Contraception question

[Greg72]

Actually, I think that was {cynic’s} point. But perhaps we should let him weighi in on that.

Perhaps you’re right. If so, I apologize.

rpp:

Couples who remain chaste, that is they never engage in the marital act and instead remain virgins, thoughout their entire marriage is not something new for the Church. That is, after all what the Blessed Virgin Mary and her holy husband St. Joseph did.

Exactly. When did the Church start to feel that abstinance was such a threat to marriage that couples should have intercourse while actively trying to avoid having children.

rpp:

Hmm… I do not know much about the history of this, but I am uncomfortable with the idea of “a new course”.

I see a noticeable shift occuring. A lot of very large changes are happening in a short period of time.

“Senseless nature”? What is that? Does “senseless nature” include God’s part in the act of procreation when he imbues the child at the instant of conception with a soul?

“Senseless nature” is a description from Humanae Vitae that I find troublesome. I can only guess at the Pope’s intent, but it seems strange to me - as I said - for the Church to be encourging people to overcome “Senseless nature” by having intercourse when the woman is least fertile, rather than overcoming their own carnal natures and avoiding intercourse altogether.

Greg72:

I guess that it is too much, anymore, to ask the couples to overcome their carnal natures.

That, I believe, is the point that cynic was making.

rpp:

Yes, it does seem that western society today is rather sexually over-stimulated.

And I would say that we don’t need the Church’s encouragement.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

I am well aquainted with the story in both Mark (2:23-25) and Matthew (12:1-8).

I am not certain what your point is. Can you help me?

Are you (and I am speculating here) suggesting that using science is okay to make important points about, among other things, ABC? I would agree with you. I think that when appropriate, using science and research can help us to understand the issue and problems better.

If that is indeed your point we agree so far. (If that was not your point, then you have my apologies for misunderstanding you and then running with it.)

My point was that we must be careful not to put our faith, literally out faith in science as so many today do. Another important point I was trying to make was that there is a powerful motivation for many researchers to skew their results. After all, we would not have these things if people simply wanted to help married people. ***ABC was invented specifically to allow people to commit adultery and fornication ***without the “pesky side effect” of an “unexplained” child. Its intended purpose is to both enable and promote grave sin.

These grave sins have become inculcated in western society. Thus when researchers look athe safety and efficacy of ABC, their entire approach is colored, contaminated and prejudiced, by this strong deisre to promote conduct which they themselves often participate in. They are not going to rain on their own parade.

Please document these statements to allow us to know this is not a colored statement.

Remember you can skew a result but not the truth

 

[rpp]

Please document these statements to allow us to know this is not a colored statement.

As I am not a scientist trying to present what I contend as irrefutable Fact (note the capitalization), I do not feel that citing sources is needed. Secondly, I reject science-ism and prefer to use my brain instead.

However, not to disappoint, I will provide a few citations :
cwfa.org/articles/8459/CWA/nation/index.htm
woodhullfoundation.org/sexpolitics/read_on.aspx
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_revolution (I consider Wikipedia to be quite unreliable.)
histmedindia.org/obgyn.htm (very interesting, lots of historical info, but a bit dry.)

Are my remarks colored and biased? Yes. Is that bad? No. A better question would be is it avoidable? The answer is also “No”.

How is that differnt that a researcher skewing results. I do not pretend to be unbiased.

Remember you can skew a result but not the truth

Oh, Texas Roofer, I do wish you were right. I really want to agree with you.

As a former atheist and therefore a former enemy of the Truth, I can tell you that I have watched the truth get skewed very, very often. Lying is part and parcel of what “sex researchers” do, starting with Alfred Kinsey. They lie every time they say fornication is okay, natural and even healthy. They lie when they say homosexual acts are okay, natural and even healthy. They may be lying to themselves, or they may lying to us, it is still lying.

The truth is there, it always is, but it is utterly suppresed.

 

[BlazingBolt]

I think it is pretty evident what the widescale availability and use of ABC has done to society as a whole. Sexuality is everywhere, it is flaunted and it is glorified, human beings are objectified. Sex is considered casual and recreational. Chastity is now considered as obsurd and unrealistic. To claim that these things are not related is to be in denial. Before any Christian uses ABC they should think about these affects that it has had before they bring it in to their marriage.

 

[cynic]

um…I am NOT Catholic, and if I were married would not have a problem with (non-abortion causing) cntraception. However, if the Catholic Church is going to accuse couples using contraception of lust, or selfishness or ‘objectification’ of each other, then why not apply that reasoning to couples who use nfp? What is the purpose of having sex during the ‘safe’ times when using nfp - for the couples own satisfaction, sense of intimacy etc. Why don’t they just abstain completely - because they would be missing out. In other words the same motivations (for sex) that are condemned in a couple using abc are said to be perfectly ok if using nfp. Doesn’t this seem like a bit of a contradiction? Why doesn’t the Catholic Church remove all ambiguity and simply say that sex (and all that goes with it) should be limited to when a couple are trying for (or a happy to have) children?

 

[BlazingBolt]

I do not think that these are the reason for the Church objecting to ABC with in marriage. They are not accusing couples of being selfish and lustful. I think that it is believed that this is a spiritual side effect of using ABC. The proof of this is the large discrepancy in divorce rates between contracepting couples and couples who practice NFP. This effect can also be seen when you look at the increased divorce rates among protestants that coincided with their allowance of ABC.

The Church recognizes the unitive aspect of marital relations, and this is the purpose of these relations for couples using NFP. These couples are naturally open to contraception, just not actively trying to conceive.

It is believed and the data bears it out that contracepting frustrates the unitive nature of the marital act. It is sort of like shutting God out. This is not the only reason the Church has taught since the very beginning that contraception is sinful but it is part of the equation.

Hope this helps.

God Bless

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Why should I accept that Pope Paul VI’s statement has the authority to declare this a moral ill, with the force that I can no longer reasonably deny it?

Noma:

Because Pope Paul IV was reiterating earlier Church Teaching on this matter, including the Didache, various Church Fathers and Casti Connubii, and because he made a prophecy at the end of Humanae Vitae which described what would happen if the world continued using ABC as it was doing. The Prophecy was fullfilled. According to the Torah, the Fulfilled Prophecy has to certify the teaching, esp. since Pope Paul VI was not changing the teaching of the Church as the Anglican Communion was at the Lambeth Quadrilateral in 1931.

Noma, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all had Artificial Contraception and Abortion, and the Church refused to allow Catholics to use any of these in any circumstances from the beginning. What “Disciplines” have never been changed or altered by the Church since the beginning?

NONE!

The Eastern Orthodox only recently changed it because of a concept call “Economeia”. When my father died as an Orthodox in 1984, the Orthodox Teaching on Contraception was the same as the Catholic Church’s teaching, and the Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia still has the same teaching. Most of the rest of Orthodoxy has changed their teahing in the last 20 years, and most of the rest of the Christian Denominations have changed their teachings in the last 50 years.

Those Catholic and Christian couples who use ABC divorce at aprox. the same rate as the rest of society, while the Catholic couples who don’t use it and/or use NFP divorce at a rate of less than 4% over the lifetime of their marriages.

In the Nicene Creed, we call the Holy Spirit “The Lord and Giver of Life”. Don’t you think that blocking his action by using ABC might have something to do with the disparity in the divorce rates? In which case, can’t you see how this would be a MORAL TEACHING of the Church and not just a Discipline such as which language is used as Mass?

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

I do not think that these are the reason for the Church objecting to ABC with in marriage. They are not accusing couples of being selfish and lustful. I think that it is believed that this is a spiritual side effect of using ABC. The proof of this is the large discrepancy in divorce rates between contracepting couples and couples who practice NFP. This effect can also be seen when you look at the increased divorce rates among protestants that coincided with their allowance of ABC.

The Church recognizes the unitive aspect of marital relations, and this is the purpose of these relations for couples using NFP. These couples are naturally open to contraception, just not actively trying to conceive.

It is believed and the data bears it out that contracepting frustrates the unitive nature of the marital act. It is sort of like shutting God out. This is not the only reason the Church has taught since the very beginning that contraception is sinful but it is part of the equation.

Hope this helps.

God Bless

Blazing Bolt:

Marriage is the only Sacrament where the GRACE is given to the husband and wife (and to the family and the rest of the world) through the marital act of the husband and the wife. When they use Artificial Contraception, they prevent the Holy Spirit from participating in the act and passing the Grace to and between them.

Because the couple is committing the Mortal Sin of preventing the action of the Lord and Giver of Life and unnaturally interfering their natural God-given fertility, they are also prevented from receiving the Grace of the Sacraments as long as they refuse to repent.

This is why they end up not going to Mass and divorcing, because they aren’t geing the Grace from receiving the Eucharist and they are having to deal with all of the tremendous problems we all have without the help of the Lord and His mighty power.

This why the correct teaching is so important.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Sure.

The Church (through NFP) allows couples to limit intercourse to those times in which there is the least possibility of conception.

My understanding is that this allowance is a new one (well, since before I was born, but still new in Church history and that prior to this, intercourse was supposed to be primarily for procreation; the strengthening of the marital bond was a distant second at best.

I assume that everyone reading this thread is aware of NFP and I am unable to cite anything supporting my second paragraph. I invite anyone older or better-informed than I am to correct me if necessary.

Greg:

Some misguided pastors may have made it sound that way. I can only quote St. Paul the Apostle on the Issue in the hopes of correcting that impression:

*The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

1 Cor 7:3-7 NIV*

I sincerely doubt you’ll find any mention of childbearing or procreation in either of these two scriptures. They’re just not there.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing* her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Ephesians 5:25-33 NIV**

In fact,according to St. Paul, Marriage is supposed to be a “SYMBOL” or an “ICON” of the relationshop between Christ and the Church. For that to happen, Marital Relations would have to be a complete self-giving of the married partners to each other, and ABC would interfere with that (If you want to know how, read the posts by the married people).

Here are the documents on marriage:

Evangelium Vitae
vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/_INDEX.HTM

Humanae Vitae
vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

Casti Connubii
vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html

Arcanum
vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_10021880_arcanum_en.html

If you get that the Scriptures were and are what the Church taught, you’ll be fine. If you can add something to it by reading the Papal Encyclicals I linked, you’lll be able to fill in a few blanks or yourself.

I’ve tried to be as gentle as possible. I hope this helps.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael*

 

[Greg72]

Greg:

Some misguided pastors may have made it sound that way. I can only quote St. Paul the Apostle on the Issue in the hopes of correcting that impression:

Actually I haven’t necessarily heard a pastor speak about contraception / NFP (there may have been a Priest or two who contributed to what I believe about the matter, but I’m unsure).

If you get that the Scriptures were and are what the Church taught, you’ll be fine. If you can add something to it by reading the Papal Encyclicals I linked, you’lll be able to fill in a few blanks or yourself.

I have a lot of reading (and thinking) to do.
Traditional Ang:

I’ve tried to be as gentle as possible. I hope this helps.

You needn’t have been gentle, but it is appreciated.
You have already helped me to see where the Church was coming from originally, and that is a great start.
I’m certain that I will learn a great deal more from reading the encyclicals you suggested (I’ve read HV and certain parts of CC, but they could bear re-reading, I’m sure).

I still feel uncomfortable with people promoting NFP so strongly as being more effective than ABC at preventing pregnancy (I prefer people to do the right things for the right reasons - especially when the Church gives so many great reasons), but I can see how my idea of the Church undergoing a significant change on the issue of marital relations was almost certainly wrong.
Traditional Ang:

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

Thank you Michael.

Peace be with you,

-Greg