Dealing with criticism in my parish community when discussing infertility treatment

[elizaveta01]

How so? The definition of an orphan is one who has been deprived of parental care.

So you have two options:

Either a frozen embryo is a human, and therefore a child- a child who has been deprived of parental care.

OR

a frozen embryo is not a human

if you are saying that a frozen embryo is not an orphan,
then you are saying an embryo is not a human this would mean that life does not begin at conception.

If you believe a frozen embryo is not an orphan, then you are saying an embryo is not a human. If an embryo is not human, then the destruction of an embryo is not murder.

If the destruction of an embryo is not murder, then there is no biblical justification to oppose abortion.

I just love faulty logic .

An orphan, by definition, is a child deprived of it’s parents by death . But your embryos parents would still alive. They would be abandoned, not orphaned, children.

I think it is unfortunate that you disclosed your plans to the people you did. But you can hardly expect devout Catholics to not call you on this - since it is against the Churches teachings.

I do know how you feel - since I could not have children either. It does hurt and I understand your sorrow. But that doesn’t make all fertility treatments acceptable.

 

[on_the_hill]

http://www.newbornbabyzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/babies-cry.jpg

I don’t get it.

 

[elizaveta01]

The Church hasn’t condemned capital punishment? says who?
Thou shall not kill. that includes capital punishment and abortion

The Catholic church has always condemned abortion, but not capital punishment.

Vatican city, with the approval of the Church, used to have the death penalty for anyone trying to murder a pope. Almost all the Doctors and Fathers of the Church supported capitol punishment. St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Robert Bellarmine, Alphonsus Liguori, John Henry Newman, and many others were in favor of it, even Pope Pius XII. The Catechism issued after the Council of Trent said that God gave the State the power of life and death and that execution was not murder. And the Catholic Church certainly approved of it in the Middle Ages, since it handed over heretics to the civil authorities to be executed.

The NCCB issued a statement about capitol punishment about 30 years ago. For the most part they were against it as they felt it was not necessary in modern society, but they still said that “The State has the right, in principle, to inflict capital punishment in cases where there is no doubt about the gravity of the offense and the guilt of the accused”.

The difference, theologically, between abortion/murder and capital punishment isn’t something that I’m well trained in, so I will leave the explanation to others.

 

[Rau]

The Catholic church has always condemned abortion, but not capital punishment.

Vatican city, with the approval of the Church, used to have the death penalty for anyone trying to murder a pope. Almost all the Doctors and Fathers of the Church supported capitol punishment. St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Robert Bellarmine, Alphonsus Liguori, John Henry Newman, and many others were in favor of it, even Pope Pius XII. The Catechism issued after the Council of Trent said that God gave the State the power of life and death and that execution was not murder. And the Catholic Church certainly approved of it in the Middle Ages, since it handed over heretics to the civil authorities to be executed.

The NCCB issued a statement about capitol punishment about 30 years ago. For the most part they were against it as they felt it was not necessary in modern society, but they still said that “The State has the right, in principle, to inflict capital punishment in cases where there is no doubt about the gravity of the offense and the guilt of the accused”.

The difference, theologically, between abortion/murder and capital punishment isn’t something that I’m well trained in, so I will leave the explanation to others.

The State has the right to adopt the sentence necessary to protect the citizenry from the most evil criminals. The sentence necessary to do that over time has moved. In the past, the Church has said that is the death penalty (presumably because confinement for the long term was not so sure). In the current era, the Church states that there is essentially no need to apply the death penalty to achieve the good ends of protecting the citizenry, therefore it should not be done. In the future, we may regress to a situation where it again becomes the necessary sentence to achieve the good ends of protection.

If one wishes to argue that this means the Church supports the death penalty, well fine, but it’s a rather selective statement of the facts.

 

[Viewer]

The State has the right to adopt the sentence necessary to protect the citizenry from the most evil criminals. The sentence necessary to do that over time has moved. In the past, the Church has said that is the death penalty (presumably because confinement for the long term was not so sure). In the current era, the Church states that there is essentially no need to apply the death penalty to achieve the good ends of protecting the citizenry, therefore it should not be done. In the future, we may regress to a situation where it again becomes the necessary sentence to achieve the good ends of protection.

If one wishes to argue that this means the Church supports the death penalty, well fine, but it’s a rather selective statement of the facts.

It’s not selective at all, in the same way you can’t be a “little bit” pregnant. You either support the death penalty or you do not, the Catholic Church clearly does and has actively employed it during the times in history when it has wielded considerably more temporal authority than it does now.

The only reason it doesn’t actively support and promote these views today is because people today would be appalled by them.

 

[pensmama87]

The only reason it doesn’t actively support and promote these views today is because people today would be appalled by them.

Just like we did with contraception, abortion, gay “marriage,” the permanency of marriage, fertility treatments, all-male priesthood, closed communion…

We just did away with all that because it made people not like us.

(Seriously?)

 

[Viewer]

Just like we did with contraception, abortion, gay “marriage,” the permanency of marriage, fertility treatments, all-male priesthood, closed communion…

We just did away with all that because it made people not like us.

(Seriously?)

Well yes, there are people in Europe today who oppose gay marriage still, and an increasing large number of those who oppose abortion too.

Captical Punishment however? Very very few do, and it is an opinion reserved almost exclusively for that far right, either political (neo-nazis) or fundamentalists (Salafi Islam).

I return to my previous examples. The medieval church actively condemned and punished practitioners of Ursusy, and yet the Church has been absolute silent in recent years on matters suck as the Banking crisis or the poor losing their homes in wake of it. The Church now agrees that slavery is evil (a good move in my opinion), but nonetheless has had to turn against at very least 1800 years worth of active approval, promotion and even active participation in places like spanish-controlled south America prior to doing so.

Yes, we did do away with those. Not so that people would “like us”, but so they wouldn’t actively destroy us on an ethical crusade.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It’s not selective at all, in the same way you can’t be a “little bit” pregnant. You either support the death penalty or you do not, the Catholic Church clearly does and has actively employed it during the times in history when it has wielded considerably more temporal authority than it does now.

The only reason it doesn’t actively support and promote these views today is because people today would be appalled by them.

The bolded sentence is simply silly. Of course the death penalty is subject to all kinds of considerations. For what crimes should it be applied? Under what conditions? What justification for its use exists in this specific case? Etc.

If by “not selective at all” you mean “in principle,” then clearly the Church’s view has not changed because no “in principle” disapproval by the Church of capital punishment exists.

 

[Viewer]

The bolded sentence is simply silly. Of course the death penalty is subject to all kinds of considerations. For what crimes should it be applied? Under what conditions? What justification for its use exists in this specific case? Etc.

If by “not selective at all” you mean “in principle,” then clearly the Church’s view has not changed because no “in principle” disapproval by the Church of capital punishment exists.

If you do not condemn it you imply there are times where it can be applied.

If there are any occasions that it can be applied, that means you think the death penalty should be carried out.

If you believe that, then you also agree there is a need for capital punishment. Much of the western world (especially Europe) has come to the conclusion there are no occasions where it may be applied, in contrast to the Catholic Church.

 

[Peter_Plato]

. The Church now agrees that slavery is evil (a good move in my opinion), but nonetheless has had to turn against at very least 1800 years worth of active approval and promotion in south america prior to doing so.

Slavery didn’t exist for 1800 years in South America, nor was the Church in South America for 1800 years. Your facts are way off base (by about 1300 years,) as are your conclusions.

 

[Viewer]

Slavery didn’t exist for 1800 years in South America, nor was the Church in South America for 1800 years. Your facts are way off base (by about 1300 years,) as are your conclusions.

It was not active in South America for 1800 years, but from the time of founding until 1965 it was of the mind that slavery was an acceptable practice. It began profiteering and using the enslaved native population of south america pretty much as soon as it landed there.

From the end of the classical world onwards, slavery was employed by all, including the Papal States and the wider church. Many other nations and organizations had condemned the practice long before 1965.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If you do not condemn it you imply there are times where it can be applied.

If there are any occasions that it can be applied, that means you think the death penalty should be carried out.

If you believe that, then you also agree there is a need for capital punishment. Much of the western world (especially Europe) has come to the conclusion there are no occasions where it may be applied, in contrast to the Catholic Church.

Again, a silly conclusion. If there are occasions when killing another human being is justified does not mean killing human beings is “justified” and “should be carried out” in a general sense.

 

[Viewer]

Again, a silly conclusion. If there are occasions when killing another human being is justified does not mean killing human beings is “justified” and “should be carried out” in a general sense.

Most people who consider themselves moral today would argue that there is no justification whatsoever for taking a life. An ideal perhaps but still a surprisingly widely held view, I would say thats why so much money has gone into creating non-fatal weapons such as tazers as opposed to just shooting somone in the kneecaps.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Most people who consider themselves moral today would argue that there is no justification whatsoever for taking a life. An ideal perhaps but still a surprisingly widely held view, I would say thats why so much money has gone into creating non-fatal weapons such as tazers as opposed to just shooting somone in the kneecaps.

So self-defense is “no justification” for taking a life?

In some situations, capital punishment has very much the same features as a community proactively defending itself against a murderous individual. That is why capital punishment can never “in principle” be wrong - because self-defense is not “in principle” wrong.

You can argue all you want about people who consider themselves moral, but the question remains whether a good moral argument exists for capital punishment. Clearly it does, based upon the concept of self-defense. Contrary to your first sentience, there is moral justification for taking a life: self-defense.

 

[SJG1759]

How so? The definition of an orphan is one who has been deprived of parental care.

Yes… and as Catholics we are called to aid orphans, not create them!

I have walked in your shoes, OP. My DH and I have been married almost ten years. I won’t go into the specifics but suffice it to say that I wanted six or seven children and I have none. Barring divine intervention, I will never have a child. I understand completely how heartrending it is to be denied the thing you want most, to have every Tom, Dick, and Harry think they know how to fix you and give you all sorts of unsolicited (and often rude) advice. I understand what it’s like to have people make “cute” comments about your lack of kids, as if the biggest disappointment of your life is somehow material for their personal stand-up comedy routine.

I don’t understand why you’d create and then abandon your children.

I don’t understand why you’d go against the Source of all good.

You aren’t called to adopt and that’s OK - infertile people aren’t automatically called to adopt. There are other ways you can be important to a child - mentor younger people at work, be the best auntie you can be, coach sports or extracurriculars, sponsor a child in a poor country, join Big Brothers/Big Sisters, teach CCD. I hope you will prayerfully consider some of these things.

Being childless is the biggest disappointment of my life, but it does not define me. Once I stopped focusing on the good that I could NOT do and started focusing on the good that I COULD do, my life became a lot happier - and God became a lot closer.

PM me if you’d like to chat.

 

[Mayita30]

The Catholic church has always condemned abortion, but not capital punishment.

Vatican city, with the approval of the Church, used to have the death penalty for anyone trying to murder a pope. Almost all the Doctors and Fathers of the Church supported capitol punishment. St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Robert Bellarmine, Alphonsus Liguori, John Henry Newman, and many others were in favor of it, even Pope Pius XII. The Catechism issued after the Council of Trent said that God gave the State the power of life and death and that execution was not murder. And the Catholic Church certainly approved of it in the Middle Ages, since it handed over heretics to the civil authorities to be executed.

The NCCB issued a statement about capitol punishment about 30 years ago. For the most part they were against it as they felt it was not necessary in modern society, but they still said that “The State has the right, in principle, to inflict capital punishment in cases where there is no doubt about the gravity of the offense and the guilt of the accused”.

The difference, theologically, between abortion/murder and capital punishment isn’t something that I’m well trained in, so I will leave the explanation to others.

I dont think the church is condining capital punishment, it is just leaving it to the government. In my home country , the Philippines the Church has spoken against capital punishment… The commandment is still Thou shall not kill

I think americans should stop confusing the Catholic Church and the Republican party

The Church stands alone and is not dependent on any political party.

 

[april32010]

the topic isn’t the death penalty or slavery ,the topic is artificial insemination and IVF get on topic and stay on it

 

[Viewer]

the topic isn’t the death penalty or slavery ,the topic is artificial insemination and IVF get on topic and stay on it

Ja Mein Führer!

We were on topic actually, by presenting examples where Church teaching had developed and evolved over time to a form almost unrecognizable from the original stance.

Why don’t you leave moderation tasks to the moderator?

 

[april32010]

Ja Mein Führer!

We were on topic actually, by presenting examples where Church teaching had developed and evolved over time to a form almost unrecognizable from the original stance.

Why don’t you leave moderation tasks to the moderator?

that isn’t the topic

 

[Viewer]

that isn’t the topic

It is actually, it presents a precedent for the possibility of further development of church teaching on IVF, which is quite relevant.

I’m sorry it didn’t come with a big neon sign.