Is it true that the Canadian Council of Bishops has allowed artificial contraception?

[Jehanne_Darc]

I don’t believe it, but a friend of mine was adament about this. I did check the CCCB website and found nothing.

Does anybody know?

I know the Church teaching on the matter that is not the issue.

 

[Dale_M]

Your friend may be referring to the 1968 “Winnipeg Statement”, which was released as a clarification of the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

The Winnipeg Statement doesn’t say that contraception is okay. But it does say that contraception can be used with a clear conscience so long as the couple has honestly tried to avoid it. Here are some excerpts:

Many married people experience a truly agonizing difficulty in reconciling the need to express conjugal love with the responsible transmission of human life.

Since they are not denying any point of divine and Catholic faith nor rejecting the teaching authority of the Church, these Catholics should not be considered or consider themselves, shut off from the body of the faithful. But they should remember that their good faith will be dependent on a sincere self-examination to determine the true motives and grounds for such suspension of assent

In accord with the accepted principles of moral theology, if these persons have tried sincerely but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with the given directives, they may be safely assured that, whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.

therosarium.ca/indextemps/winnipeg.html

 

[Tonks40]

Hmmm…I’ve never heard of this, but it seems like a cop-out to me!

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I don’t believe it, but a friend of mine was adament about this. I did check the CCCB website and found nothing.

Does anybody know?

I know the Church teaching on the matter that is not the issue.

No of course not. They don’t have the authority to do so, period, even if they wanted to.

 

[Rosalinda]

It is my gut feeling that Canada has legalized same-sex marriage today because of the Winnipeg statement. Many Catholics reasoned that it good conscience they could not object to this radical change in the status of people suffering with same-sex attraction. In point of fact, proponents of ssm eagerly pointed out during the debate the hypocrisy of Christians who had already separated the unitive from the procreative act of marriage by using contraception. Eyes rolled whenever the sacredness of marriage was defended in the press. It was news to a lot of Catholics. At long last, when the Canadian bishops tried to fight this dramatic legislative change - some two generations after the Winnipeg statement - they were toothless. If the bishops don’t listen to the Pope and the priests don’t listen to their bishops why would anyone expect the faithful to listen to their priests? In other words, a breakdown of authority ensued. Catholic Canadians just shrugged their shoulders at the request of local bishops to get involved.

Sad to say, even the Knights of Columbus in my brother’s local council refused to get involved. Where we needed leadership, with few exceptions such as Bishop Henry of Calgary, Alberta, we had cowards.

 

[Rosalinda]

There is an ungodly similarity between the Winnipeg Statement and the statement that started the revolt against the truth about married love and contraception. Until 1930 all Christian communities considered contraception a grave moral evil. In 1908, at a Lambeth Conference, the Anglicans reaffirmed constant Christian doctrine in saying it "earnestly calls upon all Christian people to discontinue the use of all artificial means (of contraception) as demoralizing to character and hostile to national welfare” (Resolution 41). The betrayal of truth came at the Lambeth Conference in 1930. Then it was declared that a couple could use contraceptives "where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood” (Resolution 15)…**The Winnipeg Statement is a near clone of the Lambeth betrayal.**Soon after it,countless Canadian Catholics claimed that the practice of contraception was a "right.”

From an Adobe document by Msgr. Vincent Foy entitled, Fifty Reasons Why the Winnipeg Statement Should Be Recalled
lifesite.net/ldn/2004_docs/fiftyreasons.pdf

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

The Bishops “clarified” the statement soon after with something along the lines of “using your concience as a guide…but of course ou have to form your concience propoerly and Church teaching is the best way to do this…So obviously you should not use contraception.”

It was a sad day for Catholics in Canada…

Also, Archbishop Thomas Collins is a pretty good leader as well. He was a strong voice against the Same Sex Marriage movement here.

 

[chevalier]

Doesn’t look particularly anti-anticonception, that statement.