Reconciling Catholic Church teaching and "pro choice" Catholics

[zamboni]

This is going in circles. The pro abort position seeks to redefine the debate. The problem is you cannot reconcile intentionally killing innocents with Church teaching and that teaching includes the fact that the civil law should never contradict the moral law on such a grave matter.

It has been pointed out by posting sections of the CCC and papal encyclicals, yet nothing will satisfy those who refuse to be convinced.

For anyone who knows even a smidgen of catholic doctrine they know there is absolutely no way that one can reconcile Church teachings with being pro-choice.

I will try one last time to reach the self-appointed (or home-brew-anointed?) small “b” bishops and lower-case “c” cardinals who keep simply repeating themselves on this thread, and who keep insisting that a pro-choice position is irreconcilable with Catholic Church teaching.

In my opinion, your case would be of more value (than it’s current value of zero) if it were not for the fact that you must be overlooking the neglected responsibilities of men according to 2270 and 2271. I submit that by overlooking these neglected responsibilities of men, while still expecting women to follow Church teaching, constitutes hypocrisy that goes beyond Pharisee level hypocrisy, according to my richter hypocrisy-magnitude scale. The reason I say “worse than Pharisee” is that those of the New Testament Pharisees found by Jesus to be “hypocrites” were following the letter of the law, as opposed to (or at the expense of) the spirit of the law, whereas the modern Pharisee portion of the anti-choice movement nowadays does not seem to follow either the letter or spirit of the law. Just half of the letter of the law is followed (the part applying to women only) and none of the spirit of the law is all that apparently remains intact of Church teaching in the hands of estebob, fix, Caramel, and thread host, small “w” wizard of OP.

 

[fix]

I will try one last time to reach the self-appointed (or home-brew-anointed?) small “b” bishops and lower-case “c” cardinals who keep simply repeating themselves on this thread, and who keep insisting that a pro-choice position is irreconcilable with Catholic Church teaching.

In my opinion, your case would be of more value (than it’s current value of zero) if it were not for the fact that you must be overlooking the neglected responsibilities of men according to 2270 and 2271. I submit that by overlooking these neglected responsibilities of men, while still expecting women to follow Church teaching, constitutes hypocrisy that goes beyond Pharisee level hypocrisy, according to my richter hypocrisy-magnitude scale. The reason I say “worse than Pharisee” is that those of the New Testament Pharisees found by Jesus to be “hypocrites” were following the letter of the law, as opposed to (or at the expense of) the spirit of the law, whereas the modern Pharisee portion of the anti-choice movement nowadays does not seem to follow either the letter or spirit of the law. Just half of the letter of the law is followed (the part applying to women only) and none of the spirit of the law is all that apparently remains intact of Church teaching in the hands of estebob, fix, Caramel, and thread host, small “w” wizard of OP.

Sorry, but you seemed confused about a few things. First, Christ said to the people regarding the Pharisees that the people should do exactly as the Pharisees tell them to do. They had the seat of authority, yet they were hypocrites. Christ never said it was holy to reject the moral law.

Secondly, what does the lack of responsibility of certain men have to do with support for legalized abortion? This makes little sense. Are you saying you will only stop supporting legalized abortion when men who act badly stop acting badly?

Thirdly, how do you reconcile your view with the teaching of the Church?

Finally, who is the authority behind Christ’s Church? I mean how much of His teaching do we get to reject?

 

[Caramel]

If I read correctly, someone is actually excusing abortion in the case of rape!

Hm…talk about allowing a victim to be revictimized!

Yes, She’s pregnant. Why don’t we tell her that she’ll have to spread her legs open, have a machine inserted while on a u/s screen, the dr kills a piece of her?

Not pretty, is it? But coming from someone who has btdt and regrets EVERY single moment (not rape), abortion is NOT the answer, and in this day and age of instant answers and instant cures, this is NOT one of them.

There’s nothing pretty about rape. Neither is there anything pretty about abortion.

Stop. Love your sister as yourself. Stop using this as an excuse. Stop it! We CANNOT be pro Choice catholics. We are pro babies. We are FOR the Body of Christ.

Sorry. That hit a raw nerve.

Hi Heathernoel!! I just got the chance to finally start to catch up on the posts I missed because I was on the Prayer Intentions Forum for a few days.

Thank you for the post!! You are right; it is not pretty and from some of the case studies presented by Kevin Sherlock in his book Victims of Choice, (1996, Brennyman Books, Akron,OH) many of the women who have gone through the abortion process have ended up dead themselves.

It is a horrible procedure and IMO one of the saddest things about it is that one is always killed (with a few exceptions), one is most likely maimed, and that maimed person may be killed, too. It’s a sad commentary on our society.

 

[Caramel]

I will try one last time to reach the self-appointed (or home-brew-anointed?) small “b” bishops and lower-case “c” cardinals who keep simply repeating themselves on this thread, and who keep insisting that a pro-choice position is irreconcilable with Catholic Church teaching.

In my opinion, your case would be of more value (than it’s current value of zero) if it were not for the fact that you must be overlooking the neglected responsibilities of men according to 2270 and 2271. I submit that by overlooking these neglected responsibilities of men, while still expecting women to follow Church teaching, constitutes hypocrisy that goes beyond Pharisee level hypocrisy, according to my richter hypocrisy-magnitude scale. The reason I say “worse than Pharisee” is that those of the New Testament Pharisees found by Jesus to be “hypocrites” were following the letter of the law, as opposed to (or at the expense of) the spirit of the law, whereas the modern Pharisee portion of the anti-choice movement nowadays does not seem to follow either the letter or spirit of the law. Just half of the letter of the law is followed (the part applying to women only) and none of the spirit of the law is all that apparently remains intact of Church teaching in the hands of estebob, fix, Caramel, and thread host, small “w” wizard of OP.

I just want to thank you for including my name along with estesbob, fix and gakroeger. I am honored to be in their company.

 

[zamboni]

Sorry, but you seemed confused about a few things. First, Christ said to the people regarding the Pharisees that the people should do exactly as the Pharisees tell them to do. They had the seat of authority, yet they were hypocrites. Christ never said it was holy to reject the moral law.

Secondly, what does the lack of responsibility of certain men have to do with support for legalized abortion? This makes little sense. Are you saying you will only stop supporting legalized abortion when men who act badly stop acting badly?

Thirdly, how do you reconcile your view with the teaching of the Church?

Finally, who is the authority behind Christ’s Church? I mean how much of His teaching do we get to reject?

You and your comrades are the only ones who are rejecting Church teaching, as far as I can tell, which you are clearly doing, as I have already identified, by insisting that post-conception responsibilities of women are the only issue, at the expense of or while completely ignoring the very widely neglected moment of conception responsibilities entrusted to men, about which I hear no pro-lifers proposing new laws. You know, so as not to look like worse hypocrites than Pharisees who were to be followed at least until Jesus died, or safe to presume until they stopped following the complete letter of the law, not just half like you do.

I challenge each and every vocal anti-choice person, male and female alike, to succeed in passing equal laws of restraint on men’s reproductive rights as those you would like to impose on just women. Until then, you will stand out to me like sore thumbs as hypocrites, out of keeping with modern and original Church teaching.

 

[fix]

You and your comrades are the only ones who are rejecting Church teaching, as far as I can tell, which you are clearly doing, as I have already identified, by insisting that post-conception responsibilities of women are the only issue, at the expense of or while completely ignoring the very widely neglected moment of conception responsibilities entrusted to men, about which I hear no pro-lifers proposing new laws. You know, so as not to look like worse hypocrites than Pharisees who were to be followed at least until Jesus died, or safe to presume until they stopped following the complete letter of the law, not just half like you do.

I challenge each and every vocal anti-choice person, male and female alike, to succeed in passing equal laws of restraint on men’s reproductive rights as those you would like to impose on just women. Until then, you will stand out to me like sore thumbs as hypocrites, out of keeping with modern and original Church teaching.

Just so we are clear you are saying abortion is a “reproductive right”? And that view is consistent with Church teaching?

What laws are you referring to? Laws against fornication? Adultery?

The abortion issue is about the right to life.

Can you show us some references to Church teaching that support your unusual understanding of this issue? Thank you in advance.

 

[fix]

The way to reconcile so-called “pro-choice” Catholics with the authentic teaching of the Church is through cheerful obedience. Docile submission to Christ through His Church. Once that is done God will give us the grace to understand as far as our ability allows.

To Christ through Mary.

 

[SteveGC]

Time out everyone, please.

This is getting loopy. I tried to do something at post 697, but seemingly no one thought it a decent idea. Perhaps this post will do no good either…but…

If I may…

Worthy5…confirm you are Catholic. If so, then please state what is your primary argument with regard to being pro-choice? I assume it is for the sake of limited government, correct? I also believe it has something to do with your opinion that the Church does not clearly teach how one should cast their ballot in terms of a candidate’s stance on abortion law? Whatever it is, please clearly define for us your pro-choice motivation and why you think the Church permits you to be a supporter of pro-choice given your motivation, or if you concede the Church does teach that a faithful Catholic cannot support pro-choice for the reasons you support it, please tell us if you deliberately reject/disobey that teaching.

zamboni…same questions…I assume your argument has something to do with hypocrisy. Please spell it out for us clearly as asked above.

Thank you both in advance.

Fix, gakroeger, estesbob, caramel and others…

When they do this…please provide clear, official, documented Catholic teaching which refutes their arguments as to why they can be pro-choice.

Until we get this done, this thread is a stagnant unproductive cesspool. We have to narrow this down folks. We need to know precisely what some pro-choice Catholics positions are, why they believe those positions are not contradictory to Church teaching…and we need pro-life Catholics here to show them specifically why they’re wrong. Can that be done?

 

[Caramel]

You and your comrades are the only ones who are rejecting Church teaching, as far as I can tell, which you are clearly doing, as I have already identified, by insisting that post-conception responsibilities of women are the only issue, at the expense of or while completely ignoring the very widely neglected moment of conception responsibilities entrusted to men, about which I hear no pro-lifers proposing new laws. You know, so as not to look like worse hypocrites than Pharisees who were to be followed at least until Jesus died, or safe to presume until they stopped following the complete letter of the law, not just half like you do.

I challenge each and every vocal anti-choice person, male and female alike, to succeed in passing equal laws of restraint on men’s reproductive rights as those you would like to impose on just women. Until then, you will stand out to me like sore thumbs as hypocrites, out of keeping with modern and original Church teaching.

Where did anybody insist that post-conception responsibilities of women are the only issue? Can you give a post number?

Are you calling prolifers hypocrites?

 

[Caramel]

Time out everyone, please.

This is getting loopy. I tried to do something at post 697, but seemingly no one thought it a decent idea. Perhaps this post will do no good either…but…

If I may…

Worthy5…confirm you are Catholic. If so, then please state what is your primary argument with regard to being pro-choice? I assume it is for the sake of limited government, correct? I also believe it has something to do with your opinion that the Church does not clearly teach how one should cast their ballot in terms of a candidate’s stance on abortion law? Whatever it is, please clearly define for us your pro-choice motivation and why you think the Church permits you to be a supporter of pro-choice given your motivation, or if you concede the Church does teach that a faithful Catholic cannot support pro-choice for the reasons you support it, please tell us if you deliberately reject/disobey that teaching.

zamboni…same questions…I assume your argument has something to do with hypocrisy. Please spell it out for us clearly as asked above.

Thank you both in advance.

Fix, gakroeger, estesbob, caramel and others…

When they do this…please provide clear, official, documented Catholic teaching which refutes their arguments as to why they can be pro-choice.

Until we get this done, this thread is a stagnant unproductive cesspool. We have to narrow this down folks. We need to know precisely what some pro-choice Catholics positions are, why they believe those positions are not contradictory to Church teaching…and we need pro-life Catholics here to show them specifically why they’re wrong. Can that be done?

Agreed. I would like to try. I have tried to understand zamboni’s position, which has been discussed before, although in all honesty, I cannot comprehend it.

But I agree that the thread has become loopy and I will do my best.

 

[fix]

I have posted severeal links to the CCC and encyclicals here before.

Again:

Certainly the purpose of civil law is different and more limited in scope than that of the moral law. But “in no sphere of life can the civil law take the place of conscience or dictate norms concerning things which are outside its competence”,90 which is that of ensuring the common good of people through the recognition and defence of their fundamental rights, and the promotion of peace and of public morality. 91 The real purpose of civil law is to guarantee an ordered social coexistence in true justice, so that all may “lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way” (1 Tim 2:2). Precisely for this reason, civil law must ensure that all members of society enjoy respect for certain fundamental rights which innately belong to the person, rights which every positive law must recognize and guarantee. First and fundamental among these is the inviolable right to life of every innocent human being. While public authority can sometimes choose not to put a stop to something which-were it prohibited- would cause more serious harm, 92 it can never presume to legitimize as a right of individuals-even if they are the majority of the members of society-an offence against other persons caused by the disregard of so fundamental a right as the right to life. The legal toleration of abortion or of euthanasia can in no way claim to be based on respect for the conscience of others, precisely because society has the right and the duty to protect itself against the abuses which can occur in the name of conscience and under the pretext of freedom. 93

The doctrine on the necessary conformity of civil law with the moral law is in continuity with the whole tradition of the Church. This is clear once more from John XXIII’s Encyclical: “Authority is a postulate of the moral order and derives from God. Consequently, laws and decrees enacted in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience…; indeed, the passing of such laws undermines the very nature of authority and results in shameful abuse”.95

…Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good. Consequently, a civil law authorizing abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law…

Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.

 

[SteveGC]

Thanks, caramel.

and Fix, thanks for your work providing these links. If I may suggest…let’s wait to see if worthy5 and zamboni respond to my request, and when they do, if you (or all of us) could extract specific parts of these documents which we believe specifically counter their exact position, then we might be getting somewhere. We should give them every opportunity to not only explain their position very clearly, but also a chance to tell us why these binding, documented statements from the Church do not apply to their specific positions.

estesbob, gakroeger, please help.

and gakroeger, my apologies if this appears as though I’m walking on your thread. I really don’t mean to, I just see chaos and want to help get some clarity…before we reach the max posts here. I will back down with this idea if you don’t like it. It’s obviously your thread.

 

[zamboni]

Just so we are clear you are saying abortion is a “reproductive right”? And that view is consistent with Church teaching?

This appears to be the beginning of yet another attempt to put words in my mouth, or in this case maybe just same words in a new context… floated like a trial balloon in search of possible contradiction. To answer your question as best I can (and feel free to ask a follow-up question if dissatisfied), ultimately, I hope my opinions about the reproductive rights of men and women become irrelevant. Why should it have to be my business or become my position to impose my views on anyone but myself about such things. At the moment my opinion only seems to matter because of how far removed from reality the oversimplified opinions and incomplete/partially interested interpretations of people with voting power, like yourself, and the way such voting power, when used indiscriminately, threatens to exacerbate an already tragic and fatally unjust situation.

What laws are you referring to? Laws against fornication? Adultery?

I am not aiming to pass a law exam written by someone who fails Catechism 101. Your credibility is not quite as overspent as Caramel’s, though, so I will just ask you to form more carefully considered, expedient questions than what you have asked in the above quote, if you wish to continue occupying my time.

Can you show us some references to Church teaching that support your unusual understanding of this issue? Thank you in advance.

Why do you suggest that an unusual level of understanding should be required to understand 2270 and 2271?

 

[zamboni]

Gakroeger, if I may…

seems like the biggest arguments that Catholic pro-choicers have is that there is no teaching that tells them :

1. that they cannot vote for a candidate who is not going to make abortion illegal or who is going to federally fund abortion, so long as they are not voting for that candidate based on that position on abortion.
2. that they cannot lobby to keep abortion legal for the precise reason of limiting government power

or

1. that they cannot lobby to keep abortion legal for the precise reason of keeping the abortion decision private

So, while they themselves don’t believe in abortion, would never have one, never encourage another to have one, and would even discourage it, they reconcile their pro-choice stance based on the above concepts…

I only cut off your quote at this point (which continues in the original) because it looks like a mischaracterization is already forming by this point of how I attempt to reconcile a pro-choice vote at election time with belief in Catholic teaching, or maybe better to say how to apply it more evenly and therefore more successfully in a fallen world such as this, instead of becoming counterproductive to the Church’s own interests, like many extreme wings of the Protestant church have become their own worst enemies.

If you feel that I missed the relevance of your line of questioning, please feel free to follow up.

 

[zamboni]

…

It might be worth repeating that I have tried to make a distinction in this thread between what I expect or would prefer to see the Church herself do under the circumstances — specifically, not to change her own position at all — and what I expect or would ideally hope to see the laity do of its own volition — namely, help effect positive change instead of only pursuing Catholic teaching fractionally, and apparently without much if any regard for the consequences of concepts like, let’s say, the point of sinfully diminishing returns, or why not: how to make a mockery of the spirit of the law while pretending to care about the letter?

 

[Caramel]

It might be worth repeating that I have tried to make a distinction in this thread between what I expect or would prefer to see the Church herself do under the circumstances — specifically, not to change her own position at all — and what I expect or would ideally hope to see the laity do of its own volition — namely, help effect positive change instead of only pursuing Catholic teaching fractionally, and apparently without much if any regard for the consequences of concepts like, let’s say, the point of sinfully diminishing returns, or why not: how to make a mockery of the spirit of the law?

What I can gather from this post is that you want Catholic Church teachings to remain the same - to “not…change her own position at all.” But at the same time you want the lay people to go against Church teaching? Am I reading this correctly?

What do you mean by “the point of sinfully diminishing returns?”

 

[zamboni]

What I can gather from this post is that you want Catholic Church teachings to remain the same - to “not…change her own position at all.” But at the same time you want the lay people to go against Church teaching? Am I reading this correctly?

What do you mean by “the point of sinfully diminishing returns?”

I am asking vocal pro-life laity to stop going against Church teaching by applying it fractionally. Please ask CPA estebob what means the point of diminishing returns or why not just use Wikipedia, Yahoo or Google instead of this thread for some of your many automatic questions?

 

[Worthy5]

This is going in circles. The pro abort position seeks to redefine the debate. The problem is you cannot reconcile intentionally killing innocents with Church teaching and that teaching includes the fact that the civil law should never contradict the moral law on such a grave matter.

It has been pointed out by posting sections of the CCC and papal encyclicals, yet nothing will satisfy those who refuse to be convinced.

So if civil law always has to do the bidding of the moral law then why do we not make the CCC the new Constitution?

 

[Caramel]

I am asking vocal pro-life laity to stop going against Church teaching by applying it fractionally. Please ask CPA estebob what means the point of diminishing returns or why not just use Wikipedia, Yahoo or Google instead of this thread for some of your many automatic questions?

Zamboni, I politely asked you two questions. You answered one, which I appreciate.

But I asked **you what ** you meant when I asked the second question and instead of answering it you tell me to go ask someone else. If estesbob knows why you used this phrase and has used it in another post, would you please give me the post number? I want to know what **you ** meant. That is the reason I asked you.

Would you rather have me not understand your position? I’m only asking these questions because I am honestly confused about your position and I would like to find out exactly what it is. I realize that I have no credibility with you and you obviously have your reasons to believe that; also you may be correct in some of what you have criticized about my posts. I think there has been a lot of miscommunication between us and I would like to put that aside and start fresh, in the spirit of Christianity.

I’ve been thinking about your response to me re the Guttmacher Institute. ** And you are right - I should have backed up my claim with actual citations.** I apologize for not doing so and I understand why you would be frustrated. I was wrong. So I now have the following links for you:

guttmacher.org/about/mission.html :
Under “A comprehensive review of sexual and reproductive health” it is stated that one objective is …“exercise the right to choose abortion.”

guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/09/4/gpr090424.html/:

"The overwhelming majority of Americans—89% according to a June 2006 Wall Street Journal poll—believes that providing people with access to birth control is a good way to reduce abortion. But in the political domain, where efforts to reduce abortion are concerned, contraception has become as much a battleground as common ground. In September, the radical antiabortion Pro-Life Action League, for example, held a conference “dedicated to exposing the myth that artificial birth control is good for society and reduces abortion.” According to a promotional letter for “Contraception Is Not the Answer,” contraceptive use leads not only to more abortions but also to "skyrocketing divorce, epidemic illegitimacy, widespread cohabitation, and even social acceptance of homosexuality.

“More mainstream antiabortion groups may be more subtle, but they also take pains to distance themselves from acknowledging the need and demand for contraception and its essential role in preventing unintended pregnancy, which is the proximate cause of virtually all abortions.”

I have also emailed the Guttmacher Institute with a request to specifically define their term “reproductive freedom”.

I don’t expect an answer today as it is Thanksgiving Day. But I hope to receive a reply in the near future.

I was surprised to find that data from the research papers I looked at that have been published by the Guttmacher Institute were carefully examined in an objective way, and so I think that the Institute, no matter what their actual position or agenda, could (and probably does) serve as an excellent source for research for both prochoice and prolife groups.

If I had checked this more carefully in the past, I would have seen it, as it appears glaringly evident to me now. ** I again apologize to you for dismissing their research as coming from an organization with a prochoice agenda.** I still believe they have a prochoice agenda, but even so, the research they are providing is extremely valuable.

 

[estesbob]

Okay, we assume then that you support a one-party system for America and the Church requires one to do so in order to be Catholic. Hmm. Interesting. :knight2:

No-I am saying it is not possible to reconcile being pro-choice with the teachings of the Church.