to support the claim that the practice of Natural Family Planning (NFP) is associated with a very low divorce rate. We do not have the hard sociological data we would like to have about this relationship. ccli.org/nfp/marriage/maritalduration.php

 

[FCEGM]

BillP:

Lets get this straight here in the beginning. It appears to be your position that Humanae Vitae was issued infallibly by Pope Paul VI?

Yet the document doesn’t contain the commonly accepted, unambiguous, language that all other infallibly isssued documents contain?

Pope himself never claimed infalliblity for the doctrine during his lifetime?

So in effect you believe the Pope infallibly issued the encyclical unintentionally? So he accidentally made it infallible??

Very few theologians of the Church, even those who agree with the ABC teaching, agree with that position. In fact, it is, on its face ludicrous.

Hmmm, 2 minutes. Nope, not long enough to read the article I recommended.

 

[BillP]

FCEGM:

Hmmm, 2 minutes. Nope, not long enough to read the article I recommended.

Unless of course one had already read the article last month in the preceeding round of this discussion.

 

[Della]

EtienneGilson:

The only sociological studies done which isolate contraception indicate that a lack of contraception has a destabilizing effect on marriages.

Even the anti-contraceptive Couple to Couple league admits as much: The Couple to Couple League has had many requests for data to support the claim that the practice of Natural Family Planning (NFP) is associated with a very low divorce rate. We do not have the hard sociological data we would like to have about this relationship. ccli.org/nfp/marriage/maritalduration.php

So, we are to ignore, in favor of “studies” the rampant divorce rate, based on selfishness and the viewing of others as mere objects of lust that is the product of a contraceptive mentality? Sorry, I’m not convinced by such “research.”

 

[Dan-Man916]

The reasoning I gave way back at the beginning of this thread based in Sacramental theology is still the best explanation because it brings us into the Life of Christ, not some legalistic explanation of Rahner et al and the commission by Paul VI.

Those are nice but they miss the point of the thread.

 

[St.Eric]

Della:

So, we are to ignore, in favor of “studies” the rampant divorce rate, based on selfishness and the viewing of others as mere objects of lust that is the product of a contraceptive mentality? Sorry, I’m not convinced by such “research.”

I think that is painting people with too braod of a brush. One could say that NFP breeds the same mentallity of treating your partner like an object- only “using” each other during times of infertility- trying to “escape” the “natural consequences” of the “marital embrace.” The means may be differet but the motivation is the same- wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

 

[EtienneGilson]

Della:

So, we are to ignore, in favor of “studies” the rampant divorce rate, based on selfishness and the viewing of others as mere objects of lust that is the product of a contraceptive mentality? Sorry, I’m not convinced by such “research.”

Exactly! Why actually base our comments on research when hear-say is so much easier! In fact, lets abolish higher education and just guess at what is a real causal relationship! If creationism can call itself creation science, maybe we can call it matrimonial science! Dr. Phil, there is a new kid in town.

Sarcasm off.

I believe the studies were conducted in Papua New Guinea and measured the effects of contraception on marital stress by isolating contraception.

I note that many groups that use contraception have low divorce rates such as the Orthodox, Muslims, Amish and some Jews. Other factors like religiosity, conservative attitudes towards divorce and a sacred view of marriage more than account for the discrepency in divorce rates.

I think the objectification of people has been a problem long before contraception was around. It is an effect, not a cause. Heck, I don’t even think it is an effect. I would suggest a book on love by a real philosopher and not Christopher West. Martin D’Arcy has a book on love called “Mind and Heart of Love.” Pick it up and read some real Catholic insights into love, not the Dr. Phil style of Christopher West.

 

[Beaver]

St.Eric:

I think that is painting people with too braod of a brush. One could say that NFP breeds the same mentallity of treating your partner like an object- only “using” each other during times of infertility- trying to “escape” the “natural consequences” of the “marital embrace.” The means may be differet but the motivation is the same- wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

I disagree with you, for someone who uses NFP can say no to thier sexual desires. This **NO **makes them free from such desires and they are no longer a slave to those desires.

 

[St.Eric]

Beaver:

I disagree with you, for someone who uses NFP can say no to thier sexual desires. This **NO **makes them free from such desires and they are no longer a slave to those desires.

I don’t understand this. Ok, during the fertile times the couple has to say “no” if they don’t want to conceive. But during the rest of the month it is a veritible “free for all.” Curing this time the couple is free to “give in” to their “animal” desires and it is ok. So with your argument, my spouse and I could use condoms but agree to abstain from sex for 9 days a month. As long as we do this, we are no longer “salves” to our desires. I don’t follow this reasoning.

 

[Beaver]

St.Eric:

I don’t understand this. Ok, during the fertile times the couple has to say “no” if they don’t want to conceive. But during the rest of the month it is a veritible “free for all.” Curing this time the couple is free to “give in” to their “animal” desires and it is ok. So with your argument, my spouse and I could use condoms but agree to abstain from sex for 9 days a month. As long as we do this, we are no longer “salves” to our desires. I don’t follow this reasoning.

A use of a condom does not say no to you sexual desires, but the abstaining does, so why not NFP.

 

[St.Eric]

Beaver:

A use of a condom does not say no to you sexual desires, but the abstaining does, so why not NFP.

Read my post again. I said that if a couple agrees to abstain for a certain number of days during the month and uses condoms the rest of the time, then it would be the same as NFP, in terms of saying “no” to the desires.

 

[Beaver]

St.Eric:

Read my post again. I said that if a couple agrees to abstain for a certain number of days during the month and uses condoms the rest of the time, then it would be the same as NFP, in terms of saying “no” to the desires.

The use of a condom is not saying no to your sexual desires.

 

[St.Eric]

Beaver:

The use of a condom is not say no to your sexual desires.

OK. I guess we have a failure to communicate.

 

[mikeledes]

Is Humani Vitae an infallible document? If so, how can the churhc change its teaching on artificial birth control?

Thanks

 

[Della]

mikeledes:

Is Humani Vitae an infallible document? If so, how can the churhc change its teaching on artificial birth control?

Thanks

The teachings of the Church on any topic don’t have to be infallibly defined for them to be valid and unchangeable. Those who tell you otherwise have an agenda to change some teaching(s) they simply don’t want to believe. Don’t listen to them. Period.

 

[Aquarius]

mercygate:

The Church allows birth conrol. It does not allow contraception. Two different things.

This teaching against contraception from natural law. I heard that the Pope is going to repeal both the ban on contraception and the law of gravity in the same encylical.

I think he knows about Galileo.

 

[Aquarius]

Sherlock:

That something CAN change, in the opinion of the world, is not the question. Truth does not change, however, and that a pope empanelled a commission to discuss an issue; or that individuals would like to see a truth changed, does not effect or signify that Truth itself has changed.

It signifies doubt about whether one knows that truth.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

mikeledes:

A priest suggested that the Catholic teaching on birth control is not infallible and can be changed. He claimed that the Catholic Church had changed its teachings before. One example was that the Church taught that sex within marriage was at most a venial sin. As proof of this he cited the work of a certain Rainer (I’m probably spelling his name wrong). Can someone please help me with this. How do I respond? What sources can I read on this topic?

Thanks

Dr. Germain Grisez and Fr. John Ford, S.J. have asserted that according to the teaching of Vatican II (cf. Lumen Gentium: 25) there are three modes in which infallible doctrinal teaching can be presented by the Magisterium: by the Pope alone, by the Pope and Bishops assembled together in an Ecumenical Council, or by the College of Bishops (including the Pope as its head) even when they are dispersed throughout the world (ordinary universal magisterium). While they do not claim that Humanae Vitae is in itself an ex cathedra, infallible definition, Ford and Grisez maintain that the teaching which it contains is infallible and irreformable, by virtue of having been taught constantly and definitively, over a period of many centuries, by a consensus of Popes and Bishops around the world - a consensus which was virtually unanimous until the early 1960s. (cf. “Contraception and the Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium,” Theological Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2, June 1978, pp. 258-312).

Fr. Ermegegildo Lio (a Vatican II peritus) is a Professor of Moral Theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He also asserts that the teaching of Humanae Vitae is infallible. He maintains that Humanae Vitae, art. 14, contains an ex cathedra definition of the intrinsic immorality of contraception: that is, an exercise of papal infallibility as solemnly defined by Vatican Council I, in the Constitution Pastor Aeternus. (cf. Humanae Vitae e Infallibilità: il Concilio, Paolo VI e Giovanni Paolo II, by Ermenegildo Lio, O.F.M. Published in Vatican City, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, l986).

Thus, I think your priest is offering an opinion, which other fine Catholic theologians find erroneous.

See more here:

**HUMANAE VITAE AND INFALLIBITY **
Reviewed by Fr. Brian Harrison
rtforum.org/lt/lt12.html#II

 

[Aquarius]

Della:

The teachings of the Church on any topic don’t have to be infallibly defined for them to be valid and unchangeable. Those who tell you otherwise have an agenda to change some teaching(s) they simply don’t want to believe. Don’t listen to them. Period.

But lack of infallibility sure does leave that door open. And open disagreement about infallibility opens it even more.