Most Catholic women use birth control banned by church

[Rence]

Nobody is burdened by following the teaching of the Church.

Of course they are…and we know this because Jesus said the road would be hard to travel. It’s not supposed to be easy. Some things are very burdensome to some, and different things for others. Some of the biggest stumbling blocks are shared by many…otherwise everyone wouldn’t have a problem with them. But one can make it easier for the person who is burdened by another showing the way it is not burdensome to them. It’s not that we shouldn’t teach or correct. We should always teach and correct. But the message wil not be received well if the message isn’t sent in a charitable and understanding way. If the message is negative, it will be ignored.

 

[1holycatholic]

Of course they are…and we know this because Jesus said the road would be hard to travel. It’s not supposed to be easy. Some things are very burdensome to some, and different things for others. Some of the biggest stumbling blocks are shared by many…otherwise everyone wouldn’t have a problem with them. But one can make it easier for the person who is burdened by another showing the way it is not burdensome to them. It’s not that we shouldn’t teach or correct. We should always teach and correct. But the message wil not be received well if the message isn’t sent in a charitable and understanding way. If the message is negative, it will be ignored.

Funny how artificial contraception wasn’t a stumbling block for Catholics in the first nineteen centuries of the Church until the zeitgeist of the 1960’s and it’s systemic rejection of legitimate authority.

What is worse than the sin of contraception is the denial that contraception is even a sin. It is the affirmation of self and the denial of Christ.

 

[Rence]

Funny how artificial contraception wasn’t a stumbling block for Catholics in the first nineteen centuries of the Church until the zeitgeist of the 1960’s and it’s systemic rejection of legitimate authority.

What is worse than the sin of contraception is the denial that contraception is even a sin. It is the affirmation of self and the denial of Christ.

Well…try convincing a couple already burdend by piles of bills, emotional stresses, and cultural norms with some fire and brimstone and see if that works. My reaction would be…ok, the Church wants me to have more kids…the Church can pay for them, and hire a nanny to care for them because I’m up to my ears in stress and I’m plain exhausted. Now, for something a tad different, try convincing that couple by inviting them to your home, and SHOWING what a positive and joyous life it is to have a big family, nonchalantly discussing how you saved money, how you made it work, how everyone pitches in. SHOW them the positives. The postives work before the fire and brimstone will.

Even if I’m on the same page with someone, so rupugnant are negative and belligerent comments about Church teachings, I can’t stand to listen. So I don’t get why would someone who doesn’t know the teachings would listen if approached in that fashion.

And contraception had to be a stumbling block for Catholics the first 1900 years, or the Church Father’s wouldn’t have had to forbid it back then. This isn’t a new problem.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

Funny how artificial contraception wasn’t a stumbling block for Catholics in the first nineteen centuries of the Church until the zeitgeist of the 1960’s and it’s systemic rejection of legitimate authority.

Artificial birth control, prior to the 1960’s, wasn’t necessarily reliable and wasn’t exactly as easy or “user friendly” as modern contraceptives. It simply wasn’t that much of a temptation as it became post-1960’s.

What is worse than the sin of contraception is the denial that contraception is even a sin. It is the affirmation of self and the denial of Christ.

Let’s not get carried away here. People who use ABC’s aren’t in denial of Christ. We are all sinners and sometimes we don’t recognize our own sins.

We need to remember, there have never been glory days of the Church where the overwhelming majority accepted all Church teachings in faith and love. The “issue of the day” may change, but there’s at its core there’s nothing new under the sun.

 

[irishpatrick]

Well…try convincing a couple already burdend by piles of bills, emotional stresses, and cultural norms with some fire and brimstone and see if that works. My reaction would be…ok, the Church wants me to have more kids…the Church can pay for them, and hire a nanny to care for them because I’m up to my ears in stress and I’m plain exhausted. Now, for something a tad different, try convincing that couple by inviting them to your home, and SHOWING what a positive and joyous life it is to have a big family, nonchalantly discussing how you saved money, how you made it work, how everyone pitches in. SHOW them the positives. The postives work before the fire and brimstone will.

Even if I’m on the same page with someone, so rupugnant are negative and belligerent comments about Church teachings, I can’t stand to listen. So I don’t get why would someone who doesn’t know the teachings would listen if approached in that fashion.

And contraception had to be a stumbling block for Catholics the first 1900 years, or the Church Father’s wouldn’t have had to forbid it back then. This isn’t a new problem.

Christians should be more concerned about following Christ and His Church, than about what others may say or not say. Sometimes we all look for excuses NOT to obey.

 

[1holycatholic]

Let’s not get carried away here. People who use ABC’s aren’t in denial of Christ. We are all sinners and sometimes we don’t recognize our own sins.

That’s why I differentiated between the two, one is the sin of contraception, the other is an “obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same.” That would be a rejection of Christ in some way since the Church is Christ. Now it’s possible that that there are Catholics that sat through years of CCD classes and don’t know that the Catholic Church teaches that contraception is a sin. I was not raised Catholic and it was common knowledge that the Church forbade contraceptive use. And it’s not like anyone ever mentioned the Catholic Church at the Protestant services I attended, the Catholic Church wasn’t even on the radar.

We need to remember, there have never been glory days of the Church where the overwhelming majority accepted all Church teachings in faith and love. The “issue of the day” may change, but there’s at its core there’s nothing new under the sun.

I am aware of this.

 

[wanner47]

Let’s get one thing straight, Rence. The Church’s teachings on contraception =/= the Church “telling people to have more kids.”

The Church does not tell anyone how many children to have. The Church teaches that all couples must prayerfully discern on a regular basis whether or not they are called to have more children. If the couple discerns that they have just reasons for avoiding pregnancy, then they are free to either abstain or use NFP to that end.

Here’s what I don’t get about the mindset that artificial contraception is not a sin. All Christian churches up until 1930 taught that contraception was a sin, right? So that means three scenarios are possible:

(a) God has always been fine with contraception but allowed all Christian churches to teach error for 1,960 years;
(b) God considered contraception sinful for 1,960 years and then changed His mind;
(c) God has always considered contraception sinful and still does.

It seems to me that both (a) and (b) introduce a whole host of other problems, so that the only possible scenario is (c).

 

[irishpatrick]

God did say to be fruitful and to multiply…to multiply means to increase the amount. If a healthy Catholic couple has two or less children they are NOT multiplying.

We need MORE Christians, not less. We need MORE Jesus, not less. We need more large Catholic Christian families, not less.

The solution to the world’s problems is Christ. If we want to help the world, we need to be thoroughly Catholic and have as many children as you can within our own life situations and contraints. There is it no magic number…yet the more truly Catholic kids we can raise–the better off the world will be.

As Catholics and Church goes–so goes the world!

 

[mark_a]

Let’s get one thing straight, Rence. The Church’s teachings on contraception =/= the Church “telling people to have more kids.”

The Church does not tell anyone how many children to have. The Church teaches that all couples must prayerfully discern on a regular basis whether or not they are called to have more children. If the couple discerns that they have just reasons for avoiding pregnancy, then they are free to either abstain or use NFP to that end.

Here’s what I don’t get about the mindset that artificial contraception is not a sin. All Christian churches up until 1930 taught that contraception was a sin, right? So that means three scenarios are possible:

(a) God has always been fine with contraception but allowed all Christian churches to teach error for 1,960 years;
(b) God considered contraception sinful for 1,960 years and then changed His mind;
(c) God has always considered contraception sinful and still does.

It seems to me that both (a) and (b) introduce a whole host of other problems, so that the only possible scenario is (c).

I agree, but here’s the rub:

At one point, we lived in a culture that thought, at least outwardly, that Onanism (which is really what condom usage is) was a sin, although it was widely practiced privately.

One of the benefits of the pill was that, at least on a technicality, Onanism was avoided.

And then the abortifecient properties (another technicality depending on when one believes life begins) of hormonal contraceptives, touted by the manufacturers’ own information included in the packaging along with the drugs, became widely known as something to be avoided by Catholics and sundry other Christians.

So now we’re back to the same arguments promoting Onanism, which has been condemned for 3000 years by the Abrahamic religions.

It’s all very confusing.

 

[wanner47]

By the way, I was recently reminded that my friend Leila did a truly excellent blog post on how NFP both physically and morally differs from contraception, and I really recommend reading it if you’re on the fence about this issue. She’s a fantastic writer and explains things with great clarity:

littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/2011/03/important-follow-up-to-natural-family.html

An excerpt:

[C]ontraception fundamentally changes the very nature of sex. In some cases, the spouses’ bodies themselves are altered through chemical or surgical means, and in other cases there is a literal, physical barrier put between husband and wife at the moment they are called to be united as “one flesh”. Contraception subverts the inherent, purposeful connection between love and life (i.e., sex and procreation), and when those two dimensions of sex are artificially separated, the marital act itself becomes disordered. To deliberately sterilize the marital act is to strip it of its transcendence and meaning. Sex leaves the sacred and becomes common.

With NFP, by contrast, the spouses and the marital act remain untouched and unaltered. Husband and wife unite in love as they are designed, and fertility works within the rhythms that God (and Natural Law) intends. The integrity of the martial act is completely intact.

 

[Serap]

That’s why I differentiated between the two, one is the sin of contraception, the other is an “obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same.” That would be a rejection of Christ in some way since the Church is Christ. Now it’s possible that that there are Catholics that sat through years of CCD classes and don’t know that the Catholic Church teaches that contraception is a sin. I was not raised Catholic and it was common knowledge that the Church forbade contraceptive use. And it’s not like anyone ever mentioned the Catholic Church at the Protestant services I attended, the Catholic Church wasn’t even on the radar.

I am aware of this.

I am just curious. Do Protestants reject Christ? Did Lutheran reject Christ? Did Calvin reject Christ?

What are the thoughts on this thread?

 

[estesbob]

I am just curious. Do Protestants reject Christ? Did Lutheran reject Christ? Did Calvin reject Christ?

What are the thoughts on this thread?

They rejected his Church

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

That’s why I differentiated between the two, one is the sin of contraception, the other is an “obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same.”

You’re making academic and canonical distinctions that simply don’t exist for the average person in the pew. The average person isn’t a theologian and isn’t trying to be.

That would be a rejection of Christ in some way since the Church is Christ.

If the average person drew such stark lines, then yes. But even the Pope doesn’t go around preaching in those terms to people because that’s not exactly what’s happening in these cases.

 

[mark_a]

Do Protestants reject Christ? Did Lutheran reject Christ? Did Calvin reject Christ?

No. The bottom line is they reject the Holy office established by Jesus, even though none at the time rejected the Churches teachings about contraception.

Now, to my knowledge, only WELS reject contraception. They even take a dim view of nfp. The rest have been influenced by the culture.

Backwards, isn’t it?

 

[wanner47]

I am just curious. Do Protestants reject Christ? Did Lutheran reject Christ? Did Calvin reject Christ?

What are the thoughts on this thread?

All religion have elements of the truth, even the ones that DO deny Christ (e.g., Islam).

In terms of Protestantism, they have more elements of the truth because they do recognize Christ. But they still lack the *fullness *of the faith which is found in Catholicism.

When I was Lutheran, I did not *knowingly *reject Christ or his Church. The vast majority of Protestants, likewise, do not *knowingly *reject Christ or His Church. They have invincible ignorance in that regard. However, objectively, they are doing so without realizing it. Their culpability depends on if they know the Church was the one founded by Christ and given teaching authority.

 

[Serap]

They rejected his Church

Wow…ok…just wanted to know what I was dealing with on this thread. I got my answer loud and clear.

 

[wanner47]

Wow…ok…just wanted to know what I was dealing with on this thread. I got my answer loud and clear.

Serap, I’m curious, what are you dealing with? Do you deny that the Church has the fullness of truth?

Protestantism was *founded *as a rejection of the Church. The thing was that the founders probably didn’t intend to reject Christ, but the fact is that they did so by trying to remake Christ in their own image, and by usurping the teaching authority that Christ gave only to His Church and replacing it with sola scriptura.

That does NOT mean that all Protestants are damned, as you seem to think we think, because most Protestants have invincible ignorance in this regard.

 

[estesbob]

Wow…ok…just wanted to know what I was dealing with on this thread. I got my answer loud and clear.

It’s not a matter of what you are dealing with in this thread. It’s a matter of what our Church teaches. Quite frankly I am surprised you didn’t know this.

 

[Serap]

All religion have elements of the truth, even the ones that DO deny Christ (e.g., Islam).

In terms of Protestantism, they have more elements of the truth because they do recognize Christ. But they still lack the *fullness *of the faith which is found in Catholicism.

When I was Lutheran, I did not *knowingly *reject Christ or his Church. The vast majority of Protestants, likewise, do not *knowingly *reject Christ or His Church. They have invincible ignorance in that regard. However, objectively, they are doing so without realizing it. Their culpability depends on if they know the Church was the one founded by Christ and given teaching authority.

The thing is though that Luther did have the whole truth and didn’t like the way the church was at that time. It was considered heresy for someone to actually read the bible! Lutheran wanted everyone to have access to the bible for their own reading. This was at first very scary for the church.

This is my take and correct me if my history is wrong.

So if Luther DID have the whole truth, then he knowingly rejected Christ? See, this confuses me b/c Luther was a devout Christian to my knowledge.

 

[Serap]

It’s not a matter of what you are dealing with in this thread. It’s a matter of what our Church teaches. Quite frankly I am surprised you didn’t know this.

I’m aware of teaching, but the opinions are frankly quite shocking.