Pope condones contraceptives for zika outbreak?

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Pope Francis has suggested that women threatened with the Zika virus could use artificial contraception, saying there’s a clear moral difference between aborting a fetus and preventing a pregnancy.
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Francis was asked Wednesday en route home from Mexico if abortion or birth control could be considered a “lesser evil,” when confronting the Zika crisis in Brazil, where some babies have been born with abnormally small heads to Zika-infected mothers.
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Francis, however, drew a parallel to the decision taken by Pope Paul VI in the 1960s to approve giving nuns in Belgian Congo artificial contraception to prevent pregnancies because they were being systematically raped.
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hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_REL_POPE_ZIKA
 
The headlines reported by major news sites just make me shake my head. “Pope absolutely declares contraception okay!” No he didn’t. “Pope in a major fight with Trump!” No he’s not. A reporter asked him a question about a man the Pope knows little about and probably summarized Trump’s position in five words, and the Pope commented on it, admitting he didn’t really know the candidate and using the word “if…”. Perhaps it would be politically wiser to have declined to comment, but this supposed fight is all one-sided (Trump).
 
No, no I don’t think he does. What I saw (NOT WSJ) was that avoiding a pregnancy is not necessarily a sin. That, of course, can be licit without contracepting.
 
Either pope Francis knows exactly what he is saying, or the media twists his words. Either way I cringe.
 
Wesrock said:
The headlines reported by major news sites just make me shake my head. “Pope absolutely declares contraception okay!” No he didn’t. “Pope in a major fight with Trump!” No he’s not. A reporter asked him a question about a man the Pope knows little about and probably summarized Trump’s position in five words, and the Pope commented on it, admitting he didn’t really know the candidate and using the word “if…”. Perhaps it would be politically wiser to have declined to comment, but this supposed fight is all one-sided (Trump).
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The Pope must know by now how these off the cuff remarks he makes end up being reported.

The confusion and the damage is already done.

ETA: Check out Drudge Report for how this will be viewed by the world (and most Catholics). Good times. “POPE NOW SAYS BIRTH CONTROL OK” 🤷
 
ARSpade said:
The Pope must know by now how these off the cuff remarks he makes end up being reported.

The confusion and the damage is already done.
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As tablefor9 mentioned above, the Pope only said that it’s not a sin to avoid pregnancy for legitimate reasons. That’s a perfectly Catholic truth. The problems come when radical Catholic agitators try to promote the sinfulness of avoiding pregnancy and planning families. They confuse the general public with what are essentially lies.

Bottom line. The Pope is correct.
 
Pope Francis on Zika: abortion a crime, contraception a lesser evil
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Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis insisted Thursday that abortion was always a crime but hinted that the Church could exceptionally relax its ban on contraception for women at risk of contracting the Zika virus.
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“Abortion is not a lesser evil. It is a crime,” Francis said in response to a question about how best to combat the outbreak across Latin America of a virus linked to birth defects.
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But he added: “Avoiding a pregnancy is not an absolute evil.”
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The 79-year-old pontiff recalled that one of his predecessors, Paul VI (1963-1978) had authorised nuns working in Africa to use contraceptives in light of a high risk of them being raped by soldiers.
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“We must not confuse the evil consisting of avoiding a pregnancy with abortion,” Francis said. "Abortion is not a theological problem. It is a human problem, medical. One person is killed to save another. It is evil in itself, it is not a religious evil, it is a human evil.
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Read More At: news.yahoo.com/pope-francis-zika-abortion-crime-contraception-lesser-evil-171930714.html
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Good to see Pope Francis take on this pro-life stance, hopefully, we all can be as consistent. Is their an “othering” here too?
 
The Pope must know by now how these off the cuff remarks he makes end up being reported.
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The confusion and the damage is already done.
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That pretty much says it all.

Your Holiness, please stop talking to reporters! You are awful at it.
 
What kind of mixed up, upside down, inside out universe am I living in? Nuns on condoned use of birth control pills? And Pope Francis is citing this in reference to the Zika virus?
 
Sometimes stating the obvious is necessary. There are degrees of good and evil in this world.
 
EmeraldOak said:
What kind of mixed up, upside down, inside out universe am I living in? Nuns on condoned use of birth control pills? And Pope Francis is citing this in reference to the Zika virus?
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This is an explanation of the situation in the Congo, back many decades:

"The case he referenced took place in the early 1960s, when the Vatican granted a dispensation to religious sisters living in the Belgian Congo who were in grave danger of rape to use oral contraceptives.

The logic behind the decision was that while birth control is normally immoral because it attempts to separate the unitive and procreative aspects of the sexual act, the nuns were trying to resist the act altogether. Because rape is an act of violent aggression rather than a freely chosen act, the contraception was part of a legitimate attempt at self-defense."

Read more: ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-francis-abortion-is-a-crime-and-never-the-solution-to-zika-virus/#ixzz40XtwuvE7
 
Pope Francis is terrible at extemporaneous speaking and addressing reporters.

Someone should tell him and beg him to stop.
 
SamDash said:
Pope Francis is terrible at extemporaneous speaking and addressing reporters.

Someone should tell him and beg him to stop.
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Perhaps he knows exactly what he is saying. It isn’t like this is the first time on an airplane with reporters. It isn’t like he had no idea about the Zika situation.
Maybe, just maybe this pope means what he says.
 
I hope we can support the politicians who do not support evil.

We can never enable abortions ourselves, it be driving someone to a clinic or voting for pro-abortion candidates.
 
dixieagle said:
This is an explanation of the situation in the Congo, back many decades:

"The case he referenced took place in the early 1960s, when the Vatican granted a dispensation to religious sisters living in the Belgian Congo who were in grave danger of rape to use oral contraceptives.

The logic behind the decision was that while birth control is normally immoral because it attempts to separate the unitive and procreative aspects of the sexual act, the nuns were trying to resist the act altogether. Because rape is an act of violent aggression rather than a freely chosen act, the contraception was part of a legitimate attempt at self-defense."

Read more: ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-francis-abortion-is-a-crime-and-never-the-solution-to-zika-virus/#ixzz40XtwuvE7
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Thank you for the explanation dixieagle. I appreciate it. I really do!

There is just still so much to this that I don’t understand. I am currently taking Accutane which is a medication known to cause severe birth defects. My doctor presented birth control as a must. I talked to my priest about it and he had me call The National Catholic Bioethics Center for clarification. They explained over the phone that birth control is intrinsically evil, period, no exceptions.

I can understand the nun scenario to a point, but then the logic breaks down for me. Conception only occurs by either God’s ordained will or His permitting will. I thought that rape or no rape, zika virus or no zika virus, any child conceived was supposed to be brought into the world.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
Perhaps he knows exactly what he is saying. It isn’t like this is the first time on an airplane with reporters. It isn’t like he had no idea about the Zika situation.
Maybe, just maybe this pope means what he says.
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ITA. At this point I think its more likely he knows what he is saying and means it.
 
I wonder if the popes comments will have an adverse effect on the way the church views life as a whole, contraception in cases where a baby might be born with defects is different than one to save a mothers life…
One wonders if the disability defenders will be harmed by this.
 
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