Can this be true??

[magdelaine]

fix:

I read the piece and I think as always it comes down to a question of authority. That the author does not perceive the evil of contraception as directly affecting him in now way means it is not affecting him. It simply means he does not see the consequences of violating the natural law.

I can’t speak specfically to the circumstances of that author, but in a general way we all can use help in obeying and understanding the natural law.

I was responding to this line:

It seems odd to suppose, however, that in our time virtually all Protestants (and not a few Catholics) would have their moral faculties so corrupted—not in general, but on this one particular issue.

I want to obey, I want to accept truth. Why is it then that I and so many others are so obtuse? (Could it be gasp a problem with the argument?) Just a thought.

 

[Redbandito]

BillP:

fix,
The post proves the point rather handily I’d say.

In 1913, the C.E. (a part of that ordinary Magesiterium you folks think is infallible) says:

Yet in 1994, the CCC says:

And voila! The Church’s position has changed. Q.E.D.

BillP, you’re not paying attention. 1913 expressly qualifies, “slavery, when attended with a due regard for the rights of the slave, is not in itself intrinsically wrong.” This is re-affirmed in 1994 when he states, “The seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that for any reason—selfish or ideological, commercial, or totalitarian—lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like MERCHANDISE, in DISREGARD for their personal DIGNITY.”

Thus, what fix and others have been saying is exactly correct. You have to try to miss this. This clearly shows that slavery is wrong when the “DUE REGARD FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE SLAVE” are neglected (1913). Or in other words, when we treat slaves in a way that devalues or “disregards…their personal dignity” (1994). Maybe you need to reconsider your position on this point.

 

[Redbandito]

magdelaine:

I was responding to this line:

I want to obey, I want to accept truth. Why is it then that I and so many others are so obtuse? (Could it be gasp a problem with the argument?) Just a thought.

Maybe it’s “gasp” an all out desensitization to this sin, from practicing it for so long.???

 

[Redbandito]

Sacramentalist:

Incorrect. The Church already recognizes that a woman make make love to her husband even if she is taking certain hormone medication(s) which she knows will have unintended contraceptive double-effects.

If a condom is not being used as a contraceptive it usage may very well be justified, if its contraceptive effect were unintended.

This is incorrect Sacramentalist. You might want to go re-read your sources. If you find something that supports your argument, please do provide a link. However, what you are saying flies in the faith of Catholic teaching.

 

[Redbandito]

magdelaine:

I understand the need to make this argument, but I disagree with it’s conclusion. I’m glad that I understand it better now, though.

You have to understand, every other Church teaching I have tried to learn more about because of questions I have had a “ringing of truth” to it that gets louder and louder the more I hear it. This teaching, instead of the above, starts looking more and more like a game of verbal Twister. Why is it that humans can’t use their heads (i.e., technology) with regards to their own fertility?

This is the gist of the issue right here. It is a matter of submission, which is so hard for people in our culture to do. We can use our heads in regards to our own fertility, just not in a way that takes away from God’s natural plan for sex. In other words, we can use science to ENHANCE what the sexual experience is, but we cannot take anything away from it. Furthermore, Proverbs 3:5 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, AND LEAN NOT ON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING”. Sometimes the best thing we can do is just submit to the Church that we believe Christ left for us. And thus, it all comes back to authority.

 

[Redbandito]

magdelaine:

Perhaps further “clarification” on the subject of the use of contraception by married couples would include an acknowledgement that the choice to increase or decrease the odds of conception at a given time does not go against natural law, but rather supports it. It is why NFP is accepted now. How is it that we can use our heads (NFP) but not technology (condoms) to accomplish the same goal?

Edit: And don’t give me that “mutual mastrubation” stuff. That’s just silly.

Magdelaine, you have not been paying attention. This has been answered. NFP is not the same as contraception. Try picking up a book called “Good News About Sex and Marriage” by Christopher West. When you read that, come back and talk. I think it will really help you in this area.

 

[magdelaine]

Redbandito:

Maybe it’s “gasp” an all out desensitization to this sin, from practicing it for so long.???

I humbly submit to you that the answer to this is “no”.

 

[magdelaine]

Redbandito:

Magdelaine, you have not been paying attention. This has been answered. NFP is not the same as contraception. Try picking up a book called “Good News About Sex and Marriage” by Christopher West. When you read that, come back and talk. I think it will really help you in this area.

Actually I found this online book that explains the arguments, from the sources, rather well although it’s a little scholarly. I have only been able to skim through it but even the author allows that because of the type of argument offered against contraception but for NFP, essentialist vs. existentialist, there may be room for approval of some forms of contraception.

innerexplorations.com/catchtheomor/is.htm

 

[Redbandito]

BillP:

fix,

I think you’re confused. The opinions of the bishops constitute the ordinary Magisterium. Every opinon, by every Bishop since St. Peter, collectively make up the ordinary Magisterium.

Dude, it was your cite, not mine. You assert that the general prohibition of slavery currently included in the CCC is something more narrowly drawn and nuanced. I asked you to support that assertion, you provided that cite, which has nothingg whatever to do with the issue at hand.

Do you have another cite? What evidence can you produce that indicates that the framers of the CCC intended the prohibition on slavery to be narrowly drawn to include only chattel slavery?

No Bill, you’re confused. Every Bishops thoughts on doctrine are not infallible. They are only authoritative in that they agree with OFFICIAL Church teaching. You need to take this question to another thread, where you can learn what Catholicism actually teaches about the Magisterium.

 

[Redbandito]

magdelaine:

I humbly submit to you that the answer to this is “no”.

Have you practiced contraception?

 

[Redbandito]

magdelaine:

Actually I found this online book that explains the arguments, from the sources, rather well although it’s a little scholarly. I have only been able to skim through it but even the author allows that because of the type of argument offered against contraception but for NFP, essentialist vs. existentialist, there may be room for approval of some forms of contraception.

innerexplorations.com/catchtheomor/is.htm

Magdelaine, I looked over your sight, and I restate my request that you grab that book. If you are looking to “understand” the Catholic perspective on this, you will follow through. If you are looking for a pat on the back that you are doing the right thing by protesting about contraception, continue to look for sources like this on the internet. It’s your choice. I am just approaching this with the thought that you are actually open-minded and pursuing a real understanding of why the Church teaches what it does, and not merely an affirmation to continue looking for theoretical loop holes.

 

[magdelaine]

Redbandito:

Have you practiced contraception?

Yes, I have.

I have also practiced fornication and adultry with a former Catholic in a sham marriage, gotten pregnant out of wedlock, and had sexual relations in an unmarried state from a very early age. I can tell you that these acts were, even at my most “lost” state, at some level recognizible as grave sins. That recognition is, of course, glaring in retrospect, and as I grow closer to Christ I am all the more sensitive to it.

When, after a few miscarriages, I decided to give my body a rest and used a condom with my husband, it never occured to me, then or now, that I was committing a grave sin.

My point is, you can be steeped in sin and still recognize it. I don’t think it’s as simple as “using” it, not at all.

 

[magdelaine]

This conversation has been interesting and I’ve learned a lot. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. For the record, I find myself in agreement with this:

We need an open discussion about contraception in which the whole Church takes part. There should be a council not only of the popes and bishops, but the rest of the Church, as well, especially married people. It is my belief that the problem can be resolved, but it won’t be easy. Those opposed to Humanae Vitae will have to deal with the central issue that if sex is not in some vital way linked to procreation, then it is going to be very difficult to preserve the basic positions of Catholic sexual morality in which sex is limited to marriage, and things like pre-marital or extra-marital sex are forbidden. Those who favor Humanae Vitae will have to come to terms with the fact that it appears impossible, despite the many attempts that have been made, to show by the use of reason that there is a moral difference between the use of certain non-abortive contraceptives and natural family planning. The issue with natural family planning is not that it in some future and more precise incarnation will not become the method of choice by a much larger number of people, especially given the aesthetic and health issues and the shadow of whether certain contraceptives act in an abortive fashion. But even if this happens, the moral issue of natural family planning remains in the deliberate use of the conjugal act with the intent to avoid procreation.

There is a solution to the Catholic debate on contraception, and it is important that we find it. **This impasse has been like a log jammed in the rocks of a stream, and behind it has accumulated all sorts of other issues, and the flow of life of the Church has been impeded. **We need to remove this obstacle and work on a whole backlog of other issues.

source: innerexplorations.com/catchtheomor/solution.htm

 

[vluvski]

magdelaine:

This conversation has been interesting and I’ve learned a lot. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. For the record, I find myself in agreement with this:

source: innerexplorations.com/catchtheomor/solution.htm

The glaring flaw in your quoted paragraph is evident in the very first sentence. The Church has never, will never Praise God hold it’s lay members accountable in a way that forces them to decide by popular vote what is moral and what is not.

This is the only mistake made in preparing the issuance of Humanae Vitae. They formed this huge committee to give married couples and scholars and doctors and other joe-schmoes a chance to put in their two cents. Because this committee determined that contraception should be allowed, many people assumed and continued to assume that that is what Humanae Vitae should have reaffirmed as well.

I agree that a change needs to take place involving the entire church, but that change must involve each and every member gaining an understanding of why the church teaches what it does, not changing the Church’s understanding and teaching on sexuality and marriage.

Let me quickly provide an analogy (that you would find while reading Christopher West) to contracepted sex that could easily involve condoms, not just abortifacient methods. This analogy also helps explain how periodic abstinence in NFP differs from artificial birth control.

Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. In particular, a woman’s body is sacred because it is the location where God chooses to create new life. God honored all women by creating Jesus as God and Man within the womb of a woman. Thus, the church in this analogy is the woman’s body.

Three men walk past a church. The first has other things going on, in other words *has a serious/just reason to avoid * going into the church. He walks past. The next man goes in wanting enjoy the stained glass and the architecture, but really has no interest in the ‘church’ aspect of it, so spits in the holy water on his way out. He has *used the temple for his own pleasure while disrespecting it * and God. The third man goes in for the specific purpose of prayer. Sometimes he is blessed in a tangible way by this devotion, and other times he receives only grace.

The first man illustrates the propriety of NFP. The second man illustrates the impropriety of practicing contraception by using the woman’s body for one benefit (pleasure) while rejecting the other (procreation). The third is an example of the richness of celebrating the marital union with sex both when fertile and when infertile.

 

[bear06]

BillP:

Its not my theory. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church. Absent a definitive declaration from a Pope or an Ecumenical COuncil, there must be a consensus among the Bishops for a teaching to be infallible.

Even according to your own document there is no consensus!

Does that sound like a consensus to you?

When we say “The Church cannot err”, we understand this to apply to the faithful as a whole and to the bishops as a whole, so that the sense of the proposition, the Church cannot err, is this: that what all the faithful hold as of faith, necessarily is true and of faith, and similarly what all the bishops teach as pertaining to faith, necessarily is true and of faith.

The footnote to paragraph 25 of Lumen Gentium refers again to De Ecclesia Christi, in which Bellarmine’s phrase “as a whole” is used. Now, just as it would be ridiculous to hold that the phrase “the faithful as a whole” means absolutely everyone of the faithful at any one moment, so it would be ridiculous to hold that unless there were some moment at which every single one of the bishops taught the same doctrine, there could be no infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium through the bishops dispersed throughout the world.

Which bishops, exactly, are dissenting from Humanae Vitae again? BTW, you didn’t seem to notice one of my above posts that has the additional part of the organ of infallibility which you forgot.

 

[BillP]

Redbandito:

BillP, you’re not paying attention. 1913 expressly qualifies, “slavery, when attended with a due regard for the rights of the slave, is not in itself intrinsically wrong.” This is re-affirmed in 1994 when he states, “The seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that for any reason—selfish or ideological, commercial, or totalitarian—lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like MERCHANDISE, in DISREGARD for their personal DIGNITY.”

Thus, what fix and others have been saying is exactly correct. You have to try to miss this. This clearly shows that slavery is wrong when the “DUE REGARD FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE SLAVE” are neglected (1913). Or in other words, when we treat slaves in a way that devalues or “disregards…their personal dignity” (1994). Maybe you need to reconsider your position on this point.

No you need to pay attention. The CCC doesn’t say we need to treat slaves well, it says slavery is forbidden because it inherently disregards their personal dignity. There is simply no way to hold a man as a slave and claim that you’re upholding their personal dignity. Come on be real.

I honestly can’t believe that its the 21st century and I’m arguing with a fellow Catholic that sincerely doens’t see anything wrong wiht slavery. Do you honestly believe the Church teaches that slavery is morally acceptable?

Tell you what. Why don’t you post that question in ask an apologist?

 

[bear06]

. Do you honestly believe the Church teaches that slavery is morally acceptable?

Ah, now I can see that you didn’t read the article fix posted. Did you not see?
catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=1201

The Magisterium condemned unjust enslavement early on, but it also recognized what is known as “just title slavery.” **That included forced servitude of prisoners of war and criminals, and voluntary servitude of indentured servants, forms of servitude ** mentioned at the outset of this article.

 

[BillP]

bear06:

Ah, now I can see that you didn’t read the article fix posted. Did you not see?
catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=1201

Problem with that quote is that no one is arguing about that. We’re, well, I’m discussing slavery. As the Romans practiced it, and as the European Colonies in the New World practiced it and as it was practiced in the American South.

Are you saying that the Church didn’t condone and support slavery in those tiems and places?

Don’t give me any moral sophistry about involuntary servitude, indentured servants or civil and military prisoners. I stipulate that thsoe instututions exist but their moral status is irrelevant to this discussion.

 

[fix]

BillP:

Problem with that quote is that no one is arguing about that. We’re, well, I’m discussing slavery. As the Romans practiced it, and as the European Colonies in the New World practiced it and as it was practiced in the American South.

Are you saying that the Church didn’t condone and support slavery in those tiems and places?

Don’t give me any moral sophistry about involuntary servitude, indentured servants or civil and military prisoners. I stipulate that thsoe instututions exist but their moral status is irrelevant to this discussion.

You should start a new thread. It is only fair that we not to keep veering off. I would like to discuss this further as I know the CC never taught the forms of slavery you mention, chattel, as licit even if individual American bishops did.

 

[fix]

magdelaine:

This conversation has been interesting and I’ve learned a lot. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. For the record, I find myself in agreement with this:

source: innerexplorations.com/catchtheomor/solution.htm

I offer you this again:

No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law. It is in fact indisputable, as Our predecessors have many times declared, (l) that Jesus Christ, when He communicated His divine power to Peter and the other Apostles and sent them to teach all nations His commandments, (2) constituted them as the authentic guardians and interpreters of the whole moral law, not only, that is, of the law of the Gospel but also of the natural law. For the natural law, too, declares the will of God, and its faithful observance is necessary for men’s eternal salvation. (3)

In carrying out this mandate, the Church has always issued appropriate documents on the nature of marriage, the correct use of conjugal rights, and the duties of spouses.
vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

I ask whom should I follow? Is the Church speaking as Christ or are there other avenues He speaks through that contradict His Church? To whom should we follow?