Most Catholic women use birth control banned by church

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•25% describe themselves as Catholic, 25% as evangelical, and 22% as mainline Protestant
•30% of Catholic women attend Mass weekly, while 50% of evangelicals and 24% of mainline Protestants worship weekly
•46% of Catholic women say religion is very important to their daily lives, compared to 77% of evangelicals and 44% of mainline Protestants
•98% of Catholic women-- and 99% of all women-- have at one time used artificial contraception.
•“68% of Catholic women use highly effective methods: sterilization (32%, including 24% using female sterilization,) the pill or another hormonal method (31%) and the IUD (5%).
•“Only 3% of married Catholic women who do not want to become pregnant rely on natural family planning; 72% use highly effective methods, including 40% who rely on sterilization.”

catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=9990
How can we feel surprised by those numbers? Is it not obvious that there is at the very least a mild (yet still wide spread) apostasy in place now?
 
The rate of abortions among “Catholic” women is probably similarly bad since contraception and abortion are so intimately linked.

Strong religious beliefs and contraceptive use are incompatible, despite the wishful thinking of the Guttmacher Institute (planned Parenthood.)
 
I wonder how many of those Catholic women are married to Catholic men.
 
Actually, I’m not that surprised. We live in the culture of death where everyone wants to be their own god. It’s the original sin. Eve believed the serpent in the Garden of Eden who told her that not only would she NOT die if she ate of the forbidden fruit, but she would be “like god” and be able to choose for herself what was right and what was wrong. And this is the sin of almost every person I’ve ever met in this country! Woe be to them.

We can either accept God on His terms, or our terms. Wanting Him on our terms does nothing to help us toward salvation.
 
Let’s face it, guys. Catchesis in the Catholic Church has been flat-out terrible in the last few decades. I see silver linings in some of the clouds nowadays- depending upon the parish- but when I was growing up (around the eighties and ninties) I heard nary a thing about what the Church had to say about birth control, sex within marriage and other concerns. As we learn more about our Catholic faith, it is now our job to educate the next generation so that they don’t grow up abysmally ignorant of the Church’s teachings like we were.
 
I cannot say that the numbers of Catholic women using contraceptives is surprising… sad, but not surprising… It is this among others things–like rampant fornication among our young and not so young Catholic–that is sickening… The fact that many clergy want to ignore the immorality of the “faithful” sitting in the pews so as not to insult anyone or drive anyone away is even more tragic… The people keep sinning gravely, keep coming to Mass and keep recieving the Most Holy Eucharist in a state of mortal sin! This not only keeps their souls in complete and utter darkness and outside of salvation, but harms the whole church! More people need to stand up and tell the truth and encourage their priests to do the same… then back them when the heat goes up…

Repent and believe the good news!
 
If these numbers are true, they tell us little.

The important thing is not how many people sin, which is 100%, but how many are forgiven.

When will they do a poll asking how many Catholics seek absolution for their sins?
 
In fairness to all these women, maybe they don’t know alot about WHY the church says contraception is bad. Maybe they are just nervous about Natural Family Planning and doubt it’s effectiveness?

Notice I’m NOT saying that contraception is a good thing. Keep that in mind.
 
wild_thing said:
Let’s face it, guys. Catchesis in the Catholic Church has been flat-out terrible in the last few decades. I see silver linings in some of the clouds nowadays- depending upon the parish- but when I was growing up (around the eighties and ninties) I heard nary a thing about what the Church had to say about birth control, sex within marriage and other concerns. As we learn more about our Catholic faith, it is now our job to educate the next generation so that they don’t grow up abysmally ignorant of the Church’s teachings like we were.
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I was a pretty liberal Catholic–what they used to call a Commonweal Catholic–in the early '60s. And I greeted the reforms with pleasure. But I found I was a Girondin who found himself ruled by Jacobins. Not quick.It took me twenty years to realize this. Ironically, I didn’t get what my hero Jacques Maritain was saying in 1965, that the Church was genuflecting to the world. That says it all.
 
Serap said:
I see a lot of judging in this thread. That’s what I meant. I dislike this about the Catholic community. So much judging and it pushes many people away.
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👍👍👍👍👍👍

(um, in case it needs to be more clear, I agree totally with what you said!)
 
What I find interesting from the NSFG data is that the RC women who attend church once a week and say that religion is important in their lives are much more likely to choose sterilization as their contraception of choice. The reason for this is that sterilization is a one-time event and so the couple sterilizes themselves, confesses to a priest, and is then is back in the state of grace for the weekend.

It shows that the teaching of the Church is something that weighs heavily on a lot of couples’ hearts. They don’t have the courage to follow the teaching come what may, but at the same time they still don’t want to break away from the Church or live with a guilty conscience
 
KostyaJMJ said:
What I find interesting from the NSFG data is that the RC women who attend church once a week and say that religion is important in their lives are much more likely to choose sterilization as their contraception of choice. The reason for this is that sterilization is a one-time event and so the couple sterilizes themselves, confesses to a priest, and is then is back in the state of grace for the weekend.

It shows that the teaching of the Church is something that weighs heavily on a lot of couples’ hearts. They don’t have the courage to follow the teaching come what may, but at the same time they still don’t want to break away from the Church or live with a guilty conscience
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it could also mean they are reverts…
 
Mary_Gail_36 said:
:confused:
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vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.htmlThe seven spiritual works of mercy:
  1. Counsel the doubtful.
  2. Instruct the ignorant.
  3. Admonish sinners.
  4. Comfort the afflicted.
  5. Forgive offenses.
  6. Bear wrongs patiently.
  7. Pray for the living and the dead.
    That gets you a wagging finger of judgment.
But that’s what the Church actually teaches, and it makes some people uncomfortable. You need to use this list to avoid the wagging finger of judgment: The seven spiritual works of mercy:
  1. Counsel the doubtful.
    -]2. Instruct the ignorant.
  2. Admonish sinners./-]
  3. Comfort the afflicted.
  4. Forgive offenses.
  5. Bear wrongs patiently.
  6. Pray for the living and the dead.
    :coffeeread:
 
Serap,
There hasn’t been any judgement of anyone’s soul on this thread. We are allowed to judge polls and statistics (we are not allowed to judge who is going to hell). We are allowed to talk about why we have this situation in the Catholic Church. It’s obvious from the stats, that women either don’t understand, understand and don’t care/go to confession, or don’t care about what the Church teaches about contracpetion. This is a serious problem and to simply ignore it isn’t doing anyone any good.
 
wild_thing said:
Let’s face it, guys. Catchesis in the Catholic Church has been flat-out terrible in the last few decades. I see silver linings in some of the clouds nowadays- depending upon the parish- but when I was growing up (around the eighties and ninties) I heard nary a thing about what the Church had to say about birth control, sex within marriage and other concerns. As we learn more about our Catholic faith, it is now our job to educate the next generation so that they don’t grow up abysmally ignorant of the Church’s teachings like we were.
Click to expand...
**Yes.**I became a young adult in the early 80s, and my childhood friends and I (Catholic school graduates all) heard nothing about Catholic views on human sexuality beyond the ‘wait until marriage’ and ‘abortion is a sin’ teachings. I watched a couple of friends get married right out of college, have babies in their first year of marriage, freak out for a whole host of reasons about getting pregnant again, and use ABC because they couldn’t a lick of decent information about NFP from their local parishes. (Remember, these are the years before the interwebs.)

Happily, our parish has a NFP ministry run by a registered nurse so our kids don’t have to live in the ignorance we did.
 
Rascalking said:
In fairness to all these women, maybe they don’t know alot about WHY the church says contraception is bad. Maybe they are just nervous about Natural Family Planning and doubt it’s effectiveness?

Notice I’m NOT saying that contraception is a good thing. Keep that in mind.
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I think it is more likely that many Catholics understand what the Church teaches and simply disagree. Not all disobedience is from obstinence or ignorance or weakness - sometime it is a good faith disagreement.
 
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