Can this be true??

[Redbandito]

magdelaine:

Ok, you’re right. I will simply stop thinking altogether. I will tell all my brethren to stop thinking as well, as that can only lead to error. Thanks for your help!

Why are you so reactionary here? That’s silly. I am not advocating that you stop thinking. Why do you have to be so extreme? It’s seems in your mind that either you are a thinker who does not submit your will or you submit your will and don’t think. This is a false dichotomy and it is bringing more hardship on you than need be. Let’s try to be reasonable here. What the Church argues is not unreasonable. You may disagree with their conclusions, but the way they get there is not illogical. Since the Catholic Church claims to be infallible over faith and morals, and this is one of the Church’s moral teachings, AND this teaching is LOGICAL despite your disagreement with it, one must simply submit their will to the authority of the Church when they don’t fully agree. THINK about it.

 

[Listener]

magdelaine:

I came across this thread in the Ask an Apologist forum. It just doesn’t make any sense that a condom used post-conception could still be called “contraception”. Any thoughts on this?

I’m having trouble with this too. Let’s say that a husband used a condom to protect his unborn child from a disease. Then he went to confession and said ,“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” “I practiced birth control.” I think the penitent would be lying if he said that. He didn’t practice birth control. Birth control means that you are trying to prevent pregnancy. He didn’t prevent pregnancy. He conceived a baby, and he was trying to protect the baby’s health! Could some of this be left over from centuries ago when they thought that babies lived in the man’s sperm? It really doesn’t make a whole lot of logical sense.

Another example of something similar would be that when a man has a radiation seed implant to cure his prostate cancer, the doctor tells him to use a condom for awhile afterwards to protect his wife from the radiation. I’m sure this would be forbidden too. Why? By the time this happens to most men, the wife has already gone through menopause and has zero chance of becoming pregnant anyway.

If the pill can be used for medical reasons, shouldn’t people be able to use a condom for medical reasons? The Church considers it strange when other religions say you can’t have blood transfusions, you can’t have surgery, etc. Isn’t this teaching just as strange?

I think that maybe the Church needs to fine-tune a few of her laws to fit the century that we live in. After all, these things simply didn’t come up until recent centuries.

 

[setter]

Listener:

I’m having trouble with this too. Let’s say that a husband used a condom to protect his unborn child from a disease. Then he went to confession and said ,“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” “I practiced birth control.” I think the penitent would be lying if he said that. He didn’t practice birth control. Birth control means that you are trying to prevent pregnancy. He didn’t prevent pregnancy. He conceived a baby, and he was trying to protect the baby’s health! Could some of this be left over from centuries ago when they thought that babies lived in the man’s sperm? It really doesn’t make a whole lot of logical sense.

Another example of something similar would be that when a man has a radiation seed implant to cure his prostate cancer, the doctor tells him to use a condom for awhile afterwards to protect his wife from the radiation. I’m sure this would be forbidden too. Why? By the time this happens to most men, the wife has already gone through menopause and has zero chance of becoming pregnant anyway.

If the pill can be used for medical reasons, shouldn’t people be able to use a condom for medical reasons? The Church considers it strange when other religions say you can’t have blood transfusions, you can’t have surgery, etc. Isn’t this teaching just as strange?

I think that maybe the Church needs to fine-tune a few of her laws to fit the century that we live in. After all, these things simply didn’t come up until recent centuries.

No matter what way you look at it, ABC is ABC is wrong is sin. The Church has been consistent prohibition against ABC for the past 20 centuries. The Church can never fine-tune the principles of moral theology and natural law to meet the demands of those who do not understand or accept her “laws”.

1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. (CCC)

1759 “An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the means. (CCC)

 

[magdelaine]

Since I’m not going to get anywhere saying (or thinking) any thing against the party line, I’m going to let someone else do it for me:

PARIS (Reuters) - Encouraged by Pope Benedict’s encyclical on love, a Roman Catholic bishop and a group of Christian intellectuals in France are urging the Vatican to reopen the debate on its ban on artificial birth control.

Bishop Francis Deniau told the Catholic magazine Le Pelerin this week that Benedict’s first encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” (God is Love), which was widely praised for the positive way it spoke about sexual love, was a hopeful sign for possible change.

Sociologist Catherine Gremion noted the encyclical – the highest form of papal writing – did not condemn Catholic couples “who do not manage to live out their love in strict respect for Church teachings”.

“That’s an important sign,” said Gremion, one of the co-authors of a book by Christian intellectuals entitled “The Church and Contraception – the Urgent Need to Change”.

Benedict made clear last November he was not considering any change in the contraception ban and that family planning was only allowed by the “rhythm method” of abstinence from sex during a woman’s fertile period.

Pope Paul VI banned contraception in the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, arguing that sexual intercourse was meant for procreation and any artificial method to block a pregnancy went against the nature of the act.

That encyclical prompted Catholics to leave the Church in droves and undercut papal authority. Many practicing Catholics now simply ignore the ban and some say it weakens the Church’s message on other moral issues such as abortion and bioethics.

In his encyclical last month, Benedict wrote that the Church was long seen as being “opposed to the body” but it actually believed that erotic love and selfless love were both important aspects of the same phenomenon.

The document was widely praised for its positive tone, which was somewhat surprising because of the stern conservative stand the pope took in his previous post as top Vatican doctrinal expert.

Deniau, bishop of Nevers in eastern France, noted that a papal commission had advised in 1966 to allow it, but Pope Paul ignored their recommendation after consulting several cardinals, including the future Pope John Paul.

“The analyses made by the first commission in 1966, which did not condemn contraception, are worth being reviewed and debated,” Deniau said. He said many Catholics found they could not follow the “rhythm method” of family planning.

“It’s important that these things are not seen in a rigid fashion,” he said.

Oh, and check out this:

npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5032190

and this:

cathnews.com/news/511/37.php

 

[itsjustdave1988]

The encyclical prompted Catholics to leave the Church in droves and undercut papal authority. Many practicing Catholics now simply ignore the ban and some say it weakens the Church’s message on other moral issues such as abortion and bioethics.

The encyclical *Humanae Vitae *taught nothing new, which makes dubious the claim that that encyclical itself prompted Catholics to leave. Those that left had one foot out the door already, as what they opposed was Catholic doctrine well before 1968. They were “in heart without” in the words of St. Augustine, and as such, may have been in the Church in body, but were not in heart…

***… it is the position of the heart that we must consider, not that of the body, since all who are within in heart are saved in the unity of the ark through the same water, through which all who are in heart without, whether they are also in body without or not, die as enemies of unity. ***(On Baptism, Against the Donatists, 5:28:39)

For example, the 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii, is precisely the teaching Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae affirmed.

Furthermore, in 1853, the Sacred Penitentiary answered a dubium (a formal request for an official clarification) submitted by the bishop of Amiens, France. He asked,

“Should those spouses be reprehended who make use of marriage only on those days when (in the opinion of some doctors) conception is impossible?”

The reply was:

“After mature examination, we have decided that such spouses should not be disturbed [or disquieted], provided they do nothing that impedes generation” (quoted in J. Montánchez, Teología Moral 654, translation by Fr. Brian Harrison).

In the final analysis, those that left the Church after *Humanae Vitae *were not unhappy with Humanae Vitae per se, but were unhappy with the perennial Catholic doctrine that came well before Humanae Vitae.

Many were unhappy with Christ in John 6:66 too, but the truth cannot be set aside simply to make these happier with Christian doctrine.

Paul VI made this clear in 1972 when he asserted:

The teaching Church does not invent her doctrines; she is a witness, a custodian, an interpreter, a transmitter. As regards the truths of Christian marriage, she can be called conservative, uncompromising. To those who would urge her to make her faith easier, more in keeping with the tastes of the changing mentality of the times, she answers with the apostles, we cannot." (General Audience address, 19 January 1972)

 

[CuriousInIL]

setter:

No matter what way you look at it, ABC is ABC is wrong is sin. The Church has been consistent prohibition against ABC for the past 20 centuries. The Church can never fine-tune the principles of moral theology and natural law to meet the demands of those who do not understand or accept her “laws”.

1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. (CCC)

1759 “An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the means. (CCC)

Forgive me if I am wrong here, but I thought the question being asked was based on the assumption that there was a pregnancy. Thus, there is no birth control, no BC, at all here by assumption. Therefore, what is being done cannot be ABC. But, perhaps it is artificial ________ ________? What would those blanks be?

 

[magdelaine]

CuriousInIL:

Forgive me if I am wrong here, but I thought the question being asked was based on the assumption that there was a pregnancy. Thus, there is no birth control, no BC, at all here by assumption. Therefore, what is being done cannot be ABC. But, perhaps it is artificial ________ ________? What would those blanks be?

The objection to condoms, with or without the contraception element/intent, is that it is “unnatural”; i.e., that any sexual act that results in the man’s seed ending up anywhere else but a woman’s vagina confounds the original “purpose” of that act (to have children) and is therefor sinful. It is an extremely medieval approach to sex in that you have to do it “just so” in order for the sex act to be considered licit; without sin. Which of course is based on the original assumption that sex itself is sinful (see St. Augustin). At least that’s my understanding of the issue developed since I posted this thread.

 

[Palamite]

setter,

No matter what way you look at it, ABC is ABC is wrong is sin. The Church has been consistent prohibition against ABC for the past 20 centuries. The Church can never fine-tune the principles of moral theology and natural law to meet the demands of those who do not understand or accept her “laws”.

I know this is what many good, simple RC faithful are taught, but what you say here is simply incorrect. The RCC’s position on family planning is not at all the “universal” belief and practice of Christendom in any age. Many Fathers identified what we’d call “contraceptive” practices with abortion, on the basis of their pre-scientific beliefs about the relationship between the male seed and the fetus. Other Fathers taught quite plainly that any attempt to excercise one’s “marriage rights” without the intention of conceiving a child was in itself “unnatural” and “outrageous” (hence, they’d have no sympathy for the NFP position.) Other Fathers (as reflected in the canonical penances given out for abortions performed at different times during pregnancy) thought that some abortions were more sinful than others, because in later term abortions the fetus was “ensouled” whereas this might not have been the case earlier on.

IOW. the idea that none of these issues has undergone some degree of modification based upon deeper insight is simply not true.

 

[setter]

setter,

I know this is what many good, simple RC faithful are taught, but what you say here is simply incorrect. The RCC’s position on family planning is not at all the “universal” belief and practice of Christendom in any age.

This assertion of yours is simply wrong and lacking in factual basis:

Few realize that up until 1930, all Protestant denominations agreed with the Catholic Church’s teaching condemning contraception as sinful. At its 1930 Lambeth Conference, the Anglican church, swayed by growing social pressure, announced that contraception would be allowed in some circumstances. Soon the Anglican church completely caved in, allowing contraception across the board. Since then, all other Protestant denominations have followed suit. Today, the Catholic Church alone proclaims the historic Christian position on contraception.

The apostolic tradition’s condemnation of contraception is so great that it was followed by Protestants until 1930 and was upheld by all key Protestant Reformers. Martin Luther said, “[T]he exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches . . . is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime. . . . Consequently, he deserved to be killed by God. He committed an evil deed. Therefore, God punished him.”

John Calvin said, “The voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall on the ground is doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born the hoped-for offspring.”

John Wesley warned, “Those sins that dishonor the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile affections. Observe, the thing which he [Onan] did displeased the Lord—and it is to be feared; thousands, especially of single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls.” (These passages are quoted in Charles D. Provan, The Bible and Birth Control, which contains many quotes by historic Protestant figures who recognize contraception’s evils.)

catholic.com/library/birth_control.asp

Many Fathers

identified what we’d call “contraceptive” practices with abortion, on the basis of their pre-scientific beliefs about the relationship between the male seed and the fetus. **Other Fathers ** taught quite plainly that any attempt to excercise one’s “marriage rights” without the intention of conceiving a child was in itself “unnatural” and “outrageous” (hence, they’d have no sympathy for the NFP position.) **Other Fathers ** (as reflected in the canonical penances given out for abortions performed at different times during pregnancy) thought that some abortions were more sinful than others, because in later term abortions the fetus was “ensouled” whereas this might not have been the case earlier on.

IOW. the idea that none of these issues has undergone some degree of modification based upon deeper insight is simply not true.
Can you please provide source citation for these cited “Many Fathers” and “Other Fathers” on which you base your contentions that contradict consistent Church teaching?

 

[setter]

CuriousInIL:

Forgive me if I am wrong here, but I thought the question being asked was based on the assumption that there was a pregnancy. Thus, there is no birth control, no BC, at all here by assumption. Therefore, what is being done cannot be ABC. But, perhaps it is artificial ________ ________? What would those blanks be?

Whether there is a temporary (as during pregancy) or permanent state of infertility (example: hysterectomy, post-menopause), does not change the innate language of the conjugal act that expresses the total self-giving of the husband and wife. To introduce any artificial barriers (chemical, mechanical, surgical) against one’s fertility (whether mutually or unilaterally fertile or not) seeks to erect a barrier 1) against the total giving of one’s fertility and, 2) the total giving of one’s self “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 …” (see CCC citation below). Simply put, contraceptive/“artificial barrier” intercourse is not marital intercourse, as it literally inserts a barrier between husband and wife.

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. (CCC 2370)

 

[CuriousInIL]

setter:

Whether there is a temporary (as during pregancy) or permanent state of infertility (example: hysterectomy, post-menopause), does not change the innate language of the conjugal act that expresses the total self-giving of the husband and wife. To introduce any artificial barriers (chemical, mechanical, surgical) against one’s fertility (whether mutually or unilaterally fertile or not) seeks to erect a barrier 1) against the total giving of one’s fertility and, 2) the total giving of one’s self “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 …” (see CCC citation below). Simply put, contraceptive/“artificial barrier” intercourse is not marital intercourse, as it literally inserts a barrier between husband and wife.

I am not at all sure that I am understanding what you are trying to say here.

However, my point is a very simple one: if the woman is pregnant or otherwise infertile, even if an “artificial barrier” is there, it is not birth control (whatever else it may or may not be).

 

[setter]

CuriousInIL:

I am not at all sure that I am understanding what you are trying to say here.

However, my point is a very simple one: if the woman is pregnant or otherwise infertile, even if an “artificial barrier” is there, it is not birth control (whatever else it may or may not be).

You state the obvious in a strickly biological sense.

I would point out the the “contra” (against) in “contraception” is the Church’s of acting against the fertility (“procreative potential”) which is to in part act against the reproductive good, which is an intrinsic good in and of itself.

 

[CuriousInIL]

setter:

You state the obvious in a strickly biological sense.

I would point out the the “contra” (against) in “contraception” is the Church’s of acting against the fertility (“procreative potential”) which is to in part act against the reproductive good, which is an intrinsic good in and of itself.

True that it is obvious.

But, so many times I see folks misconstrue the term birth control, as in, NFP is not birth control. Obviously it is, whether used to become pregnant or prevent pregnancy. It is being used to control birth. On the other hand, in the hypothetical of this thread, there simply is no birth control if the woman is pregnant.

Do you have support for the bolded statement? It would help me if you did and could share.

 

[setter]

Originally Posted by setter
You state the obvious in a strickly biological sense.

I would point out the the “contra” (against) in “contraception” is the Church’s of acting against the fertility (“procreative potential”) which is to in part act against the reproductive good, which is an intrinsic good in and of itself.

CuriousInIL:

Do you have support for the bolded statement? It would help me if you did and could share.

Here are a couple of article links (see excerpts) that discuss the natural law rationale against contraception.

The Church teaching on contraception is based on the natural law. Natural law is mans participation in God’s Eternal Law. God has created certain types of things, things with natures. Nature reveals God’s built in purpose for creation, a creation that is good. In a sense God has “normed creation” with these natures. Man, endowed with the powers of the intellect, can recognize and understand human nature, the inherent good of which as we said, has been created by God. These natural inclinations and powers are guidelines as to what is good and what will allow human nature to flourish; thus fulfilling God’s originally intended purpose. Consequently, when man acts according to reason, he synonymously acts according to nature and to the good, which creates and /or fosters virtue within himself. To act against a good, to create a privation of a good that should be present, is an evil. Evil is not a thing existing in itself, but like a parasite, lives off of a good that is lacking in fulfillment.

 The natural purpose and goods of the sexual act are procreation and bonding. Such goods are fundamental to human flourishing. Human natures are fostered when, they are first procreated and when the parents have bonded together for a lifelong commitment. Human nature is hindered when one of these two elements is missing from where they naturally should belong. The Church’s teaching stands on the inseparableness of these goods from the act itself;

That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man’s most high calling to parenthood. 1

 Contraception, by definition is a deliberate action that is intended to work against the **procreative good ** of the conjugal act. With contraception, procreation is treated as an evil, something to be directly opposed. In addition to contraceptive intercourse directly assailing the good of procreation, it also assaults the unitive nature of the sexual act. As Pope John Paul II has noted, contraceptive intercourse is “lying with the body.”  In essence, contraceptive sex is saying “I give myself completely to you—everything, that is, except my fertility.”

 Even the child itself is an object of unity, for parents, if they are good parents interested in their child’s development, are associated with the child’s upbringing for an entire lifetime; signifying the child is in effect intertwined with the goods of procreation and bonding. It follows from what has been said that contraceptive intercourse is evil; it acts against fundamental goods, depriving the good that should naturally accompany an act, creating a privation of the fundamental human goods of bonding and procreation.

With NFP, a couple either abstains from the act, or engages in the it while doing nothing to oppose its fundamental goods. Where contraception thwarts the good, NFP abstains. Noted moral theologian Dr William May describes the difference correspondingly;

NFP involves no choice to treat the procreative good as evil and to act directly against it whereas contraceptive intercourse does…Refraining from intercourse is not contraceptive intercourse, since it is not intercourse at all. 2

1. Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, 1968, XII
2. Rev Ronald Lawler OFM, Joseph Boyle Jr., William E. May; Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation, and Defense (Huntington, IN. Our Sunday Visitor, 1998) p.160

archindy.org/prolife/appleoranges.htm

 

[setter]

Originally Posted by CuriousInIL

Do you have support for the bolded statement? It would help me if you did and could share.

(Continue):

Reflecting on the nature of conjugal love and the purposes of the marital act, Pope Paul VI formulates this judgment in Humanae Vitae: "[T]he Church, calling men back to the observance of the norms of the natural law, as interpreted by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life."23 The basis of this judgment is the "inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning."24 As a consequence, Paul VI declares morally wrong such methods of regulating births as direct abortion, direct sterilization, and "every action which, either 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."25

What, then, is really occurring in contracepted sexual intercourse? If one analyzes it carefully, one sees that there are two distinct actions being performed. On the one hand, a man and a woman choose to engage in an act which is by itself suitable for the transmission of life. They also perform a second act: they adopt by choice an intelligible proposal to do something, either preceding intercourse, accompanying intercourse or subsequent to intercourse, which impedes the possible new life from coming to be.26 Thus, by a free choice against the **procreative good ** of marriage, the couple has separated the unitive and procreative meanings of the conjugal act. In so doing, they have falsified the meaning of conjugal love and have changed an act intended to signify mutual self-donation into an act of domination. What remains from a contracepted act of intercourse is not an intact expression of the unitive meaning, but a deformed version of that meaning. When contracepting spouses will that a possible new human person not come into existence, they simultaneously lock themselves into a defective expression of conjugal union, dissociated from the real goods of procreation and cooperation with God. What is left is not an act of genuine conjugal love, but rather one of use.27

1. Humanae Vitae, no. 11.

1. Humanae Vitae, no. 12.

1. Humanae Vitae, no. 14.

1. See Joseph Boyle, “Human Action, Natural Rhythms, and Contraception: A Response to John Noonan,” The American Journal of Jurisprudence 26 (1981), 43: “By contrast, one who chooses to use contraceptives because one just might be fertile Ehowever unlikely that might be Eis choosing to render an act of conjugal intercourse infertile; such a person is choosing to impede procreation. The human act of marital intercourse is deliberately done in such a way that it cannot be fertile; this human act is not as such open to the transmission of life.” For a general argument that the choice of contraception is an anti-life kind of act which always and necessarily involves a contra-life will, see Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, and William May, " ‘Every Marital Act Ought to Be Open to New LifeE Toward a Clearer Understanding," The Teaching of Humanae Vitae: A Defense (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 35-116.

1. This point is strongly made by Pope John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio, no. 32. An argument can be made that contracepted sexual intercourse is not conjugal intercourse. See Kiely, op cit, 332; also John Finnis, “Personal Integrity, Sexual Morality and Responsible Parenthood,” Anthropos I, 1 (1985), 48. Cormac Burke argues that contracepted intercourse, because it is not truly conjugal, does not consummate marriage. See his “Marriage and Contraception,” 164./

cathmed.org/publications/linacrequarterly/1998_01.html

Heer is another useful article link along the same lines as you requested:

omsoul.com/pamphlet153.Why-Is-Contraception-Immoral.html

 

[CuriousInIL]

Thanks, setter.

 

[LeahInancsi]

Situations similar to this were discussed in my RCIA class last Thursday night. In applying the information I learned then, it may not be construed as contraception for a man to use a condom to protect his wife from an STD that he may have. The intent is not to prevent pregnancy, but protect the wife from disease.

Celibacy for the life of the marriage is not realistic nor the expectation that people who have STDs should not marry and have marital relations.

Anyone in this situation would be wise to discuss this situation with a priest.

 

[setter]

Situations similar to this were discussed in my RCIA class last Thursday night. In applying the information I learned then, it may not be construed as contraception for a man to use a condom to protect his wife from an STD that he may have. The intent is not to prevent pregnancy, but protect the wife from disease.

How unfortunate for you and those RICA candidates were given deviance and error from what the Church actually teaches.

“Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2399)

“Contraception is to be judged so profoundly unlawful as to be never, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God.” (Pope John Paul II L’Osservatore Romano, October, 10, 1983)

“It is not licit, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may follow there from”(Humanae Vitae).

“. . .the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children . . . Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.” (Humanae Vitae)

Celibacy for the life of the marriage is not realistic nor the expectation that people who have STDs should not marry and have marital relations.

From human standards apart from grace, such a requirement of discipleship to Christ, can seem an impossibility. With Christ, all things are possible:

“But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matt. 19:26

“No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.” 1 Cor. 10:13

Anyone in this situation would be wise to discuss this situation with a priest.

To reaffirm the Church’s teaching (hopefully).

 

[LeahInancsi]

Setter…If you recall, I’m still in RCIA. You’re going to have to speak in more simple terms. One of us is not understanding the other.

In my example, contraception is not the INTENT. Try another example. A woman has a malignant unterine tumor. A hysterectomy will render her sterile, but it will save her live. The INTENT is to save her life, NOT to prevent pregnancy.

Are you saying we should let her die when there is no other innocent life involved?

BTW, I have every confidence in my RCIA instruction. The instructor has a masters degree in theology from Franciscan University in Stubenville. Also, one of the priests was in the room at the time this was being discuss and didn’t object.

 

[magdelaine]

LeahInancsi:

Setter…If you recall, I’m still in RCIA. You’re going to have to speak in more simple terms. One of us is not understanding the other.

In my example, contraception is not the INTENT. Try another example. A woman has a malignant unterine tumor. A hysterectomy will render her sterile, but it will save her live. The INTENT is to save her life, NOT to prevent pregnancy.

Are you saying we should let her die when there is no other innocent life involved?

BTW, I have every confidence in my RCIA instruction. The instructor has a masters degree in theology from Franciscan University in Stubenville. Also, one of the priests was in the room at the time this was being discuss and didn’t object.

Leah, you go girl!

Makes me ponder the question: if all you had to carry water in for a long desert trip was intrinsically evil, ie, ABC, ie, a condom, could you use it and still be forgiven by God?

OK, seriously, this is something that priests have to consider when counseling couples pastorally and personally. In that function they are called to be more like Jesus than Paul…

(more like our Beloved Forgiver and Redeemer than a rule book if that wasn’t clear).