Has the Catholic view on contraception gained any support among non-Catholics?

[Hokomai]

As some will know, I am unconvinced by the Church’s teaching on contraception. Not a surprise, because I am not a believer, and the Church’s approach is overtly theist and Christian (as one would expect). But I find it so unconvincing that I have been wondering if anyone outside the Church has been convinced by it, or at least people in any numbers, or people who are thought leaders in their own communities. I am not here thinking of those who oppose contraception on other religious grounds (such as that we have to make more bodies to be ensouled, or that procreation is the only purpose of sex). I am looking for evidence of Christians who have no reason in faith to respect the teaching of the Church as being ‘from God’, but who have been won over by the argument to accept it in its entirety. Are there such people? Who are they?

 

[ThinkTwice]

Not sure I fit your requirements being one of faith but not of the church.

Clearly they convinced me that there should be much restraint to sex if you are sewing to the spiritual life. You See how addictive it is and detrimental it is to society where so much of our brutal crimes are sex-related. Child molestation rape and many mass murders are sex-related and I would argue that some crimes that are not directly sex-related have had an indirect effect.

 

[Corki]

It’s kind of a backwards question. Up until the 1940s **all **major Protestant denominations opposed contraception. While many have secularized thier teaching, there are still many who adhere to the more traditional view. In addition to those Protestant groups, Mormons, Orthodox Jews and Muslims all have teachings against contraception as well. The theology is a little different (ie why they believe its wrong) but the teaching is very similar.

 

[GWright]

But I find it so unconvincing that I have been wondering if anyone outside the Church has been convinced by it?

Hi there,

Yes, some people do see the sense in the Church’s position. But only if they are capable of a fair-minded, unbiased analysis - which many (most) are not.

Dr Edward C Green is a public health expert. He was previously Senior Research Fellow (public health) at Harvard University and is now at another insitution (I forget which).

Dr Green agrees with Pope Benedicts views wrt Condoms in Africa. He agrees that condoms have achieved nothing and may actually be making the situation worse. He agrees that the solutuion to HIV problems in Africa is about behavioural changes, not mitigation (condoms).

Dr Green has no set agenda. He does say it is his opinion that condoms should be available to people, as a last resort, but ultimately he agrees with Catholic sexual morality, notably in a public health (STD etc) context.

He has also made an interesting point that the continued condom strategy in Africa seems more related to the point that someone is making money out of all of this, than any success or progress which has been achieved.

Read some of Dr Greens books - they are very interesting and they will properly inform you about many things, where the mainstream media just gives you their own biased side of the story. The media present all stories in a way which is to affirm how the west lives. Anything which disagrees with this, or undermines it, wil be savagely attacked.

Most people have never heard of Dr Green, or those like him. Instead, most people “learn” about Catholic opinions on contraception etc from the likes of stand up comedians / newspaper columnists etc.

Secular governments are arrogant. They will not change tact in Africa, becuase if they admit they are wrong about condoms in Africa, it means they are wrong about them at home too. They would rather disease kept spreading, than have to admit they are wrong.

It is not difficult to see the sense in the Church’s position. I live in the UK. Here you can buy condoms in any shop, bar, supermarket, petrol station, vending machine etc. You can even get them for free in family planning clinics, or even have them sent to you through the post. We have an NHS which supplies women will contraceptive pills. Various forms of contraception are easily available to all, for low or no cost.

And yet - the UK still has appox 200,000 abortions per year.

If contraception works, and is sensible, how do you explain that figure? The only way to explain it is that it represents the number of times where contraception has failed via some mechanism. Thats a lot of times.

Contraception isnt perfect and may fail. Yes, the risk is small for the individual, but when you round it up to national or global level (millions or billions of people) - suddenly the amount of failures become very significant. This is why we have problems with abortions and STDs.

We live in a very selfish age - people only care about themselves. As long as they can engage in promiscuous sex themselves with relatively “safety”, people dont really care about the bigger picture. All that matters is their own gratification. This is why the situation perpetuates.

Using contraception will always mean SOME abortions and STDs, because no form of contraception is 100% effective. In contrast, Catholic Sexual morality is the most robust defence there is against STD (monogamy).

As for pregnancy - Catholic women can manage their fertility using the Billings NFP method. This is popular in China, where there are 1,000,000 Billigns teachers and the method is used effectively to manage Chinas one child policy. Billings offers the same or better “success” rates, (if you will), compared to artificial contraception - but with none of the side effects (eg contraceptive pills are a grade 1 carcinogenic - WHO rating - same as tobacco smoke and absestos).;

Finally, if it is Catholic opinion on condoms which is causing HIV problems in Africa, why are the badly affected nations overwhelmingly non-Catholic, which use condoms in large numbers?

I am glad you asked this question - it provides a chance for you to open your eyes and become geuinely informed.

 

[Joe_5859]

Corki is right. Christians started out unified in this belief, but that unity has eroded over the past 80 years. So if you’re looking at raw numbers, the Catholic view has probably only ever lost support during that timeframe.

Perhaps you are looking for individual Catholic conversion stories which began with someone realizing the Catholic Church was right about contraception? I seem to remember hearing one such conversion story, but unfortunately the identity of the couple escapes me.

I don’t know if this fits with what you’re looking for or not, but when I was going through my phase of doubting the Catholic Church in late high school/early college (thinking the Bible is just a book, the Church is just a human institution and Jesus is just a man), the one thing I never doubted was Catholic moral teaching. I know that seems backwards to the way it works for most people, but that’s how it was for me. Catholic teaching on premarital sex, contraception, abortion, et al. always made sense to me. It’s really what kept me from drifting away completely.

 

[fkjuliano]

As some will know, I am unconvinced by the Church’s teaching on contraception. Not a surprise, because I am not a believer, and the Church’s approach is overtly theist and Christian (as one would expect). But I find it so unconvincing that I have been wondering if anyone outside the Church has been convinced by it, or at least people in any numbers, or people who are thought leaders in their own communities. I am not here thinking of those who oppose contraception on other religious grounds (such as that we have to make more bodies to be ensouled, or that procreation is the only purpose of sex). I am looking for evidence of Christians who have no reason in faith to respect the teaching of the Church as being ‘from God’, but who have been won over by the argument to accept it in its entirety. Are there such people? Who are they?

A purely secular argument is that contraception is destroying civilization. When people don’t get married out of a desire to play the field for as long as possible and only have 1.4 child per couple even if they do, societal collapse can’t be far off. In the case of Europe, the demographic vacuum is being filled by Muslim immigrants who don’t buy into secularism and environmentalism and do produce more than enough children. Say what you will, but as far I’m concerned that’s an unmitigated disaster.

The bottom line is Paul VI was right and the world was wrong.

 

[Corki]

Perhaps you are looking for individual Catholic conversion stories which began with someone realizing the Catholic Church was right about contraception? I seem to remember hearing one such conversion story, but unfortunately the identity of the couple escapes me.

I think you may be thinking of Sam and Bethany Torode. They wrote a book “Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception” and were on the talk circuit for a while.

 

[Joe_5859]

I think you may be thinking of Sam and Bethany Torode. They wrote a book “Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception” and were on the talk circuit for a while.

Thank you! That was going to drive me crazy all day!

 

[Wowbagger]

This seems like a question that would normally be answered from personal experience – even if there are many couples who have been convinced, few of them would have occasion to make that fact widely known. In my personal experience, I have known dissenting and drifting Catholics who have been won back through the steady application of ToB. Those I know outside the Church who came to believe the Church is right about contraception all eventually converted; I’m not sure whether that proves your point, or if it shows that intellectual and psychological opposition to Catholicism today is largely centered around sex.

In my non-personal experience, there are scattered reports of Protestant use. The Torodes, who wrote Open Embrace, however, are a terrible example. The couple abandoned NFP several years ago, formally denounced it on their website, then divorced, and finally became liberal Protestants.

EDIT: For what it’s worth, I think the teaching is inaccessible to both dualists and materialists. Virtually all Protestants are dualists, and virtually all atheists are materialists. Hylomorphism (an Aristotelian/Thomistic theory of substances) holds sway in essentially zero places, beyond a sliver of Catholic intellectualism, and has absolutely no influence or awareness in the culture. (Probably most Catholics, even Church-attending Catholics – even CAF forum-goers! – hold a dualist conception of the soul.) It is no coincidence that the teaching on contraception has a great deal of success within the small hylomorphist corner of the marketplace of ideas, but very little reach beyond it.

 

[edwest2]

From physiciansforlife.org

physiciansforlife.org/content/view/611/36/

Peace,
Ed

 

[Hokomai]

EDIT: For what it’s worth, I think the teaching is inaccessible to both dualists and materialists. Virtually all Protestants are dualists, and virtually all atheists are materialists. Hylomorphism (an Aristotelian/Thomistic theory of substances) holds sway in essentially zero places, beyond a sliver of Catholic intellectualism, and has absolutely no influence or awareness in the culture. (Probably most Catholics, even Church-attending Catholics – even CAF forum-goers! – hold a dualist conception of the soul.) It is no coincidence that the teaching on contraception has a great deal of success within the small hylomorphist corner of the marketplace of ideas, but very little reach beyond it.

Wowbagger can you elaborate for my interest and education and/or refer me to some more lengthy material on this point? Thanks. Hoko

 

[ByzCathCantor]

Like all matters of faith and morals, it sometimes takes a long time and a life experience or two to finally get something to sink in. That said, it wasn’t until I was unemployed and found out that my wife was pregnant with our third child that I experienced a crisis of faith and conscience. Pulling through that experience left no doubt in my mind that the Catholic Church has it right. I am reminded of that every time my young son tells me that he loves me. There was a time in my life, actually a long time, when I thought that the Church was too strict in this regard. Now, I clearly see that my views were wrong.

All of us exist and write here because our parents, whether purposely or not, were open to life. Even if they were not strong enough to be good parents, they at least had enough courage to allow us the opportunity to survive.

 

[Erich]

I am looking for evidence of Christians who have no reason in faith to respect the teaching of the Church as being ‘from God’

I assume you are referring to Christians who have no reason in faith to respect the teaching of the *Catholic *Church as being ‘from God’.

Quiverfull is a movement among some conservative evangelical Christian couples chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and elsewhere. It promotes procreation, and sees children as a blessing from God, eschewing all forms of birth control, including natural family planning and sterilization.

 

[Erich]

From this link:

Christians have also historically not practiced B.C. This is not just a Roman Catholic church issue–it has been the historic and continuous understanding of Christians from the earliest times. The Protestant Synod of Dort equated contraception with abortion. Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and many other founders of Protestantism linked B.C. with murder. The Puritain founders of the United States of America considered B.C. as bad as adultery and disqualified anyone from church leadership who practiced it. In the 1800’s the U.S. government passed laws against birth control. It wasn’t until the 1930 Lambeth Conference that the Anglican church became the first Christian community to allow birth control.

  Obviously, we shouldn't base our position on whether or not  OTHER people practice B.C., but if the non-use of B.C. has been a  universal trend for the vast majority of Christian history, we should  not lightly dismiss it, but rather examine WHY.

 

[Wowbagger]

Wowbagger can you elaborate for my interest and education and/or refer me to some more lengthy material on this point? Thanks. Hoko

Shortest possible version:

Dualism: The human person is a compound of physical matter (the body) and a kind of spiritual matter (the soul). Many dualisms conclude that the human soul is essentially a “ghost in the machine” of the body, operating it like a robot – that is, we are our souls.

Materialism: The human person is physical matter only. We are our bodies.

Hylomorphism: The human person is a single substance, composed of matter that is given shape by a form. Distinguishing between matter and form (body and soul) is a subtle practice, and very often quite meaningless. We are not our bodies, nor our souls. We can only say that we are ourselves.

…which sounds like a stupid new-age triteness, but it’s also the only convincing path out of the Parmenidean Problem that I’ve ever seen. For an extended treatment of hylomorphism, I recommend A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas: A Handbook for Peeping Thomists, by Ralph McInerny. The book says it’s about Aquinas, but it’s mostly about Aristotle.

The implications for NFP are not immediately obvious, but they are manifold once you get fully into the hylomorphist mindset, because hylomorphism radically elevates the importance of physical acts over dualism without becoming bogged down in the autonomy fetish that (in my opinion) tends to characterize materialist ethics.

I hope that helps. Sorry I don’t have time to go deeper, but I have to get my dry-cleaning done.

 

[Hokomai]

I assume you are referring to Christians who have no reason in faith to respect the teaching of the *Catholic *Church as being ‘from God’.

Quiverfull is a movement among some conservative evangelical Christian couples chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and elsewhere. It promotes procreation, and sees children as a blessing from God, eschewing all forms of birth control, including natural family planning and sterilization.

These people seem to be opposed to NFP as well unless I have missed something and seem to base their views on an un-Catholic emphasis on the procreative aspect of sex. They do not appear to agree with Catholic reasoning, although they come to the same conclusion. Apologies if I have missed something. Their pdf-based site isn’t the easiest to search.

 

[Hokomai]

Shortest possible version:

Dualism: The human person is a compound of physical matter (the body) and a kind of spiritual matter (the soul). Many dualisms conclude that the human soul is essentially a “ghost in the machine” of the body, operating it like a robot – that is, we are our souls.

Materialism: The human person is physical matter only. We are our bodies.

Hylomorphism: The human person is a single substance, composed of matter that is given shape by a form. Distinguishing between matter and form (body and soul) is a subtle practice, and very often quite meaningless. We are not our bodies, nor our souls. We can only say that we are ourselves.

…which sounds like a stupid new-age triteness, but it’s also the only convincing path out of the Parmenidean Problem that I’ve ever seen. For an extended treatment of hylomorphism, I recommend A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas: A Handbook for Peeping Thomists, by Ralph McInerny. The book says it’s about Aquinas, but it’s mostly about Aristotle.

The implications for NFP are not immediately obvious, but they are manifold once you get fully into the hylomorphist mindset, because hylomorphism radically elevates the importance of physical acts over dualism without becoming bogged down in the autonomy fetish that (in my opinion) tends to characterize materialist ethics.

I hope that helps. Sorry I don’t have time to go deeper, but I have to get my dry-cleaning done.

Well you know what they say about cleanliness . Thanks for this I will look further into it. Hylomorpholgy, here I come!

 

[happy_88]

The catholic view on contraception really is not a Catholic idea at all…it is a biblical world view that some choose to follow or ignore.
The view has been shared by Judaism and Christianity. It has been only in the last 100 years that the view has changed in Christianity.
In Judaism the view is still practiced and has a name :Hotza’at Zera Levatalah, it is wasting the seed.
In first century Judaism things did become a bit liberal and contraception was allowed while breastfeeding, or if a wife was pregnant (the last was due to medical misinformation)
Contraception was only allowed if the mans seed was not wasted, but a woman could use protection and initially kill or waste the seed. This was a loophole that was taken advantage of by the Rabbi’s and scribes of the day…obviously the Bible prohibited the man from wasting the seed to promote the procreative aspect of marriage…female contraception was not a real reality in the ancient time…then when potions and ancient IUD’s came to practice the law could be twisted as to mean that the husband has to do the deed properly, while the wife could use contraception.
Paul does address this in the New Testament…in Romans,Timothy and Hebrews.
The current Roman Catholic view is even quite liberal to the historical view on birth control.
I am from a Jewish background and totally understand that contraception is morally wrong even when I did not know what the Church taught on this. This has always been the moral precurser to a societies moral decline.
From my understanding of the Bible, one of the signs of the end will be that women will not want to have children and homosexuality will become commonplace

Naomi

 

[Pieman333272]

I recall reading some recent articles from evangelicals that criticized contraception on natural law grounds. I’ll try to dig them up.

 

[Nabooru]

I assume you are referring to Christians who have no reason in faith to respect the teaching of the *Catholic *Church as being ‘from God’.

Quiverfull is a movement among some conservative evangelical Christian couples chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and elsewhere. It promotes procreation, and sees children as a blessing from God, eschewing all forms of birth control, including natural family planning and sterilization.

Quiverfull is a little different from the Catholic position in that it not only forbids all use of birth control, its practitioners actively pursue having as many children as physically possible, not matter what a family’s situation might be. That’s why you hear of those families of 20+ kids in which the mom is pretty much perpetually pregnant. In their view, the Catholic couple practicing abstinence in order to avoid a baby for health or economic reasons would be sinners.

Now this sort of thinking does do some harm, I think, besides the obvious. The Duggars are getting pregnant well into the wife’s forties, and their last surviving child was born with a lot of problems, and the last pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. I just don’t believe it’s healthy or natural for a woman’s body to be used to that extreme, and I don’t think it bodes well for whatever children she continues to have. But I’m not a doctor.