V
vsedriver
Guest
The ACT of procreation can not be altered or interfered with. Whether someone is procreative or not does not affect the Act of procreation. The Act and the Result of the Act are two separate things.
- Status
V
vsedriver
Guest
I think you misunderstand the natural part. Your body’s basal temperature is a natural function. This natural function is an indicator of fertility. Taking your temperature does not change your fertility. Using a condom does.
If you wish to enjoy the marital embrace then you should be open to the life that can be the result. If you wish to space out your children you can either chart your natural fertility cycle and abstain or abstain until you are naturally infertile.
This is a huge responsibility and most would rather not be bothered with it. Artificial contraception is telling God you want the pleasure without the responsibility. The pleasure is a gift God gives to a married couple for their acceptance of the responsibility of children.
NFP still leaves the window open to life. The question really is, do you trust God with your life or don’t you? For the sexual act to be a holy act it must always be open to life and creation.
C
Chrono13
Guest
I have read most of such reconstructions, and their were not convicing. Gnostics were allowing marriage, but not procreation. And, as we can detect from the passage, procreation is sole excuse for intercourse. Augustine is defending his position using stoic arguments.
A
Alindawyl
Guest
I don’t think you’re stupid. There are immoral acts in which the immorality is self-evident. There is very little dissent on those (murder, rape, theft, etc). But there are immoral acts in which the immorality is NOT self-evident. If it requires thought and consideration before the immorality becomes apparent, then it is only natural to question why it is immoral.
Using bodily harm as an analogy for sin, it’s quite simple to see that something like touching a scalding hot pot will immediately result in a burned hand. You won’t find any sane person who suggests that it’s a good thing to go around touching scalding hot pots. The ill effect from the act is not separated in time from the commission of the act.
However, when the ill effect is not immediate, the door is opened for rationalization. Smoking, for example. Despite the fact that smoking is known to have negative health consequences long-term, many people every year take up the habit. They know it’s bad for them; they hear it all the time. But they do it anyway. The consequences are not immediate. Rationalization sets in. I know old people who have smoked their whole lives yet don’t have lung cancer, so clearly it’s not guaranteed. I see some cool people smoking and want to be accepted by them, so who cares about something that won’t be a problem for years if not decades? I’m being told to not do this, but I’m going to do this anyway because I don’t want to be told what to do. And so on.
Contraception, like smoking, doesn’t have immediately evident ill effects. They take time to appear, whether individually or across society. Because of that, all too often we’re prepared to explain away those ill effects as resulting from something else completely. We refuse to trust that the Church knows what she’s talking about, and instead make ourselves experts on the subject. Especially because it takes more than a simple message board post or two to explain why the teaching of the Church is what it is.
In the modern world, we have a dramatic lack of respect for any form of authority. It’s a mindset which is difficult to overcome because it’s so pervasive in everything around us. Children don’t respect parents or teachers. Employees don’t respect their supervisors. And, of course, the faithful all too often don’t respect the Church hierarchy. Look at the language used in your post. The Church’s teaching on contraception is not simply incorrect in your eyes. It’s “…unnecessarily strict. Silly. Stupid. Unfair.” You don’t call the teaching mistaken. You call the teaching idiotic at best and malicious at worst.
Sounds like me for most of my life
I don’t fully understand the reasoning behind everything the Church teaches us, including why the sex act must always be ordered toward procreation. I try my best to submit and be obedient, because once you dig into them, the teachings of the Church are always at least plausible if they’re not clearly evident. Occasionally I get upset at the “stupid” rules and complain to God about them. However, I keep trying to understand what I do not understand and keep trying to build a mindset of humility rather than arrogance. It’s not easy, but then, most worthwhile things aren’t.
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Abu
Guest
choose to love
You are right.
As the revered Fr John A Hardon, S.J., affirms, medical papyri describe contraceptive methods from 2700 B.C. in China and from 1850 B/C. in Egypt. Ephesian gynecologist Soranos (A.D. 98-138) described no less than seventeen medically approved methods. These methods were referred to as “using magic” and “using drugs” and had nothing to do with fertile or infertile periods which were unknown. Soranos thought that it was safer “to prevent conception from taking place than to destroy the fetus” already conceived. (The Catholic Catechism, Doubleday, 1975, p 367).
tinyurl.com/3hp4ne4 (Webster’s)
“It is not known exactly when it was first discovered that women have predictable periods of fertility and infertility.
“One book states that “[The rhythm method] had been recommended… by a few secular thinkers since the mid-nineteenth century”.[3]
[3. Yalom, Marilyn (2001). *A History of the Wife, First edition, New York: HarperCollins, pp. 297-8, 307].
catholic-truth.info/apologetics/birthcontrol.htm
St. Augustine wrote in the fourth century: "Relations with one’s wife, when conception is deliberately prevented, are as unlawful and impure as the conduct of Onan who was slain.
“St. Augustine (4th century) rightly summed up the Apostolic tradition on the subject of birth control in his treatise on the sin of adultery when he wrote: “Marital relations even with a lawful wife, are unlawful and degrading when the conception of a child is deliberately frustrated. This was the sin of Onan, and God struck him dead because of it.”
jesus-logos.blogspot.com/2010/12/marriage-and-prophylactic-use-of.html
Further, from early in the tradition, a secondary purpose was recognized. Augustine put it this way:
“Husband and wife owe one another not only the faithful association of sexual union for the sake of getting children—which makes the first society of the human race in this our mortality—but more than that a kind of mutual service of bearing the burden of one another’s weakness, so as to prevent unlawful intercourse. (12)
(12) Quoted in Elizabeth Anscombe, Contraception and Chastity”
Reality of truth is what faithful Catholics accept, assent to, and offer.
You are right.
As the revered Fr John A Hardon, S.J., affirms, medical papyri describe contraceptive methods from 2700 B.C. in China and from 1850 B/C. in Egypt. Ephesian gynecologist Soranos (A.D. 98-138) described no less than seventeen medically approved methods. These methods were referred to as “using magic” and “using drugs” and had nothing to do with fertile or infertile periods which were unknown. Soranos thought that it was safer “to prevent conception from taking place than to destroy the fetus” already conceived. (The Catholic Catechism, Doubleday, 1975, p 367).
tinyurl.com/3hp4ne4 (Webster’s)
“It is not known exactly when it was first discovered that women have predictable periods of fertility and infertility.
“One book states that “[The rhythm method] had been recommended… by a few secular thinkers since the mid-nineteenth century”.[3]
[3. Yalom, Marilyn (2001). *A History of the Wife, First edition, New York: HarperCollins, pp. 297-8, 307].
catholic-truth.info/apologetics/birthcontrol.htm
St. Augustine wrote in the fourth century: "Relations with one’s wife, when conception is deliberately prevented, are as unlawful and impure as the conduct of Onan who was slain.
“St. Augustine (4th century) rightly summed up the Apostolic tradition on the subject of birth control in his treatise on the sin of adultery when he wrote: “Marital relations even with a lawful wife, are unlawful and degrading when the conception of a child is deliberately frustrated. This was the sin of Onan, and God struck him dead because of it.”
jesus-logos.blogspot.com/2010/12/marriage-and-prophylactic-use-of.html
Further, from early in the tradition, a secondary purpose was recognized. Augustine put it this way:
“Husband and wife owe one another not only the faithful association of sexual union for the sake of getting children—which makes the first society of the human race in this our mortality—but more than that a kind of mutual service of bearing the burden of one another’s weakness, so as to prevent unlawful intercourse. (12)
(12) Quoted in Elizabeth Anscombe, Contraception and Chastity”
Reality of truth is what faithful Catholics accept, assent to, and offer.
W
Warrior1979
Guest
By definition, it does. If one is infertile, then there is no Act of procreation, since, by definition, they can not procreate.
Sure there is a difference. But is doesn’t change the fact that the infertile couple can’t procreate. Once again, they can have a martial act, but not a procreative one. Imposing “procreative” on “non-procreative” is simply nonsensical.
A
Alindawyl
Guest
The fact that the Church isn’t using the word procreation in a way you would like is, quite honestly, irrelevant. Words are meaningless in and of themselves. Their only purpose is to convey an idea. The Church is using the words procreation and procreative in a specific way in order to convey a specific idea. You’re arguing over semantics rather than attempting to understand that idea.
It’s like arguing that the word accident shouldn’t be used in its metaphysical sense, but only to refer to an unintentional event which causes some form of harm.
S
sulkow82
Guest
Why is your definition of the word “procreate” the one the Church should adopt? Or more importantly, your stance on the position of NFP? The Church has her opinion on the matter. Rome has heard, the case is closed.
J
Joel_PF
Guest
The Church STILL teaches this. If a couple uses NFP to prevent procreation for good, that is, with the intention of NEVER having kids, it is a sin.
J
Joel_PF
Guest
If I time the days I have sex in order to decrease the probability of having kids (ideally decrease to zero, if my wife’s period is stable), how is that being “open” to procreation? How is that any more open to procreation than using a form of contraception that still leaves a probability of procreation occurring (all of them do, actually, as there is no 100% perfect method).
The only difference between NFP and contraception is that NFP doesn’t decrease the probability of any particular sexual act resulting in a conception. Rather than taking one sexual act and making it less likely to conceive, NFP pre-selects only those sexual acts that would by themselves be less likely to conceive. Where is the moral difference between the two?
The attitude of a couple on NFP may be the exact same as of a couple in contraception: spacing kids, waiting for a more suitable time to have more children in a responsible way. So there is no question of one of them being intrinsically more selfish or anything like that. What is so wrong in making a particular sexual act less likely to conceive, and why doesn’t that moral censure apply to pre-selecting the days of sexual acts so that they only take place when they will be less likely to conceive?
The only difference between NFP and contraception is that NFP doesn’t decrease the probability of any particular sexual act resulting in a conception. Rather than taking one sexual act and making it less likely to conceive, NFP pre-selects only those sexual acts that would by themselves be less likely to conceive. Where is the moral difference between the two?
The attitude of a couple on NFP may be the exact same as of a couple in contraception: spacing kids, waiting for a more suitable time to have more children in a responsible way. So there is no question of one of them being intrinsically more selfish or anything like that. What is so wrong in making a particular sexual act less likely to conceive, and why doesn’t that moral censure apply to pre-selecting the days of sexual acts so that they only take place when they will be less likely to conceive?
A
Abu
Guest
God has created the woman with fertile/infertile periods, and has NOT commanded that only the fertile periods be used in marriage. Ipso facto, used wisely for serious reasons such a procedure can be morally good. His Son, the Christ, founded His Church to lead us to eternity through sound faith and morals. She infallibly shows us what is right and what is wrong. See post # 73 where Fr Torraco demolishes that false reasoning.
A self-professed Catholic cannot knowingly dissent and expect to be faithful to Christ.
J
Joel_PF
Guest
Fr. Torraco’s argument seems fallacious, as it relies on the faulty premise that it is wrong to separate or prevent natural ends of a natural faculty. He says: “with contraception, there is the deliberate rupture of the intimate link between the unitive and procreative meanings of the marital act.” What is the problem in rupturing union and procreation in a given marital act? Why should we consider that immoral?
The other day I made a topic addressing this kind of argument. In short, is it immoral to rupture the locomotive and the health-promoting meanings of walking, as happens when we walk on a treadmill? Of course not.
Also, I’d appreciate rational arguments instead of anathemas. Remember that, for centuries, every Catholic thinker and Pope considered any lending at interest to be usurious (just check out the Summa Theologica), and therefore sinful. Many rightful practices were condemned because of this error, which was however based on true and sound principles and ideals. So the mere fact of general theological agreement (which is not even strictly true with regards to contraception), though in itself worthy of respect, cannot settle an issue that depends on rational points.
W
Warrior1979
Guest
It’s not my definition; it’s the commonly accepted, blatantly obvious, common sense one. Any attempt to redefine it gives the appearance of spin.
It’s based on common sense.
Which is there can never be a coherent discussion on the matter. When the starting point is “you’re wrong,” there can never be meaningful discussion.
A
Abu
Guest
False, also.
Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, the decrees of councils and popes condemn the taking of interest on loans to the poor and the greed of usurers, but say nothing about the charging of interest in general.
Deuteronomy 23:20: “You may charge interest to a foreigner,” indicating that interest-taking is not presented as inherently evil or sinful. The larger ethical issue of the morality of interest-taking is not addressed in the Old Testament. Rather, interest was viewed only as a problem of social justice. The problem of commutative justice, i.e., of equivalence of value in an exchange of present for future goods, remained quite untouched (Thomas F. Divine, S.J., Interest, 10).
With free enterprise as developed by the Late Scholastics, the Church defined what is meant by usury. Session X of the Fifth Lateran Council (1515) gave its exact meaning: “For that is the real meaning of usury: when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk.”
Consequently, as loaning money did involve loss of profit to the lender and further risk of loss from delay in returning the money loaned, this did justify interest that is just and justifiable.
The Franciscan St. Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444) was perhaps the first theologian to recognize that time of use had an economic value and, at least in certain cases, might be licitly compensated. St. Antoninus (1389-1459), a Dominican of Florence, seems to have questioned whether Aristotle was correct in saying that money is naturally sterile. Money alone, he said, is sterile, but, combined with knowledge and enterprise, it is fruitful. His Summa Moralis examined commerce and banking, and prepared the way for modern notions of interest, which generally regard proper returns on loans taken with just title as fair.
Today, the term “usury” is usually reserved for taking excessive (i.e., unusually high for the economic conditions) interest on a loan because of someone’s circumstances: The greed of the lender takes unjust advantage of the weakness or ignorance of the borrower. [See *Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine, Our Sunday Visitor].
There had been massive theological dissent from Humanae Vitae, and if Fr Torraco of (EWTN) who was the Executive Director of the Society for the Study of the Magisterial Teaching of the Church (SSMTC), and answered questions for Mother Angelica’s Eternal Word Television Network, is not good enough, you can study the infallible declaration in Casti Connubii of Pius XI which counteracted the fall of the Anglican church in the U.K. to the contraceptive mentality, and the infallible statement in Humanae Vitae after the advent of the Pill.
BTW walking on a treadmill is useless as an attempt to ridicule the reality of natural law. Since when has using normal aids to health and well-being become “unnatural”? Any medical procedure that is not immoral is normal when it aids improved health and well-being.
R
razredge
Guest
Thanks for bringing that up - most Catholic sources use the Church Fathers to defend their stance on contraception but seem to have conveniently omitted this part.
A
Abu
Guest
No thanks. The Church Fathers certainly didn’t know anything about NFP and could not write about what was not discovered in outline until around the 19th century.
catholic-truth.info/apologetics/birthcontrol.htm
St. Augustine wrote in the fourth century: "Relations with one’s wife, when conception is deliberately prevented, are as unlawful and impure as the conduct of Onan who was slain.
As the revered Fr John A Hardon, S.J., affirms, medical papyri describe contraceptive methods from 2700 B.C. in China and from 1850 B/C. in Egypt. Ephesian gynecologist Soranos (A.D. 98-138) described no less than seventeen medically approved methods. These methods were referred to as “using magic” and “using drugs” and had nothing to do with fertile or infertile periods which were unknown. Soranos thought that it was safer “to prevent conception from taking place than to destroy the fetus” already conceived. (The Catholic Catechism, Doubleday, 1975, p 367). This has nothing to do with NFP.
While the laws of Leviticus forbade the marriage act during menses and for a week thereafter with great fertility for the Jewish people, this was not linked in any medical or scientific way to NFP until in the mid-nineteenth century French researchers dealing with domestic animals discovered a relationship between certain bodily discharges and fertility. Scientists and others quickly wondered whether this was likewise true in humans. They speculated that a woman was fertile during her menstrual flow and infertile thereafter.
A Vatican ruling in 1853 declared that such a use of periodic abstinence was not immoral.vi The question flared up again, and in 1880 the same ruling was repeated.vii
Notes:
vi John T. Noonan, Jr. Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965) 439.
vii Noonan, 441.
C
Chrono13
Guest
Augustine’s approach is that NFP is used in order to satisfy one’s lust, since he sees sexuality *only *for procreation. This is why he said that marriage is only *excuse *for intercourse. Every act without exclusive desire to beget a child is, thus, sin. As mentioned in another thread, this approach was most common up to 19th century.
Augustine, indeed, attacks heretical views of dualism, yet his line of defense is in stoic Christianity.
C
Chrono13
Guest
Augustine’s claims regarding NFP have been presented to you many times, brother Abu. You can say many things, but not that Church Fathers didn’t know about NFP. They have. And they forbid it. Because they were under stoic influence.
To continue boycotting this fact can only lower the quality of this discussion. In 19th Century, people only perfected something that was known for quite a long time.
Which is certainly difficult to explain, knowing the “procreation only” theory and it’s influence up to 1853.
C
Chrono13
Guest
That would be easy to swallow.
They are avoiding, much more, the fact that sex was seen as “procreation only” activity for most of history.
C
Chrono13
Guest
Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae are not infallible documents. Their teachings-maybe.
Am I right if I stress that Casti Connubii never allowed NFP? And that this fact was confirmed by theologians who wrote it with Pope?
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