Response for ABC thread

[GAssisi]

Bless me, Father.

“NFP is against Natural Law.” This is, I truly regret to say, one of the most ignorant statements I have heard from a priest in a while. Father, the point of being against ABC, if you are not aware of it, is NOT that conception does not or cannot occur (a situation present in nature), but that conception is being PREVENTED by IN THE NATURAL PROCESS OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE.

There are several necessary considerations here, Father, which your claim that NFP is against Natural Law does not take into account:

First, the unnaturalness or sinfulness of birth control occurs ONLY IN THE CONTEXT OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE. If you are not having sexual intercourse, how can it be unnatural or sinful?

Second, in NFP, conception is not being prevented. What is being prevented is sexual intercourse. Since preventing conception is the actual grave matter of the law against birth control, it follows that NFP, which only prevents sexual intercourse, is not sinful nor is it against Natural Law. In both NFP and ABC, the mentality is to not have a child, but only ABC actually performs the sinful act of PREVENTING CONCEPTION. It is natural to want to have sex yet not want a child. What is NOT NATURAL is to PREVENT CONCEPTION in the event of sexual intercourse.

Third, there are many cases when NFP is used and the couple still gets pregnant. If the will of the couple was the primary factor in NFP, it is natural to conclude that they would get an abortion in such a case. But this does not happen because the mindset of couples who use NFP is not to satisfy the will, but to be in agreement with GOD. Couples who use NFP WILL have that child, despite not intending to get pregnant initially, because their mind is focused not on their own will, but God’s. This consideration, along with the second, indicates that NFP is indeed PROCREATIVE. The same cannot be said of those who use ABC, for whereas a couple who uses ABC might still have the sense to go through with an accidental pregnancy (since ABC’s are not 100% fullproof), their original act was to PREVENT CONCEPTION – which is the sinful matter of the law against birth control.

Fourth, your tripe against St. Aquinas’ position on pleasure is unjustified. Aquinas specifically states that pleasure is MERELY a secondary aspect of the sexual act. It accompanies it NATURALLY, and pleasurable feelings during the sexual act should not be considered sinful. That is all he is saying. It is infinitely far from your assumption that it makes pleasure the primary end of the sexual act.

Fifth, NFP involves a sacrifice. ABC’s do not. This demonstrates the inconsistency of Orthodoxy in the matter. Orthodox will, under the excuse of economy, allow ABC in cases where the life of the woman may be in danger if she gets pregnant. The Catholic Church would insist on making a sacrifice in union with the Lord’s and counsel such a woman to use NFP to prevent pregnancy, because using the woman’s fertility cycle is the NATURAL way – that is, GOD’S way – for a couple not to have a child (a fertility cycle, BTW, that is present in ALL of God’s living creatures). And seriously – which counsel to that woman would lead one to believe that self-gratification is the primary end of sexual intercourse: the one that says, “go ahead and use ABC so you yourself can have sex anytime you want without fear of getting pregnant,” or “let us use the fertility cycle which God has built NATURALLY into you to prevent getting pregnant” The latter, Father, INHERENTLY predisposes one to keep their mind on God’s will. If a couple does not want to have a baby and engage in sexual intercourse, an NFP couple naturally and automatically thinks about what GOD has provided for such a course of events to take place. ABC, on the other hand, is more likely to predispose one to only think about not getting pregnant when having sex.

Sixth, to say that NFP is unnatural simply because it involves man’s will suggests that our free will was not obtained from God. This is the materialist, rationalist, post-modern assertion, Father. It is quite consistent of them to propose the argument since they believe man himself, and his will, exists independent of God. It is little wonder that this rhetoric, used by you, is ALSO used by such people, mostly atheists, to try to accuse the Catholic Church of inconsistency in this matter. But it is rather – nay, WHOLLY – inconsistent of YOU to propose it.—

 

[GAssisi]

–CONTINUED–

And as to your statement that the CATHOLIC CHURCH now allows contraception because one bishop in Spain has permitted it: This is a clear-cut case of eisegesis. Your ecclesiology is different from ours, Father. And I know you realize that. Your bishops are normatively autonomous entities (don’t confuse that term with autocephalous). But in the Catholic Church, every bishop, in matters relating to faith and morals, is answerable to a higher ecclesiastical authority – the Pope. What that bishop did DOES NOT REPRESENT THE POSITION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. You cannot, with integrity, claim that the CATHOLIC CHURCH permits contraception due to the actions of one of its bishops because there is a higher standard in the Catholic Church than one bishop – it is the Magisterium. Obviously, if out of a multitude of bishops, one bishop does something contrary to the mind of the whole, it could not possibly, according to CATHOLIC ecclesiology, come close to being representative of the Catholic Church herself.

I would respectfully request that since you publicly slandered the Catholic Church with a false witness (though it may have been done unintentionally though an eisegetic mentality), now that you have been apprised of the truth of the matter, you should now offer a public apology for bearing false witness.

God bless,

Greg

 

[Catholic_Tom]

–CONTINUED–

And as to your statement that the CATHOLIC CHURCH now allows contraception because one bishop in Spain has permitted it: This is a clear-cut case of eisegesis. Your ecclesiology is different from ours, Father. And I know you realize that. Your bishops are normatively autonomous entities (don’t confuse that term with autocephalous). But in the Catholic Church, every bishop, in matters relating to faith and morals, is answerable to a higher ecclesiastical authority – the Pope. What that bishop did DOES NOT REPRESENT THE POSITION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. You cannot, with integrity, claim that the CATHOLIC CHURCH permits contraception due to the actions of one of its bishops because there is a higher standard in the Catholic Church than one bishop – it is the Magisterium. Obviously, if out of a multitude of bishops, one bishop does something contrary to the mind of the whole, it could not possibly, according to CATHOLIC ecclesiology, come close to being representative of the Catholic Church herself.

I would respectfully request that since you publicly slandered the Catholic Church with a false witness (though it may have been done unintentionally though an eisegetic mentality), now that you have been apprised of the truth of the matter, you should now offer a public apology for bearing false witness.

God bless,

Greg

Here here!!! One problem though, I believe it’s Fr. Ambrose you are talking about and he’s banned.

 

[GAssisi]

Dear Admins, I pray that you allow the resurrection of this thread, and allow Father Ambrose, if he so chooses, to contribute without fear of restriction.

Dear Father,

The question we have before us is whether or not the Catholic Church has changed her constant teaching on this issue of whether sex in marriage without procreation is sinful. It is our assertion here in this Catholic forum that the constant teaching of the Catholic Church is not that sex in marriage without procreation is sinful, but that sex in marriage that prevents procreation or the possibility of procreation (i.e., contraception) is sinful.

I have already refuted in the first post of this thread the substance of your claim – that NFP is akin to contraception. Now, I want to bring into consideration some juridical and practical aspects of the matter. The Catholic Church has, to my knowledge, always distinguished between impotence and sterility in its determinations of impediments to marriage. There is documentation throughout the nineteenth century that this was the case. There was a case in 1936 (if memory serves me correctly) which caused a bit of a stir among the canonists, wherein Pope Pius regarded valid the marriage of man who had a double vasectomy. Many canonists utilize Sixtus V’s Bull Cum Frequenter (1587) as a basis and an aid to distinguish between impotence and sterility. The reason I bring this up, Father, is because according to Catholic canon law, though impotence is an impediment to marriage, sterility is not. Thus, it is certain that the Catholic Church has held (and has always held) the position that what is sinful is not merely sex in marriage without procreation, but specifically sex in marriage that prevents procreation or the possibility of procreation.

Also consider the case of Abraham. Sarah was sterile, Father. How do you suppose they realized she was sterile? Certainly, there is no condemnation of their sexual relations in the Bible, unlike the specific condemnation given to Onan.

Finally, as I noted in the other post, the Fathers cited in the Catholic Answers article do not absolutely support your contention. The following are the Fathers from the article that support the Catholic notion that it is not merely sex in the marriage act that is wrong, but sex in the marriage act where the possibility of procreation is prevented (I have highlighted pertinent portions):

Council of Nicaea I

“*f anyone in sound health has castrated himself, it behooves that such a one, if enrolled among the clergy, should cease [from his ministry], and that from henceforth no such person should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this is said of those who willfully do the thing and presume to castrate themselves, so if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians, or by their masters, and should otherwise be found worthy, such men this canon admits to the clergy” (Canon 1 [A.D. 325]).

This canon is striking because it allows to be enrolled in the ministry those who have not castrated themselves willfully. If we can admit the obvious analogy, a person who is sterile is to be allowed the grace of the sacrament of marriage. Thus, it is clear that having sex in marriage while no procreation is possible is not a sin.

(continued)*

 

[GAssisi]

(continued)

Epiphanius of Salamis

“They [certain Egyptian heretics] exercise genital acts, yet prevent the conceiving of children. Not in order to produce offspring, but to satisfy lust, are they eager for corruption” (Medicine Chest Against Heresies 26:5:2 [A.D. 375]).

Augustine

“You [Manicheans] make your auditors adulterers of their wives when they take care lest the women with whom they copulate conceive. They take wives according to the laws of matrimony by tablets announcing that the marriage is contracted to procreate children; and then, fearing because of your law [against childbearing] . . . they copulate in a shameful union only to satisfy lust for their wives. They are unwilling to have children, on whose account alone marriages are made. How is it, then, that you are not those prohibiting marriage, as the apostle predicted of you so long ago [1 Tim. 4:1–4], when you try to take from marriage what marriage is? When this is taken away, husbands are shameful lovers, wives are harlots, bridal chambers are brothels, fathers-in-law are pimps” (Against Faustus 15:7 [A.D. 400]).

“For necessary sexual intercourse for begetting [children] is alone worthy of marriage. But that which goes beyond this necessity no longer follows reason but lust. And yet it pertains to the character of marriage . . . to yield it to the partner lest by fornication the other sin damnably [through adultery]. . . . [T]hey [must] not turn away from them the mercy of God . . . by changing the natural use into that which is against nature, which is more damnable when it is done in the case of husband or wife. For, whereas that natural use, when it pass beyond the compact of marriage, that is, beyond the necessity of begetting [children], is pardonable in the case of a wife, damnable in the case of a harlot; that which is against nature is execrable when done in the case of a harlot, but more execrable in the case of a wife. Of so great power is the ordinance of the Creator, and the order of creation, that . . . when the man shall wish to use a body part of the wife not allowed for this purpose [orally or anally consummated sex], the wife is more shameful, if she suffer it to take place in her own case, than if in the case of another woman” (The Good of Marriage 11–12 [A.D. 401]).

“I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility. . . . Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer with his own wife” (Marriage and Concupiscence 1:15:17 [A.D. 419]).

(continued)

 

[GAssisi]

(continued)

John Chrysostom

“Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. . . . Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his [natural] laws? . . . Yet such turpitude . . . the matter still seems indifferent to many men—even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks” (*Homilies on Romans *24 [A.D. 391]).

“*n truth, all men know that they who are under the power of this disease [the sin of covetousness] are wearied even of their father’s old age [wishing him to die so they can inherit]; and that which is sweet, and universally desirable, the having of children, they esteem grievous and unwelcome. Many at least with this view have even paid money to be childless, and have mutilated nature, not only killing the newborn, but even acting to prevent their beginning to live” (*Homilies on Matthew *28:5 [A.D. 391]).

Caesarius of Arles

“Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion so that she is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she could have conceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a woman does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman” (Sermons 1:12 [A.D. 522]).

I pray this has given you some food for thought.

God bless,

Greg*