Hiya Anastasia
Heres a bit of what the Catechism (pg 2370) says
Catholic Catechism:
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
vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm
There are malicious rumours about the consequences of this teaching. They are (I) it means women are reduced to baby-machines as they cannot control their fertility, and (ii) that its responsible for the HIV pandemic in Africa
These accusations are false however.
- Women can control their fertility naturally, with the same success rate (99%) as contraception, using the Billings NFP method. The Church promotes it in marriage classes. It is what China uses to police its “one-child” policy - there are 1,000,000 Billings teachers in China.
billings-ovulation-method.org.au/act/actindex.shtml
Artificial contraception is pushed strongly in the west is because people make a lot of money from it, and it removes responsibility from the user - but Billings requires women to be responsible and be aware of what their body is doing. Billings does not have any of the potential side-effects associated with the contraceptive pill.
- The accusation is completely erroneous, as the people affected with HIV in Africa are overwhelmingly non-Catholic (the data is easily available online). Only one of the badly affected countries has a big Catholic population (Lesotho). How then can Catholic teaching be responsible?
Public health experts have openly stated that the Church is right about condoms.
BBC:
The pope was right about condoms, says Harvard HIV expert
bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/03/aids_expert_who_defended_the_p.html
The expert referred to is Dr Edward Green.
Dr Edward Green:
we have for a number of years now found the wrong kind of association between condom-availability and levels of condom use…** You see the wrong kind of relationship with HIV prevalence. Instead of seeing this associated with lower HIV infection rates, it’s actually associated with higher HIV infection rates**. Part of that is because the people using condoms are the people who are having risky sex.
Edward C. Green is an American medical anthropologist currently affiliated with the Dept. of Population and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins University.
He was a Senior Research Scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health and served as director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.
He was appointed to serve as a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (2003–2007),served on the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council for the National Institutes of Health (2003–2006), and serves on the board of
AIDS.org and the Bonobo Conservation Initiative.
He has worked for over 30 years in international development. Much of his work since the latter 1980s has been in AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, primarily in Africa, but also in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
He served as a public health advisor to the governments of both Mozambique and Swaziland.
He was widely quoted in March 2009 when he publicly agreed with Pope Benedict XVI’s claim that the distribution of condoms may be aggravating the problem of AIDS in Africa.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Green
Its obvious. A society where sexual behaviour is largely monogamous will always be healthier (STD wise) than a society where sexual behaviour is largely promiscuous.
Therefore, encourage sex only within exclusive, committed relationships. (exclusive to prevent STD, and committed to be able to deal with the natural consequences of sex, new life, should it occur).
The problem is, most people don’t get their advice from health experts, or the Pope, they listen to celebrities & the media.
Also note that we have condoms in the west - easily available, even for free - and yet HIV rates among gay men are overtaking the rates in the worst hit African nations. Eg 1 in 5 American homosexual men have HIV. Why is that, if condoms are so good?
CDC: 20% of Gay Men Are HIV-Positive, but Nearly Half Don’t Know It
healthland.time.com/2010/09/26/study-20-of-homosexual-men-are-hiv-positive-but-only-half-know-it/#ixzz2MzqLaWC3
Tackling sexual disease is about behaviours, not condoms. No form of contraception is 100% effective versus STD/pregnancy, therefore there will always be
some STD transmission and unwanted pregnancy, if contraception is used for meaningless sex.
Secular people have a totally skewed view of the topic. Their thinking is faulty on 2 counts;
- They start from the false premise that sex is just a toy for gratification. They think promiscuity is normal and they are entitled to have sex for fun only. But sex isn’t a toy - it can have serious possible outcomes - new life or a disease being transmitted.
- They make the false assumption that contraception is 100% effective. Given it is not, their ‘solution’ is only partial mitigation, not a real solution.
Sex has 2 inherent aspects - a uniting act of love, and a possible facilitator of new life. Society pretends we have successfully separated the pleasure of sex from its natural consequences. But we have not - our artificial methods work most of the time, but not all the time.
Therefore, the only genuinely responsible sexual behaviour is within a committed & exclusive relationship (marriage) - exclusive to prevent STD, & committed to be able to deal with the natural consequences of sex, new life, if it occurs.
I have doubts about this. Please correct or affirm the above. I was taught that the Catholic Church says that it is wrong to use contraception (though I read something about a certain exception permitted as least by a bishop) but because the Church taught this, you had to agree with it.