=char1963;I dont know how to explain this or even if I should. I had a revelation last night that confirmed all of my personal beliefs . You are all right and I am not wrong. I know that looks like a condradiction but it isnt. Those of you who said I should learn more and not go to communion until I understand why the Church believes those things are right. Those who said I should leave the Church may yet be right. Why I am not wrong is something that is very hard to explain. I have some questions along the line of my OT/ NT God but I am not sure they are relevant to this thread. PMJ , that was the explanation I had come to , but it seems somewhat incomplete. My questions that I have now are more along the lines of the Bible itself. Is there somewhere in this site that I can ask these questions? Btw, the poster who mentioned artifical birth control may be relieved to know that this is not dogma, and can still be reviewed , along with priests getting married. The question you posed was the exact one I had posed to myself recently ( how abstaince is still preventing conception) . To find out it wasnt dogma was a bit of a relief lol. However, the prohibtion against women priests has become dogma.
While the issue of Married Priest relates to Church Practice and could [but very likely will not] be changed because of Sacred Tradition and the fact that it works! In addition the issue and commitment are well known B4 one becomes and FREELY commits to the vows of Poverty, CHASITY and Obedience.
The Issue of Birth Control / conterception however is a defined Doctrine of the Catholic Church as evidenced by Pope Paul VI in **
Humanae Vitae, ** Pope John Paul II in
Evangelium Vitae and by
Catechesim of the CC.
CCC #2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is “on the side of life,” teaches that **“it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life.” **“This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.”
**CCC # 2399 **“The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).”
**CCC # 2370 **"Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil:
Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality".
No doubt some liberal, disobedient priest and bishops hold the position in GRAVE MORTAL SIN error, that contraception is a personal option.
It most clearly is not, as it tends to supercede with specific intent to twartht God’s plan for proper sexual union.
**There is as I have shown clear and BINDING mandates that sex be open to at least the possibility of pregnancy. **
**
Gen.20: 18 **“For the LORD had closed all the wombs of the house of Abim’elech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.”
**
Gen.29: 31 **“When the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren”.
** Isa.44: 2 **“Thus says the LORD who made you,who formed you from the womb and will help you”
** Jer.:5 **“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you”
And how many times did God directly intervene to cause a pregnancy? Abrahams wife Sarah, John the Baptist Mother, Elezebeth, and the Mother of Jesus; Mary for examples
**Jer.21: 8 **"And to this people you shall say: `Thus says the LORD: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.
Sir.11: 14 “Good things and bad, life and death, poverty and wealth, come from the Lord.”
Jer. 1: 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you”
Friend be very careful of whose advice you take. God will Judge us NOT simply on what we actually [claim to] know, BUT rather on what God gave us the opportunity to know, and therefore must know.
I can also address your questions on the Bible if you’d care to ask? And YES, there is a "Scripture Forum"
Love and prayers,
Pat [PJM]
