Contraception and vocations

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thistle said:
When comes to doctrine the Church is never wrong. If anyone disagrees with a Church teaching it is that person who is wrong - ALWAYS!
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I have no problems with Church doctrine. I believe though that the doctrine is sometimes mis-applied in a manner sometimes not consistent with the science, or plain common sense. I believe it is possible to properly inform one’s conscience from both Church and scientific sources to arrive at that conclusion.

The doctrine may be arrived at infallibly by the Magisterium and the Holy Father, but its application is left in the hands of very fallible humans.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
You would be entirely within your rights to approach the Church (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, perhaps), state your reasons for disagreeing with this teaching or that, offer your own knowledge and expertise, and ask that the matter be reconsidered based on this. I am not being sarcastic — I don’t do sarcasm. I am dead serious. Galileo did this. You might get a better hearing than he did
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You are misinformed. Galileo’s problem had nothing to do with Church teaching!!
 
Cruciferi said:
would direct your questions and concerns to the The National Catholic Bioethics Center . Hopefully, they can better explain things.
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I don’t need things explained. I’m perfectly capable of understanding the Church’s reasoning. I just happen to disagree with it in certain aspects.
 
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I am weary of reading things written by those who wish to return the Catholic Mass to being celebrated in Latin.
The Church and its people hard problems, including acceptance God’s laws and the Church’s laws, even back during the days that Mass was celebrated solely in Latin.
The problems the Catholic Church faces cannot be solved just by going back to saying the Mass in Latin.
God wants us to praise him and give him glory in all that we say and do. God wants us to love and to serve our brothers and sisters.
God never said give him praise through Latin words and glory through Latin, or to love and serve our brothers and sisters, but in Latin.
I love God. And I love praising God in my native tongue. Thank God that we have Mass recited in our native tongues.
 
Then you have people like me who are stuck in the Catholic church because once Baptized Catholic you are always Catholic.

I have said before and will say it again, had I had a choice I wouldn’t have become Catholic, but that choice was made for me as an infant.
 
Isn’t the average level of Protestant giving something like 2%, and Catholics give about 1%? That’s not great, obviously, but it’s not like a majority of Protestants are doing a true tithe of 10%.
 
Cor_ad_Cor said:
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HomeschoolDad:
  • Larger families (and by this I mean more than the “two or three and we’re done” mentality) begin to emerge as the faithful welcome children on God’s terms, not their own.
  • Families begin to live much more simply (they pretty much have to), and more and more women stay at home.
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The modern U.S. economy would not allow this family to survive. Consider my family of four… mother stays home to tend to the children; father has a relatively high paying job for the area. They struggle to pay bills, keep food on the table, have to depend on charity for medical expenses, and narrowly avoided foreclosure. Another child would be their downfall. We simply don’t live in that era anymore, nor does our government / business leaders show any interest in supporting the working class in their efforts to make this lifestyle survivable.
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Aren’t Catholics supposed to be happy to live in Holy Poverty? I’m asking this seriously. The prevailing culture lives very well these days. Aren’t Catholics supposed to live differently and according to their (well-formed) consciences? Also, isn’t it likely that the working dad would have health insurance, rather than charity?
 
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Well, maybe this will give some clarity.

I am an EMT. My pay is $12.18 an hour. I pay for health insurance for me and my seven kids who don’t live with me (technically one lives with me during the week for a couple more weeks until school lets out for the summer) as I am divorced as well as five of my kids come from a previous non-marital relationship that lasted 10 years. Anyway, I have health insurance through my employment. I have the lowest cost premium for me and the kids. It costs me $600 a month. It has a $6000 deductible for a single member and $15,000 deductible for the family. I also pay $200 in child support total. My take home pay ends up being around $490 a paycheck. There are co-pays for non-well visit doctor’s visits of $35 for a PCP and $65 for a specialist. There is a copay for the hospital at $300, but then there are the doctor’s bill from the hospital and radiologist’s bill from the hospital, etc…

I can easily see where charity would be helpful for the above family illustration that you replied to. I should be at a doctor’s office now or the ER because my asthma is real bad, but I cannot afford to go. Plus, my prescription coverage doesn’t cover inhalers for my asthma, so it’s useless. I use my mom’s inhaler that she gives me when mine runs out, but it’s just a rescue inhaler, I need a maintenance inhaler and that is $200 or more with a help plan from the manufacturer of the inhaler that I need. Because my health insurance doesn’t pay for the inhaler, that is all they, the manufacturer will do to help me.
 
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That’s a very tough situation lonegraywolf. Is that what the Church wants for Her people? Lives of poverty? Lives of Holy Poverty?
 
it is true that religious vocations come from in majority from lare catholics families.
it was the case in the end XIXth century, and even now in France, the new Catholics priests come from Catholic families that are in general larger than the average population.

faithfull families tend to be larger than the average.
And it is easier for adults with many siblings to envisionned themselves in a vocation. and for parents to see one of their child in a vocation where he will not have children.
 
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Jen95 said:
Isn’t the average level of Protestant giving something like 2%, and Catholics give about 1%? That’s not great, obviously, but it’s not like a majority of Protestants are doing a true tithe of 10%.
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This is just anecdotal, but in many of the small protestant churches, such as the Baptist one that my family members attend, I have no doubt the members give considerably more than the average Catholic. The church that I am thinking of only has about a hundred people, probably fewer, but they pay a pastor’s salary, maintain a church building and grounds, maintain a house for the pastor and his wife, and still have money leftover to give to missions, build up their savings, and more. The church in which I grew up was the same way.

The average Catholic parish of that size would get closed because 90-ish members wouldn’t be giving enough to keep it open (there are exceptions, obviously).
 
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Jen95 said:
Aren’t Catholics supposed to be happy to live in Holy Poverty?
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No, but we are not supposed to form attachments to worldly goods. We do not take a vow, or even make a promise, of poverty. Some religious orders though, do make a vow of poverty. Benedictines don’t. They make three vows: obedience, stability and inner conversion. In obedience however, to the Abbot who is inspired by the Rule of St. Benedict, individual monks are not supposed to own anything. Everything belongs to the community. The community may be materially wealthy; any large piece of scenic property with large buildings on it, has significant value. But if they find themselves in poverty they are to rejoice.

Most of us are not monastics however, and we have to provide for our families (housing, food, health care, education, etc.), save for a rainy day and plan for our retirements.

We are of course called to manage our goods and wealth wisely, remembering to be charitable and not having any idolatry of money or wealth. But we are certainly allowed to save wisely to accumulate some wealth for our retirement or a rainy day.
 
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But many Catholic parishes support a school, which must be a big part of the budget.
Also, Protestants can vote with their feet, and Catholics only can to a limited degree, so maybe Protestants are more committed to a church that they have chosen, rather than just because it’s closest, etc.
 
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Jen95 said:
Aren’t Catholics supposed to be happy to live in Holy Poverty?
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Catholics, all Christians, are to rejoice in spite of poverty or illness or disasters. We don’t avoid the storms, we have peace that passes all understanding in the midst of storms.
 
Others can answer that better than I can.

I will be going to school in July 2020, so I am trying to better my situation. I just have to wait.
 
That’s true, although I think parishes who support a school are becoming less common. And often they have to rely on multiple fundraisers throughout the year rather than the collection basket for much of their funding. But the mileage varies.
Jen95 said:
maybe Protestants are more committed to a church that they have chosen, rather than just because it’s closest, etc.
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It’s hard to generalize about this. I think many are, but church splits are also not uncommon in some circles.
 
NFP is frequently equated with contraception by the (ignorant) public.
Contraception is by definition ill-disposed to the goods of marriage.
Contraception is an act that is distorted, or perverted, or disordered from it’s good end.
It is used in ill-will to the good at hand, which is human life and unity of the spouses. It does not edify the virtues.

NFP is a cooperation of the spouses that takes the goods of marriage into account. It increases the couple in virtue. The virtue of chastity is the properly ordered integration of sexuality within the whole person. NFP is certainly pursuant to that.

I know of literally no one who would go to the trouble of NFP in order to avoid new life with ill will. To plan a family together? Yes, but not merely for the pursuit of sexual pleasure “without the consequences”. Contraception is way easier than NFP if you want to simply avoid pregnancy. If you are already disposed to avoidance of virtue, contraception provides an easy tool to do that.
My wife and I contracepted earlier in our marriage. We knew about NFP but said “why would we even do that?” We simply wanted to have relations and not get pregnant, so we contracepted. In our ignorance we saw NFP as a lot of trouble.
 
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goout said:
I know of literally no one who would go to the trouble of NFP in order to avoid new life with ill will. To plan a family together? Yes, but not merely for the pursuit of sexual pleasure “without the consequences”.
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I think we can assume the good will of anyone who uses NFP, however, even NFP couples should ask themselves from time to time “should we have another child and quit using even NFP at this time?”. Some may have answered that question in their own lives definitively, once and for all, basically “yes, we’ve had all the children we should have”. Yet if they choose to have relations after that, they are open to the chance, however remote, that Almighty God might have other plans for them.

That said, though, NFP could be used for sinful reasons, especially if a couple at some point in the marriage have just decided not to have any children at all. This would not be at all common, but it’s not impossible. Many people with that mindset would just go ahead and use contraception or sterilization, but some might not, assuring themselves “well, at least we’re using NFP”.

With contraception, though, you can have the noblest motives in the world, and it is still objectively mortally sinful. It is an intrinsically evil and disordered means even to a good end.
 
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