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Alexander_Smith
Guest
He is free to have his opinions. Somebody wanted me to post it, so I did.
And no I wasn’t aware of that. I just ran across the previous quote on his blog by looking for NFP information.
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And no I wasn’t aware of that. I just ran across the previous quote on his blog by looking for NFP information.
Mary_Gail_36
New member
Calling John Paul II a promoter of heresy, is not the way to win an argument, because it is a LIEHe is free to have his opinions. Somebody wanted me to post it, so I did.
He lost all credibility by doing so.
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Jennifer_J
Guest
Why would anyone like it, the person has some very serious issues and is promoting ideas contrary to Church teaching? He is in grave error. He actually believes that couples shouldn’t invite Christ into their union. Marriage is between the couple and God. I would hope that Christ is invited into all areas of my marriage, so that it is Holy and pleasing to Him. That includes the sexual union. Sex isn’t dirty and there is nothing wrong with praying before the act, inviting Christ in. The family is a direct reflection of the Trinity. The bible uses marital imagery in explaining Christ’s relationship to the Church. From the creation of Eve from Adam, humans were meant to live in relationship with each other and with God. In all things.
The Church allows birth control, did you know that? We can control births via total abstinence or periodic abstinence (using NFP). Couples have recourse to the whole of the female cycle to have sex. Sometimes (most of the cycle actually) the woman is infertile, sometimes (like 4 days) she is fertile. The Church doesn’t have a rule about WHEN we have to have sex, except that we shouldn’t refuse our spouse for inadequate reasons. This fruitloop doesn’t even get that basic idea correct. The Church is against ABC because it seperates procreation and pleasure. Periodic abstinence doesn’t do this. Each act is fully procreative, regardless of the fertility of the woman. There is a vast difference between contraception and the use of periodic or complete abstinance.
There is so much more wrong with this blog, that I am unable to cover it all. I see others have called him out on calling Pope John Paul a heretic.
catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0502fea2.asp
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Em_in_FL
Guest
The PriestsForLife story was a beautiful testimony to the gift of a large family… but that has nothing to do with NFP. That family was clearly BLESSED in ways that many aren’t. Expecting every family to be so blessed is not realistic.
Once again, your lack of humility and understanding for those who use NFP is shining through.
First off, your bolded statement is completely false.
Procreation is NOT fertility, as we have clearly discussed before. Procreation is never avoided. Abstaining from the act is not the same as separating the primary purpose from it… nothing can be separated if NOTHING is happening.
If a couple is nervous about having children - why don’t you consider praying for them? There could be some mental illness involved, and/or they may have not been raised in the same environment that you were. How you were personally raised makes a huge impression… those fears may be very genuine. Mocking that fear by comparing it to something so juvenile is never helpful, nor is it kind, loving, or understanding. Instead, this couple is choosing a moral technique during a time when they can heal through the grace of God… they aren’t deliberately thwarting God’s design by using ABC… but instead embracing His creation, abstaining, and praying to be released from that fear… how in the world is that worthy of your mockery?
I’m done here… God bless you, once again… I honestly pray you never have to endure the just/serious/grave reasons that would allow you recourse to this moral tool. I also pray for your future wife that she is completely free from mental and physical illness and never have to be pressured by her own husband beyond her capabilities.
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smithm29
Guest
I would be more careful with your sources. You’re known by the company you keep- follow him back a little bit to his talk about renouncing the heresies of the Second Vatican Council- irishapologist.blogspot.com/2009/09/missal-maddness.html .
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Alexander_Smith
Guest
Good heavens! I ran across his blog, and I read his info, and I liked his point about saints and planners. So I quoted it.
I didn’t want to post the blog, but somebody asked me to, so here! I never said I supported what he said, I just obliged those who wanted to read the context.
Mary_Gail_36
New member
But shouldn’t the blatant disrespect for John Paul II have given you pause before you cited the excerpt you did?Good heavens! I ran across his blog, and I read his info, and I liked his point about saints and planners. So I quoted it.
I didn’t want to post the blog, but somebody asked me to, so here! I never said I supported what he said, I just obliged those who wanted to read the context.
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Jennifer_J
Guest
Yes, this is exactly the reason I asked you to post it. The blog writer is a heretic, and nothing he posts is trustworthy on face value.Good heavens! I ran across his blog, and I read his info, and I liked his point about saints and planners. So I quoted it.
I didn’t want to post the blog, but somebody asked me to, so here! I never said I supported what he said, I just obliged those who wanted to read the context.
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PaulinVA
Guest
On the way to work this morning I was thinking - deliberately avoiding having children without a grave/serous/just reason is wrong, whether you use total abstinence, periodic abstinence (NFP), or Artificial Birth Control.
So, NFP is just a tool.
So, NFP is just a tool.
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Alexander_Smith
Guest
No, because the excerpt basically stated that if people were overly concerned with planning their families based on external conditions, a lot of important people may not be been born. That’s not even a religious statement.But shouldn’t the blatant disrespect for John Paul II have given you pause before you cited the excerpt you did?
Who says I quoted him at face value? I thought he made a good point, separate from his religious state. Considering I’ve been told throughout this discussion of all the numerous reasons why couples would need to use NFP, I think it prudent to post a reminder that great people have been born from poverty and other bad situations, and people should not be so quick to justify NFP indiscriminately.
That about sums it up. NFP is a tool, that, like straight abstinence, can be misused. The difference is that NFP still allows for intercourse while still almost completely avoiding pregnancy, and thus provides a certain temptation for misuse that abstinence doesn’t really have.
NFP for avoidance and straight abstinence fall under the same restrictions AFAIK.
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PaulinVA
Guest
You don’t think that statement is theologically charged?
This statement says that God actually has a real number in mind for each couple, the number of children that they should have.
That statement indicates that if I don’t have relations tonight with my spouse (and I should have), then a specific individual will not be born who will do specific things (important people in your quote above).
That totally removes free will from everything, doesn’t it?
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former_Catholic
Guest
This whole thing isn’t an issue an all.
A couple raised 20 kids on 10 acres of farmland with water rights. Big deal. That’s a half an acre per kid. You can grow food to feed a kid on half an acre and your children can help. The rabbits are not going to feed your kids drugs and pull knives on them on their way home from school.
The majority of young couples starting out in the U.S. now live in an urban, not a rural environment, where growing and storing food to feed one’s kids is not an option.
Where I’m from, 10 acres of land costs $20,000,000 and you can afford it if you’re Donald Trump. If you’re a young couple living on one income with 3 kids, the only place you can afford to live is very likely across the street from a drug house.
There is a physical limit to how many children a mother can manage on the bus and on the street in an urban environment. You are dismayed that people aren’t having more than 2 kids? Ha! If you can’t hang onto your kids in the big city, they end up dead, and a mother runs out of hands to hold at 2 kids. Toddlers cannot run, and in the big city honey, sometimes you have got to run.
If you had ever in your life had a baby on your back and groceries in your arms walking on your way back to your flat in the city and had to face the wrong end of a police special and “EVERYBODY FREEZE” when a high speed chase ended on your street not even 20 ft. away from you where you were just walking down the sidewalk on your way home, you might have a clue as to the “grave reasons” young couples face on a daily basis living on one income in an urban area and trying to raise a child safely, effectively, and responsibly.
We all called the police on the drug house, by the way. Their response was “Lady, you’ve gotta be kidding, we’re not going in there. Hey, look, you want me to lose my job or my life?”
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former_Catholic
Guest
Of course it’s not even a religious statement; it’s an idiotic statement. The fact that some babies were born in gutters and managed to survive and live to adulthood and bless society as an “important person” does NOT justify birthing a child in a gutter!
For every one child who was born in a gutter and managed to survive and live to adulthood and be “an important person in society,” I’ll show you ten thousand nameless ones who were sold into prostitution to pay their family’s bills…
Were they so much less IMPORTANT people?
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momor
Guest
I’m sorry to be jumping in before reading every post but this comment goes to the heart of why I tend to agree with the OP.Can you share the *sources *where you’ve found this to be the current mindset?
I agree in essence with what you’re saying… but I don’t see this to be the current mindset.
In my experience, the majority of Catholics are contracepting… so if you mean the church’s attempt to counteract this trend by “requiring” pre-marital NFP classes as a way of deterring them from making this sinful choice, then I don’t understand why this is bad.
I think NFP HAS been the Church’s response to contraception and as such CAN rightfully be referred to as Catholic contraception. This is particularly obvious when you read about the incredible lengths and expense some couples go to to chart cycles. God designed monthly cycles for the woman but He did not design thermometers, blood tests, meters and test strips, classes, etc. to tell a couple about those cycles. Aside from menstrual periods and some mucous discharges fertility is very hidden from view and even those signs were not understood for thousands of years. To imply it is part of God’s original design that couples should know when a woman is fertile or not is really disingenuous IMO.
Yes, you can say that NFP makes use of God’s gift of medical knowledge and that is correct, but it is not natural in the truest sense of the word when anything artificial is used as a tool to chart cycles. Most NFP users will chafe at the notion of calling NFP contraception when used to avoid pregnancy - but that is exactly what it is regardless of whether you are only having relations during infertile times. Your intention is to utilize your knowledge to avoid conception which is the very literal meaning of contraception. Contraception is not just limited to ABC use during fertile periods or to stop fertile periods.
As an obedient Catholic I accept that NFP is allowed by the Church and no one who uses it as the Church intends has to apologize or defend themselves. But I think it is important to be internally honest about what NFP is. Let’s stop pretending it isn’t what it is - Church approved contraception. When arguments are made otherwise (and some can get very convoluted and full of jargon which is my radar for BS) it can lead to scoffing and accusations of hypocrisy by many who have thought it through and IMO can further harden hearts of those using ABC.
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Em_in_FL
Guest
Okay, maybe I’m not done.Clearly you don’t have a full understanding of what the church teaches.
Please read the Catechism (paragraphs 2368-2370) to understand the difference between contraception and taking recourse to the infertile period. This difference is *defined *by the church…
I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand when it’s so clearly defined?
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Jennifer_J
Guest
Contraception isn’t evil because it’s unnatural. It’s evil because it divorces procreation from pleasure. Periodic continence doesn’t do this, the procreative nature of each act is intact, fully present, not gotten rid of. NFP is knowledge about a woman’s cycle (which, btw, has been understood a lot longer than you think. Jewish law kept a man and woman apart until the woman was MOST fertile, amazing). Charting is no less interfering or difficult than going to the bathroom or brushing your teeth. Periodic continence is NOT contraception, it is ABSTAINING. Contraception is having relations anytime you want and rendering each act infertile.
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momor
Guest
I disagree with your first sentence. ABC is evil because it thwarts the natural design of sex. And for the sentence in bold, having intercourse ONLY when a woman is infertile does the same thing. The more effort one makes ( and the more anxiety one has) to determine fertile / infertile periods and uses that knowledge to regulate their relations, the more contraceptive they are behaving. There is fear about admitting the core truth IMO because it opens the door to challenges, we are at the top of a slippery slope. If we don’t call it what it is - contraception, we can pretend it’s something else.
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Em_in_FL
Guest
I’m feeling the unholy desire to thump you on the head with a Catechism.
How about I post this again…
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Jennifer_J
Guest
No, having intercourse when the woman is infertile doesn’t interfere with the design of sex!! The Church has no rules on WHEN to have sex, as long as intercourse is PROCREATIVE (that doesn’t mean that it has to be FERTILE, there is a difference). Procreative sex is sex that, from start to finish, could generate life. This is independent of whether a couple is fertile or not. This is one reason that infertile couples are allowed to marry. If infertility was the basis for licitness, than inferilte couples couldn’t marry, there would be rules stating that sex must only occur during fertile times, that pregnant couples couldn’t have sex and so forth. These are not accurate teachings of the Church. A pregnant couple can still have procreative sex, even though procreation can’t happen again. Naturally infertile couples have procreative sex even though procreation is unlikely. Couples in menopause are fully entitled to continue having sex–as long as it’s procreative. Procreative doesn’t equal fertile. There is no slippery slope. It is very clear.
It remains true that NFP should only be used for grave/serious/just reasons. On this I wholeheartedly agree (as has everyone on this thread!).
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whm
Guest
With most if not all sins, intent has a lot to do with it.
The knowledge NFP provides can be used with a sinful intent. If a person intends for it to be contraceptive then it is their intent that matters. On the other hand somebody who uses it and after spiritual due diligence, meets the criteria established by the Church, doesn’t run afoul of fulfilling the “marriage debt”, etc, and is open to life with each act their intent is different than the first. The second person may be surprised by a pregnancy but after the surprise wears off, they should not be disappointed or claim that NFP didn’t work for them. Its one thing to complain about not being able to read your signs it is another to complain because you (or your spouse) became pregnant while using NFP.
The knowledge NFP provides can be used with a sinful intent. If a person intends for it to be contraceptive then it is their intent that matters. On the other hand somebody who uses it and after spiritual due diligence, meets the criteria established by the Church, doesn’t run afoul of fulfilling the “marriage debt”, etc, and is open to life with each act their intent is different than the first. The second person may be surprised by a pregnancy but after the surprise wears off, they should not be disappointed or claim that NFP didn’t work for them. Its one thing to complain about not being able to read your signs it is another to complain because you (or your spouse) became pregnant while using NFP.
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