I accept Birth Control, and that's not gonna change!

[Karin]

are you telling the people that you are teaching that birth control is ok and acceptable? If you are doing this I would say no you should not be teaching them.

First, I would like to thank everyone for their imput, varied as it is. I am especially impressed by the love I have found on these forums, and the lack of condemnation. Most people on this forum seem to stand for strong moral principles, while also showing an exceptional love.

I find this very impressive.

Though I believe that the Church Militant’s teaching concerning contraception can change, because it is not an infallible matter of faith and morals, I am a lay person. More so, I am a lay person who assists in teaching catechism.

Though I may hold these personal beliefs which are at odds with the teaching of the Church, I do not find it responsible to share my reasons with anyone, at risk of heresy.

For maybe I am wrong, and if I am, but if my reasons are found to be good reasons by someone, or if I scandalize the faith to someone curious about the faith, or if I misrepresent the Church either here or, even worse, to those in the classes I help teach, and lead them into error, I would be responsible for both deceiving myself and deceiving them.

As a responsible lay-person, I will not outright defend contraception at this time, nor will I identify myself in my support of contraception.

But I still practice contraception with my wife, and I find nothing wrong with doing so, even after reading “Theology of the Body”, and also St. Augustine who has said:

“Of all sins belonging to lust, that which is against nature (contracepting) is the worst.”

And St. Thomas Aquinas, agreeing with St. Augustine, who also said(Q 154, Art. 12, Rep. Obj. 2):

“Vices against nature are also against God… and are so much more grievous than the depravity of sacrilege, as the order impressed on human nature is prior to and more firm than any subsequently established order.”

Though I know and understand this, I still find no real sin in contracepting. I am speaking with a strong Dominican Priest about it in private (I am in the Fraternity of St. Dominic, called once the Third Order) so as to be able to share my reasons, find them challenged, and still not risk accidentally leading one of God’s Own away from Him, as is a real risk. But as for a forum accessible by laity, I cannot in good conscience share my reasons with you all.

So I will state that I contracept, and should this not change, is it honest of me to still share Catholic teaching to others? Is it honest of me to even still consider myself a Catholic?

The responses to these questions thus far have been mixed. So have they been from the Dominicans, who though they agree I am Roman Catholic, and should be allowed to teach RCIA so long as I keep my personal and erroneous views to myself, are not certain among themselves that I should continue to participate in RCIA, or that I should consider myself Catholic, since what I believe is at odds with what the Church teaches.

These Dominicans also do not agree entirely among themselves that the Church’s teaching concerning contraception is truly infallible teaching, though all of them say they have little doubt as to its being correct teaching.

Again, I open it up to you, as I would like to hear more. Should I continue with RCIA, do you think? Should I continue to consider myself, and to call myself, Catholic? Or, if my beliefs concerning contraception are not to change at all, would the Anglican Church be better for me?

I am interested in your views.

 

[noma]

are you telling the people that you are teaching that birth control is ok and acceptable? If you are doing this I would say no you should not be teaching them.

Absolutely not. On the contrary, I teach, in line with the current teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, that contraception is a grave matter, and if done with knowledge of its gravity, and of one’s own free will, it constitutes mortal sin, and that someone in mortal sin should not take part in communion until they have confessed this sin to a Priest.

 

[carol_marie]

Noma,
That you would even consider leaving the Catholic Church & becoming Anglican so that you could continue to practice artificial birth control leads me to believe that you should not be teaching RCIA at this time.

How can you teach & enourage others to fall in love with our beautiful faith when you are willing to walk away?

 

[carol_marie]

Absolutely not. On the contrary, I teach, in line with the current teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, that contraception is a grave matter, and if done with knowledge of its gravity, and of one’s own free will, it constitutes mortal sin, and that someone in mortal sin should not take part in communion until they have confessed this sin to a Priest.

So you teach others about Communion but you don’t receive it?? If someone in RCIA class noticed, wouldn’t that open up a can of worms??

 

[Cristiano]

Again, I open it up to you, as I would like to hear more. Should I continue with RCIA, do you think? Should I continue to consider myself, and to call myself, Catholic? Or, if my beliefs concerning contraception are not to change at all, would the Anglican Church be better for me?

I am interested in your views.

I would encourage you to pause for now with your teaching activity. The reason, is that Catholics must believe in the infallible teachings of the Church. This is a fundamental tenet of the Church, Christ said so. How can you honestly feel good about teaching that if yourself do not believe in it. You should still consider yourself a Catholic and you should keep working on your spiritual development. You are not either the first or the last person going through this dilemma.

Changing church is not going to do you any good because deep down you know that you are a Catholic that needs to find a way to reconcile with the Church. From your post I do not see any strong moral dilemma in favor of birth control, just the convenience. You just stated that maybe some members of the Church might agree with you even when the Church documents say the opposite. This is the challenge that you have been given, now search your soul, pray, and do your homework. The homework also involves looking into Natural family Planning.

 

[noma]

So you teach others about Communion but you don’t receive it?? If someone in RCIA class noticed, wouldn’t that open up a can of worms??

I do take communion (most weeks, when I do not find myself in mortal sin), as I find nothing wrong with birth control. The Priest giving communion knows this, and still gives me communion.

 

[Karin]

I do take communion (most weeks, when I do not find myself in mortal sin), as I find nothing wrong with birth control. The Priest giving communion knows this, and still gives me communion.

 

[Cristiano]

So you teach others about Communion but you don’t receive it?? If someone in RCIA class noticed, wouldn’t that open up a can of worms??

I teach about communion and sometime I do not receive it. This is about a honest relationship with Christ and His Church even when we sin, have just eaten, or simply we do not feel worthy. I am not to ask anybody (except my child) why they do not go to confession or receive communion. It seem to me that the OP is working at his best to be intellectually and spiritually honest, and I think that his struggle is hardship enough without people’s judgment.

 

[mike182d]

I find that the only consistent position to accept is that the Church would support artificial contraception for the purposes of regulating pregnancies.

Contraception was not invented for the purpose of regulating pregnancies. There was already an inexpensive, 100% effective method in place: abstinence. Rather, contraception was invented for the sole purpose of allowing human beings to give in to their desires without discipline or fear of consequence.

What part of this do you find consistent with Church teaching or that of Christ Himself?

 

[Cristiano]

I do take communion (most weeks, when I do not find myself in mortal sin), as I find nothing wrong with birth control. The Priest giving communion knows this, and still gives me communion.

This simple statement might confuse a lot of people including myself. My first reaction is that you and the priest are doing something horribly wrong.

My more charitable other side is telling me that you go through confession and that you receive communion when you are not in a state of mortal sin. You know very well when you are in a state of mortal sin. The priest has spent more time talking to you than anyone in this forum will ever do. If in his judgment you are ready to receive communion than that is fine with me. He may understand your thoughts much better than we do after a couple of posts.

 

[mercygate]

Did you arrive at your decision in good conscience?

People here like to say other people aren’t “in full communion with the Church”. But the Church itself didn’t seem to have any problem paying off pedophile Priests’ victims in many different countries so they would keep quiet and then keeping the offending Priests “in communion with the Church” by simply assigning them to one parish after another where they continued to abuse young people sexually. There are literally hundreds of such cases. I guess using a condom or the pill is a graver sin than child molestation.

I wonder how many of the strict rigorist doctrinaires in the forum are off the hook as far as contraception goes because they don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s easy to be a doctrinaire if the tubes are already tied or the vasectomy already done, or one of the spouses is past reproduction age.

Well, before we were Catholic, early in our marriage, we intuited the “wrongness” of contraception and stopped doing it. Period. We didn’t need the Catholic Church to tell us that there was something deeply dishonest about coming together without being completely open to one another and to the possiblity of life.

I guess we were just lucky. It wasn’t until **after **I became Catholic, and somebody challenged me by saying the Church’s position on ABC was “absurd.” So I had to do my homework in order to respond with something other than my personal intuition and experience.

What a magnificent teaching this is! Like a lot of other things people snipe at the Catholic Church for, this is a glorious and beautiful understanding of God’s plan for married life.

 

[maryalene]

Personally, I tend to think that you should not being teaching RCIA since you are not obedient to the Church and your soul is not in a state of grace. However, so long as you are not promoting teachings contrary to the Church, I would think the decision to teach RCIA would be between you and God.

While you are still Catholic and you should still attend Mass, you should also abstain from the Eucharist since you are not repentant for your sin.

Finally, I find it very sad to hear that you state you have read and understand the Church’s teaching on abc as well as the writings of some of our Church fathers. And yet for whatever reason (convenience, medical, etc), you have decided that your wisdom on this issue supersedes 2,000 years of Church teaching and Tradition.

 

[LilyM]

noma, I’m a little puzzled.

If you sincerely believe that there are circumstances or arguments that make it morally permissible to contracept then don’t you owe it to your students to teach them so and not otherwise? Aren’t you setting up something of a double standard here?

And when you say ‘mortal sin’ I presume you’re referring to mortal sins other than contracepting, yes?

What precisely is your belief in regard to your contraceptive practices? Do you take the view that they’re venial sins or not sins at all? Do you feel that it is only in special circumstances that the Catechism’s statement doesn’t apply, or that it is never a mortal sin?

Frankly, where do you and your priests find the wiggle room? Isn’t the catechism a proper exercise by any standards of the teaching authority, the magisterium, of the Church, and aren’t all the faithful bound in obedience to the magisterium to accept it?

 

[FillTheVoid]

This has been troubling me somewhat also.

I don’t see what the problem is with Birth Control, am I forced to have a lot of children?

Why can’t I choose when and how many children I would like to have? Do you have to leave it all up to chance? What if a couple wanted to wait a few years before having children?

What if I had a child at the age of 40? I wouldn’t want to die when my child is only 20.

 

[noma]

Finally, I find it very sad to hear that you state you have read and understand the Church’s teaching on abc as well as the writings of some of our Church fathers. And yet for whatever reason (convenience, medical, etc), you have decided that your wisdom on this issue supersedes 2,000 years of Church teaching and Tradition.

I believe that the discipline that the Church Fathers teach concerning Birth Control is incorrect. I believe that the ethics, and natural law itself lead to the acceptance of birth control as morally neutral. As such, using Birth Control, I accept, is not a sin.

I say this not to try to argue that I am right (I may very well be wrong), but to distinguish that I am not accepting the potential sinlessness of contracepting because it is convenient (at least, that is not what I am consciously doing), but rather because I truly believe it, and believe that the Church, through her infallible teachings on faith and morals, teaches just this, and that the contradiction between this implicit moral teaching and its current explicit disciplinary teaching will be resolved when the Church abandons its current stance concerning contraception.

 

[Corki]

Personally, I tend to think that you should not being teaching RCIA since you are not obedient to the Church and your soul is not in a state of grace. However, so long as you are not promoting teachings contrary to the Church, I would think the decision to teach RCIA would be between you and God.

While you are still Catholic and you should still attend Mass, you should also abstain from the Eucharist since you are not repentant for your sin.

Finally, I find it very sad to hear that you state you have read and understand the Church’s teaching on abc as well as the writings of some of our Church fathers. And yet for whatever reason (convenience, medical, etc), you have decided that your wisdom on this issue supersedes 2,000 years of Church teaching and Tradition.

Very well said.

 

[FillTheVoid]

So everytime a married couple has sex it must be for pro creation and union etc. Not just pleasure?

 

[noma]

noma, I’m a little puzzled.

If you sincerely believe that there are circumstances or arguments that make it morally permissible to contracept then don’t you owe it to your students to teach them so and not otherwise? Aren’t you setting up something of a double standard here?

I believe that I may be doing so. That is why I opened up the question about whether I should (a) continue to teach RCIA (I am starting to see that I probably should not), and (b) whether I should call myself Catholic when friends ask, because often it follows with the awkward situation of their asking me what I think about Birth Control, and my risking misrepresenting the current teachings of the Church.

A very good question, and a good point (if such you wished to make it).

And when you say ‘mortal sin’ I presume you’re referring to mortal sins other than contracepting, yes?

Yes, this is the case.

What precisely is your belief in regard to your contraceptive practices? Do you take the view that they’re venial sins or not sins at all? Do you feel that it is only in special circumstances that the Catechism’s statement doesn’t apply, or that it is never a mortal sin?

There are certain circumstances where contracepting would constitute mortal sin (the way I think many people use it). I think there are others where it does not.

Being closed to having children within marriage is a mortal sin. But I do not believe that every sexual act needs to be open to having children.

Frankly, where do you and your priests find the wiggle room? Isn’t the catechism a proper exercise by any standards of the teaching authority, the magisterium, of the Church, and aren’t all the faithful bound in obedience to the magisterium to accept it?

Don’t get me wrong, the Dominicans (I think) accept this teaching (that contraception is wrong) as absolutely true. Some (not all) just don’t consider it infallible. Though it would be good to remember that I am at a sort of hub for the Order of Preachers, and so many of the people I talk with are right out of Seminary.

I hope this helps to answer your questions.

 

[LilyM]

I believe that the discipline that the Church Fathers teach concerning Birth Control is incorrect. I believe that the ethics, and natural law itself lead to the acceptance of birth control as morally neutral. As such, using Birth Control, I accept, is not a sin.

I say this not to try to argue that I am right (I may very well be wrong), but to distinguish that I am not accepting the potential sinlessness of contracepting because it is convenient (at least, that is not what I am consciously doing), but rather because I truly believe it, and believe that the Church, through her infallible teachings on faith and morals, teaches just this, and that the contradiction between this implicit moral teaching and its current explicit disciplinary teaching will be resolved when the Church abandons its current stance concerning contraception.

The question remains though - why set your own private judgement (however disinterested and well-educated it may be) and those of *some *priests (The majority almost certainly would not support them) above that of the teaching authority of the Church?

After all, Martin Luther and his followers disagreed with the Church about Papal Authority, presumably they were as well educated as yourself, they may also have been disinterested as yourself. Although clearly you did have a horse running in this race if you do contracept yourself. They too did nothing worse than put their own private judgement above the teaching authority of the Church. How then are you different?

With all due respect it is the Popes and the magisterium, and not yourself and your group of priests, who are gifted with the power of binding and loosing and guaranteed the protection of the Holy Spirit. If they have made clear (which they have) that the Catechism is indeed binding on all the faithful … ?

 

[mike182d]

So everytime a married couple has sex it must be for pro creation and union etc. Not just pleasure?

Absolutely. There is no greater sin than using another person as strickly a means for pleasure. This is often referred to as being “used” and is the reason why the divorce rate is greater than 50% for couples who contracept while being less than 2% for couples that don’t.

Furthermore, the Church says “procreation” not “reproduction.” Big difference. “Procreation” literally means “for life” or “for creation.” Married couples are not baby factories, but the very charism of married life is the creation of life itself and to purposely deny that charism is to deny the very thing that makes marital union a Sacrament.

I took a vow on my wedding day that I would be faithful to my wife. This means, every time I have sex, it has to be with my wife.

I also took a vow on my wedding that I would be open to life. This means, every time I have sex, I have to be open to life.

Unless you took different vows, all Catholics are bound by these as they were made before Almighty God and if one vow can be denied, why not others?