NFP and contraception

[Alindawyl]

Theoretical question:

Would Onan have been put to death for using NFP to avoid fathering a child for his dead brother?

God had explicitly commanded Onan to father a child with Tamar. Onan did not obey, so God killed him. The fact that he used a contraceptive method to avoid is rather irrelevant in his situation. If NFP had existed and he had used that instead of withdrawal to avoid getting Tamar pregnant, he would still have been guilty of disobeying God and still have been put to death by God for disobedience.

Besides, NFP is only permitted if the couple have a grave reason to avoid pregnancy for a time. Having been given a direct command from God to father a child with a specific woman is the polar opposite of a grave reason to avoid. That’s more like a grave reason to conceive

 

[Muze]

God had explicitly commanded Onan to father a child with Tamar. Onan did not obey, so God killed him. The fact that he used a contraceptive method to avoid is rather irrelevant in his situation. If NFP had existed and he had used that instead of withdrawal to avoid getting Tamar pregnant, he would still have been guilty of disobeying God and still have been put to death by God for disobedience.

Besides, NFP is only permitted if the couple have a grave reason to avoid pregnancy for a time. Having been given a direct command from God to father a child with a specific woman is the polar opposite of a grave reason to avoid. That’s more like a grave reason to conceive

So, from this perspective, what’s the difference between a married couple using NFP to avoid pregnancy for a time and using some other form of contraception for the same tiem and reason?

 

[Joel_PF]

After considering my participation in this thread, I’ve concluded it has been, at best, imprudent.

I must say that the arguments put forward by those think contraception is immoral still seem, to me, very deficient. I’m also unmoved, and think it is a defect of some current orthodox Catholics, to rely so much on authority when conducting a rational debate that should hinge on arguments. We need to follow more closely the model of the medieval disputation, where authorities (pro and con every position) were used always in an auxiliary way, and not as the decisive factor.

Still, it is true that the Magisterium teaches that contraception is immoral and that I, as a faithful Catholic, should not challenge that teaching in public, as I ended up doing here. I do think that the teaching is in urgent need of challenging, even if so that a stronger defense of it can be made; but the right place for such a challenge is certainly not this open and public forum.

You won’t see me challenging current Church teaching here anymore, and I’m sorry if my behavior scandalized anyone in any degree.

I’m not even necessarily opposed to this Church teaching per se; I’m very open to - even to the point of eagerly seeking - better reasons to uphold it. I think the defenders of the teaching would benefit from doing the same.

 

[Joel_PF]

Isn’t it obvious? Augustine said marriage is good, yet marital sex is influenced by original sin, always has at least venial fault , perfect only in impossible case when done without pleasure and in need of procreation…
Marriage has three blessings- procreation of children, mystical bond of sacrament and mutual care. In those three, the unitive nature of sex was seen only in manner that one spouse, with regret, needs sex, and the other spouse, with regret, needs to provide it .It was not a matter of emotion and love, but of duty and debt.

You go too far. If you say that no-one spoke of the unitive aspect of the sexual act itself, then you might be right. This may well have been a later development. But when you say that sex was seen as a necessary evil, and its pleasure as evil, you are wrong.

As I said, St. Thomas viewed the pleasure of sex as a good. In fact, in the state of original justice, sex would have been even MORE pleasurable, because man’s sensible faculties would be purer: ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FP_Q98_A2.html (reply to objection 3)

Plus, sex was seen as good and just, even pure. For instance, St. Bernard: "They [bride and groom] share one inheritance, one table, one house, one bed, one flesh. For this she leaves her father and her mother and clings to her husband, and the two are one flesh. She is also commanded to forget her people and her father’s house so that he may desire her beauty.

So then love especially and chiefly belongs to those who are married, and it is not inappropriate to call the loving soul a bride. For she who asks a kiss feels love. She does not ask for freedom or payment or an inheritance or learning, but for a kiss, in the manner of a most chaste bride, who sighs for holy love; and she cannot disguise the flame, which is so evident." (from sermon 7 on the Song of Songs).

Surely, the subject spoken of is God’s relation to the soul, but the image used both in the Bible and in the sermon here is the love between bride and groom, which as a carnal aspect that is never denied.

Further on, on sermon 66, which is against the new heretics (Cathars, I think), he says: “Take from the Church the honorable estate of marriage and the purity of the marriage-bed, and you will surely fill it with concubinage, incest, masturbation, effeminacy, homosexuality - in short, with every kind of filthiness.”

Again, the marriage bed is seen as a protection against lust, as you say, but it is seen as pure, a positive good, not as a tolerated lesser evil.

Furthermore, I think it is possible to see in the view of sex as being an antidote to concupiscence, out of which arose the concept of the marriage debt, as a first step towards the proper understanding of sex: as good and virtuous not only in the purely negative way of controlling lust, but also as an expression and celebration of the couple’s love.

As I said before, to think as the unitive purpose as “pleasure” is very deficient, but it is a step in that direction. The reality of the Church’s doctrine is development. Very few things, essentially some core dogmas, have been defined and unchanged since the beginning.

 

[Alindawyl]

So, from this perspective, what’s the difference between a married couple using NFP to avoid pregnancy for a time and using some other form of contraception for the same tiem and reason?

The difference between NFP and contraception requires looking at both means and intent. NFP as a means of avoiding pregnancy is moral, while contraception as a means of avoiding pregnancy is immoral. The intent of avoiding pregnancy with grave reason is moral, while the intent of avoiding pregnancy without grave reason is immoral.

Contraception, even if practiced with grave reason, is still an immoral means and makes the whole thing immoral. NFP is moral if practiced with grave reason because NFP is moral. However, the whole act becomes immoral if NFP is practiced without grave reason.

As to why NFP as a means is moral and contraception is not, that has already been explained more than once in this thread. NFP is nothing more than observation of the signs, sensations and characteristics which are part of fertility as designed by God. Observation of what God put there does nothing to alter his design. Contraception is more than simply observation. It involves altering fertility by introducing things beyond God’s design such as latex, ingesting hormones at times they would not normally be present, the man not finishing inside the woman, stuffing devices into the woman’s uterus, or even surgical sterility.

If you choose not to accept that difference, I don’t see how repeating it or trying to find a different way of saying it will make any difference. What I’ve said above about means and intent has also been previously mentioned in this thread.

 

[razredge]

There are many. And certain are not in fields of theology.

Or morality either.

Please, share these many, non-theological reasons for Catholic teacing on contraception.

Certainly - the main reason is politics

Hans Kung, the renowned Swiss Catholic theologian, best summed up the problem when he said,** “It is not possible to solve the problem of contraception until we solve the problem of infallibility.”**

In 1964, Pope Paul VI created the Papal Commission on Population and Birth Control. It was a two-part commission, and met from 1964 to 1966. One consisted of 64 lay persons, the other, of 15 clerics, including Pope John Paul II, then a Polish cardinal. Pope Paul gave the Commission only one mission—-to determine how the Church could change its position on birth control without undermining papal authority. After two years of study, the Commission concluded that it was not possible to make this change without undermining papal authority but that the Church should make the change anyway because it was the right thing to do! The lay members voted 60 to 4 for change, and the clerics, 9 to 6 for change
2. Jones A. Vatican, International Agencies Hone Family, Population Positions. National Catholic Reporter (reprinted in Conscience, May/June 1984. p. 7.

We know this because one or more members released the details without permission to an Italian and a French newspaper. Pope Paul did not act immediately. A minority report was prepared, co-authored by the man who is now Pope John Paul II. In this report he stated:
*
If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 (when the encyclical Casti Connubii was promulgated), in 1951 (Pius XII’s address to the midwives), and in 1958 (the address delivered before the Society of Hematologists in the year the pope died). It should likewise have to be admitted that for a half century the Spirit failed to protect Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error.

This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved*.

1. Hasler, AB. How the Pope Became Infallible. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1981. p. 25.

From the first section of this page:
population-security.org/STLouis99.html#3

Furthermore, Pius XI had hardly clean hands with Castus Connubi as the Vatican held a controlling stake in Istituto Farmacologico Serono di Roma, Italy’s largest manufacturer of birth control products during his reign.

 

[Abu]

Thanks to Joel PF for his candour.

Muze
Would Onan have been put to death for using NFP to avoid fathering a child for his dead brother?
If he said to take your temp every morning and record it, she was required to do so.

There was no useful awareness of fertility periods until the mid-nineteenth century, and thermometers didn’t exist. Onan used withdrawal, which has nothing to do with Natural Birth Regulation (or NFP), and is a separate sin unto itself. Onan was killed by God for the crime of “spilling his seed on the ground”, not for avoiding “fathering a child”.

Alindawyl
God had explicitly commanded Onan to father a child with Tamar. Onan did not obey, so God killed him.

Onan was killed for his unnatural act of withdrawal.
rtforum.org/lt/lt67.html
“That Onan’s unnatural act as such is condemned as sinful in Gen. 38: 9-10 was an interpretation held by the Fathers and Doctors of the Catholic Church, by the Protestant Reformers, and by nearly all celibate and married theologians of all Christian denominations until the early years of this century, when some exegetes began to approach the text with preconceptions deriving from the sexual decadence of modern Western culture and its exaggerated concern for ‘over-population.’ ” [See Pope Pius XI, Encyclical on Christian Marriage, *Casti Connubii (31 December 1930)].

You made a good defence of the legitimacy and reality of NBR.

**Church Teaching And The Morality Of Contraception **ewtn.com/library/MARRIAGE/SEXSAN.TXT (Chapter 6 of *Sex And The Sanctity Of Human Life *by William E. May published by Christendom Press, Ft. Royal, VA.)
Excerpts:
Pope Paul taught that what the moral law forbids is….‘every action’ which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act or in its accomplishment or in the development of its natural consequences proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible (Humanae vitae, n. 14).
De Margerie observes that "every matrimonial act should be ‘intrinsically’ ordered to life, to the transmission of life, even if in actual fact, owing to an accidental and extrinsic reason, it must remain barren."10 A conjugal act that respects the gift of fertility, of procreativity, is one that is intrinsically open to the transmission of life, even if conception, as a physical event, does not take place or cannot take place because of sterility resulting from “natural rhythms” or age or disease.

There is a significant “moral” difference between a conjugal act that is sterile because of natural rhythms, age, or disease and one that has been deliberately “sterilized” by the free choice of the spouses. [My emphasis]

We are always obliged to do the good, but that we cannot be doing good all the time, and that at times the pursuit of a given good (such as the procreation of children) might need to be foregone (although never attacked) if its pursuit should entail deliberate or even indeliberate yet disproportionate destruction of other goods. Thus we ought always to tell the truth, but we are not obligated to speak at all times of our lives (and hence to speak truthfully) and there are times when we may rightfully conceal a truth when its revelation would constitute an unjust attack upon a neighbor. In similar fashion, married couples have a positive obligation to have children (as Gaudium et spes insists), yet there can be reasons why they can legitimately choose to refrain from pursuing this good, and they are to be the best judges of this.

The contraceptive act is not simply nonprocreative (i.e., one that does not in fact result in pregnancy) but antiprocreative, i.e., an attack on the goodness of the procreativity of marriage and of human sexuality. It is an act in and through which one says that it is not good here and now to be fertile. It is an act in and through which one says that it is “not” good that coition is open to the transmission of life.

It is for this reason that Paul VI and the Church teach firmly that the contraceptive choice is intrinsically disordered. To choose to act in this way is to choose to act against something really good, and good not merely in an instrumental way but personally and humanly good. The procreative meaning of our sexuality and of the marital act is not a good of the biological order, subhuman and subpersonal in character, but is rather a good of the human person, a good participating in the goodness of the human person and of God, the author of our procreativity. The contraceptive choice is a choice to reject this good of the human person, of human sexuality, and of marriage.
Notes:
10. Bertrand de Margerie, S.J., “Reflections on Some Aspects of Humanae vitae To Which Less Consideration Has Been Given,” “Osservatore Romano;” English Edition May 25, 1978. See also Elisabeth Anscombe, *Contraception and Chastity *(London: Catholic Truth Society, 1976), pp. 20-23.

 

[Abu]

Dissenter razredge in #166, now relies on dissenter Hans Kung, hardly revered, who has dissented from the infallibility bestowed by Christ on His Supreme Vicars in order to dissent from Humanae Vitae. Post #94 explained “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.”

In trying to impose Pope Paul’s Commission majority to support contraception as credible, this dissenter chooses to conceal and ignore the obvious fact that Vatican II’s Gaudiem et Spes, 51, specifically rules out any possibility of changing the infallible doctrine against contraception in *Casti Connubii *of Pope Pius XI, 1930, by the footnote 14 reference to the crucial passage, and this on the personal intervention of the Pope himself.

The enormous significance of this is that the Pope was insisting, and made the Council insist, that whatever statement he might make in the future, all would know ***in advance ***that there would be no contradiction of Pius XI’s definition against unnatural methods of regulating births as intrinsically evil.

Thus the only question which Pope Paul VI gave to be considered as legitimately debatable was the effect and use of the new chemical in the “Pill”, with no possibility of any change against Casti Connubii.

Innumerable Catholic dissenters and the media completely ignored this fact in their rush to get contraception approved, and infected many ordinary Catholics with such unreality. This fact of growing dissent before, during and after the Council has been exposed in post #151.

 

[Chrono13]

Theoretical question:

Would Onan have been put to death for using NFP to avoid fathering a child for his dead brother?

There is one even better question. It was already asked, but overlooked.

If Tamar had the duty to report Onan’s refusal to beget brother’s child, then why she didn’t report single coitus interruptus? And there were more than one.

The best answer which would defend present interpretation is that story doesn’t get that deep in the problem.

 

[Chrono13]

False, engendered by the false emphasis on “sexuality” rather than marriage.

Not the emphasis. The difference. Marriage is not sex. And can not be seen, especially in theological writings, as the same term.

The infatuation with the assumption of stoicism as shaping doctrine is false. ‘It would be absurd to expect love to be ‘free of emotion’ as the Stoics and Kant did.” (Blessed John Paul II, Love And Responsibility, William Collins, 1981, p 154). That was not all that was absurd, as seen in the nonsignificance of the individual in Stoic thought.

Why was blessed John Paul II triggered to say that? Surely, he would have a lot to explain to Church Fathers who said (stoic) philosophy was to Greeks what Law was to Jews.

The Church teaches through Her Magisterium, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Her Scriptures give the lie to the foolish assertion above, as though married love and sexuality were foreign to each other in the Church!

And? What sacred “tradition” said about sex? Note the small “t”.

St Paul on love in marriage:
“Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for Her.” (Eph 5:25).
“Husbands love your wives, and do not be bitter towards them.” (Col 3:19).
“…train the younger women to be wise, to love their husbands and their children, so that the word of God be not reviled.” (Tit 2:4).

If only we stayed at that.

We also have the Council of Trent:
CCC1661: “The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life." [cf. Council of Trent: DS 1799].

This speaks of marriage, not of marital act.

Though not primary, Pope Pius XI did refer to the Church’s teaching on the ends of marriage in CC, when he condemned the direct interference with the life process: “Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth. For in matrimony as well as in the use of the matrimonial rights there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider so long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved.” (II, 59).

This claim would be difficult to post before approx. 19 century, when Church did not connect “secondary ends” with marital sexuality.

Still false. Repetition of a falsehood doesn’t make it true. Willful, misrepresentation over St Augustine that “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) [See: Logos: Marriage and the Prophylactic Use of Condoms - by Luke Gormally]

, is by implication extended to St Paul.

Still right. Repetition of truth will only make the opposite side more evident as wrong. Augustine sees need for marital intercourse as a weakness, and spouses must “carry the burden of each other” as if their act is something problematic.

Augustine did not extend St. Paul, he made stoic interpretation of his words.

Because there was no knowledge of infertile periods for reasoned use until the mid-nineteenth century, post #96.

If that would be true, St. Augustine wouldn’t write against this practice in 4th century, 1500 years before.

By the use of God-given reason, based on faith in the teaching of Christ through His Church. God created human nature with these periods, and to use them only would be contrary to the procreative end of marriage. See post #149 for Pope Paul VI’s teaching on the indisputable fact of the Church’s competence in interpreting the natural moral law.

I have read 149, and saw no explanation why would God create those periods as means in “grave situations”. Everything suggests that these periods were not created as fertility control base.

 

[Chrono13]

False.
This is the fantasy that is oblivious to the dissent which produced the crisis in Christ’s Church – due to the modernist errors abroad before Vatican II, whose promoters tried to take over the Council, and are referred to in Christ Denied TAN, 1982, by Fr Paul Wickens – and resulted in the false “spirit” of Vatican II.
It included the disgraceful public dissent against Humanae Vitae by Karl Rahner and numerous dissenting theologians, Richard McBrien’s Catholicism (full of errors), the revolt of the Catholic universities and the bureaucratic/theological tail wagging the episcopal dog so to speak – coupled with lax or dissenting bishops this resulted in a grave crisis, which is worldwide with relativism, selfism and secularism. The seminaries were filled with dissenting formators. It is the laxity and the dissent that corrupted so many and reduced fidelity to a meaningless confusion for many.

These people, especially Karl Rahner, simply expressed their loyalty to *original *tradition that sex was permitted *only *for procreation, and that this fact can’t be ignored if we are to talk about “constant teaching” and “unchangeable stance”. They saw, together with many other, that boycott of stoicism is a form of relativism, since one needs a lot of relative conclusions in order to construct “stoic-less” interpretation of our past.

 

[Chrono13]

On usury
Session X of the Fifth Lateran Council (1515) gave the meaning of usury: “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.”

This clearly forbids interest. Since money was seen as barren (“a thing which produces nothing”) it can’t be used to acquire gain (more money).

 

[Chrono13]

After considering my participation in this thread, I’ve concluded it has been, at best, imprudent.

I must say that the arguments put forward by those think contraception is immoral still seem, to me, very deficient. I’m also unmoved, and think it is a defect of some current orthodox Catholics, to rely so much on authority when conducting a rational debate that should hinge on arguments. We need to follow more closely the model of the medieval disputation, where authorities (pro and con every position) were used always in an auxiliary way, and not as the decisive factor.

Still, it is true that the Magisterium teaches that contraception is immoral and that I, as a faithful Catholic, should not challenge that teaching in public, as I ended up doing here. I do think that the teaching is in urgent need of challenging, even if so that a stronger defense of it can be made; but the right place for such a challenge is certainly not this open and public forum.

You won’t see me challenging current Church teaching here anymore, and I’m sorry if my behavior scandalized anyone in any degree.

I’m not even necessarily opposed to this Church teaching per se; I’m very open to - even to the point of eagerly seeking - better reasons to uphold it. I think the defenders of the teaching would benefit from doing the same.

Yes, I have similar thoughts. Two topics before, I said I don’t want to start this debate since it could make unwanted influence. I really don’t want people to question their faith, or sacrifices they made in order to uphold the teaching. A mother taking care of a large family is better believer then me. And better then one who ferociously quotes catechisms and encyclicals, ignoring the reality of that woman’s challenges. While it would be very interesting, not to mention joyful, to expose the opposite side’s inconsistences- hurting them would mean hurting this fictional woman as well. Since she can only be a role model to me, I have no such intent.

On the other hand, this situation in holy Church will not stop unless we talk about certain things. I am Roman Catholic. What will happen when critics of the Church draw arguments we have presented here? Or even better. What ***has ***happened? How do we expect secular society to believe our words when we boycott stoic nature of our past and our present teaching? How many times can we pretend that NFP was not known before 19th Century? If atheist says Church taught sex can be practiced only for procreation, dear brethren, you will need much more then you showed here to prove otherwise. Not only to atheist. To world you are called to preach, as well as I.

 

[razredge]

In trying to impose Pope Paul’s Commission majority to support contraception as credible, this dissenter chooses to conceal and ignore the obvious fact that Vatican II’s Gaudiem et Spes, 51, specifically rules out any possibility of changing the infallible doctrine against contraception in *Casti Connubii *of Pope Pius XI, 1930, by the footnote 14 reference to the crucial passage, and this on the personal intervention of the Pope himself.

Well of course the Pope himself intervened to prevent any change! The point is that the recommendation of the committee was to change the teaching as it was a right thing to do but the issue of infallibility proved unsurmountable.

The enormous significance of this is that the Pope was insisting, and made the Council insist, that whatever statement he might make in the future, all would know ***in advance ***that there would be no contradiction of Pius XI’s definition against unnatural methods of regulating births as intrinsically evil.

Well it can’t be intrinsically evil if a commitee expressly formed to investigate the issue resulted in 60 to 4 laypeople and 9 of 15 clergy voting in favour of contraception.

You still haven’t answered my refutation of your ‘procreative and unitive’ argument, so really the onus is on you to prove why contraception is intrinsically evil while NFP isn’t. If you can do that without resorting to an ‘appeal to authority’, I’ll concede my position.

Even John Paul I as bishop of Venice held that the contraceptive pill should be allowed by the Church which was agreed by his fellow bishops and submitted to Paul VI

After Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, Luciani did defend it publicly. But in a letter to his diocese on July 29, 1968, shortly after publication of the encyclical, he wrote: “I must confess that I hoped in my heart, even though I didn’t let it out in writing, that the very serious difficulties could be overcome and that the reply of the Teacher, who speaks with a special charism and in the name of the Lord, might coincide with the hopes raised in so many couples, especially after the establishment of a special pontifical commission to examine the issue.” Nevertheless, he added, “I am confident that I have everyone with me in a sincere adherence to the papal teaching.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_theology_of_John_Paul_I#cite_note-0

So again papal infallibility was the issue here, not morality.

Of course if it was really intrinsically evil you must wonder why Pius XI in all his wisdom and infallibility didn’t mind the Vatican holding a controlling stake in Italy’s largest manufacturer of birth control products.

 

[Good_Daughter]

So, from this perspective, what’s the difference between a married couple using NFP to avoid pregnancy for a time and using some other form of contraception for the same tiem and reason?

The difference is physical.

 

[Good_Daughter]

Or morality either.

Certainly - the main reason is politics

From the first section of this page:
population-security.org/STLouis99.html#3

Interesting, thanks, but I think an abortion-rights organization has an inherent anti-Catholic bias. I have difficulty trusting their take on anything Catholic. Besides, infalibility* is *a theological issue.

If it’s not too personal a question, do you trust abortion promoters for your theology?

Furthermore, Pius XI had hardly clean hands with Castus Connubi as the Vatican held a controlling stake in Istituto Farmacologico Serono di Roma, Italy’s largest manufacturer of birth control products during his reign.

Do you mean Casti Connubii? Would you please provide a reference for your last statement, I’d like to read about it.

 

[Good_Daughter]

Yes, I have similar thoughts. Two topics before, I said I don’t want to start this debate since it could make unwanted influence. I really don’t want people to question their faith, or sacrifices they made in order to uphold the teaching. A mother taking care of a large family is better believer then me. And better then one who ferociously quotes catechisms and encyclicals, ignoring the reality of that woman’s challenges. While it would be very interesting, not to mention joyful, to expose the opposite side’s inconsistences- hurting them would mean hurting this fictional woman as well. Since she can only be a role model to me, I have no such intent.

On the other hand, this situation in holy Church will not stop unless we talk about certain things. I am Roman Catholic. What will happen when critics of the Church draw arguments we have presented here? Or even better. What ***has ***happened? How do we expect secular society to believe our words when we boycott stoic nature of our past and our present teaching? How many times can we pretend that NFP was not known before 19th Century? If atheist says Church taught sex can be practiced only for procreation, dear brethren, you will need much more then you showed here to prove otherwise. Not only to atheist. To world you are called to preach, as well as I.

If you wouldn’t mind going easy on me, I’m not a catechism or encyclical quoter, just a mother taking care of a large family…

So where does scripture fit into the equation? How about the Song of Songs? This book is dripping with the imagery of sexual pleasure. Where is Augustine’s (or any ECF’s) condemnation?

Also, please consider that the unitive aspect of the marital embrace comes from its procreative aspect. We can still say that the procreative aspect is essential to the marital embrace, just as the ECFs taught. (Also see Casti Connubii.)

For what it’s worth Chrono13, I find you and Joel PF to be honest, insightful and charitable. I may not agree with everything you say, but you say it well and I hope you both keep posting in these threads.

 

[BRZ]

Yes, I have similar thoughts. Two topics before, I said I don’t want to start this debate since it could make unwanted influence. I really don’t want people to question their faith, or sacrifices they made in order to uphold the teaching. A mother taking care of a large family is better believer then me. And better then one who ferociously quotes catechisms and encyclicals, ignoring the reality of that woman’s challenges. While it would be very interesting, not to mention joyful, to expose the opposite side’s inconsistences- hurting them would mean hurting this fictional woman as well. Since she can only be a role model to me, I have no such intent.

On the other hand, this situation in holy Church will not stop unless we talk about certain things. I am Roman Catholic. What will happen when critics of the Church draw arguments we have presented here? Or even better. What ***has ***happened? How do we expect secular society to believe our words when we boycott stoic nature of our past and our present teaching? How many times can we pretend that NFP was not known before 19th Century? If atheist says Church taught sex can be practiced only for procreation, dear brethren, you will need much more then you showed here to prove otherwise. Not only to atheist. To world you are called to preach, as well as I.

You have to understand something. We are not called to convince anyone of the truth. It is the duty of all of us to accept what the Church teaches (meaning the college of cardinals, bishops, Pope, etc.) They argue and discuss and do what they do. They come to the conclusions of things, we must follow those teachings. If we don’t, then we are in the wrong. It is as simple as that. You can question, if you like. You can disagree, if you like. You can do anything you well please as is your given right of free will, but the choices you make have consequences that are far reaching. It is the job of the Church to preach the good news, not to convince others of the truth of it. They provide truths and reasons and research and all of that as part of the preaching of the good news, but we must accept those as truth despite what we may think about it. This is the reality of Faith. If you are unwilling, or unable to accept that truth, that is your own responsibility.

 

[Joel_PF]

Chrono 13:

St. Thomas Aquinas’s morality is openly anti-stoic. St. Thomas himself mentions the errors of the stoics in morality many times (for instance, their belief that passions are evil).

The Fathers may have been more influenced by stoicism, but even in their writings on ethics there is more than stoicism. Their focus is always the love of God and the joy of deification.

Finally, there are some aspects of morality that the stoics got right: the passions ought to be subdued (well, the Epicureans could say the same thing…), morality is rooted in nature (but not in the metaphysical, and sometimes even physical, way they claimed). Plus, they did preach and develop some good virtues: self-control, rationality, generosity (much less than the Christians would do, but still, they did begin charities in Roman times).

 

[Joel_PF]

You have to understand something. We are not called to convince anyone of the truth. It is the duty of all of us to accept what the Church teaches (meaning the college of cardinals, bishops, Pope, etc.) They argue and discuss and do what they do. They come to the conclusions of things, we must follow those teachings. If we don’t, then we are in the wrong. It is as simple as that. You can question, if you like. You can disagree, if you like. You can do anything you well please as is your given right of free will, but the choices you make have consequences that are far reaching. It is the job of the Church to preach the good news, not to convince others of the truth of it. They provide truths and reasons and research and all of that as part of the preaching of the good news, but we must accept those as truth despite what we may think about it. This is the reality of Faith. If you are unwilling, or unable to accept that truth, that is your own responsibility.

This position is fine and good (except for the part where you say that, if the bishops decide something, it is necessarily the truth), but then you are in a personal dilemma: because your view of things is basically anti-argumentative. You don’t care about the rational arguments that convinced the bishops; you just assent to whatever position they teach. Well, then why do you keep on debating these positions with others? Your only argument can be “the bishops teach it”, as it is only thing that convinces you. But if the fact that the bishops teach something is not enough to convince someone else, the discussion is over, you’ll have nothing else to provide.

My suspicion is that your own position is not quite so simple: you do care about the rational arguments behind any given position taught by the bishops.

Finally, the single greatest waste of time that I see in Catholic discussions is that concerning which pronouncements are infallible and which aren’t. How about, for the purposes of discussion, this question is left aside and more focus is given to the questions themselves?