Sterilization followed by confession?

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PRmerger said:
Yes, LaSainte. I thought I said that. Right here:

My point is that your opposition to the Church’s teaching is *not *because you are so invested in proclaiming that the Church is wrong about this teaching or that you are so committed to providing apologia for the morality of ABC…but that you are freaked out maximally about the thought of being pregnant again. And it is because of this place that you’re at mentally you cannot accept the Church’s teaching.

Yet, you could still be in the same place (pregnant and maniacal) and accepting of Church teaching (abortion is wrong).

So why not be accepting of Church teaching when you’re at this place mentally?

Am I articulating this clearly? (I fear not, alas…but can anyone else help me here who can dimly see what I’m trying to say but not being so eloquent about it???)
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I think you are being quite eloquent and I can see where you are coming from. However is one is so decided against following a Church Teaching, there is no way that they can see the truth. Let’s pray that all who struggle to accept the Teaching of the Church may have the grace to do so.

I have read your posts and find them to be most refreshing and very full of Truth. Thanks for posting. Keep it up. 👍

God bless.
 
Little_One0307 said:
I think you are being quite eloquent and I can see where you are coming from. However is one is so decided against following a Church Teaching, there is no way that they can see the truth. Let’s pray that all who struggle to accept the Teaching of the Church may have the grace to do so.

I have read your posts and find them to be most refreshing and very full of Truth. Thanks for posting. Keep it up. 👍

God bless.
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Thank you, friend! :kiss4you:
 
LaSainte said:
I know that you are all just trying to make me see something that seems so obvious to you, but you cannot take an objection such as “I don’t believe this teaching to come from Christ” and simply say “Everything the Church says comes from Christ, end of story”. Then all we do is go around in circles. I KNOW that you all believe this. I have a hard time with it. This is the ONLY area where I really struggle with Church teaching, and I suppose it leads back to the fact that you all have an extremely broad definition of infallibility and what the Church can define infallibly, and I see it as being much more narrow. I am not alone here and this doesn’t mean that I’m some horrible Catholic. In fact, many priests and theologians and even bishops and cardinals see this issue from my perspective. And I am not simply using my own definitions here. I am using the criteria for infallibility set by the magisterium ITSELF.

Also, no, I do not see a difference either in intent, method, or results in the morality of NFP vs. ABC. I think there is a lot of stress placed on semen and where it goes-Freud and the Church may have had more in common than is immediately evident 🙂 This whole concept of “rejecting” your spouse’s fertiliy is just silly. The whole idea of not totally giving oneself to your spouse because you’re using a condom as opposed to NFP doesn’t wash for me either. Basically, it all just sounds made up to me, like they realized that the teaching wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, couldn’t change it because they wanted to maintain credibility, and came up with an argument after the fact. I’m not saying that’s what actually happened, I’m just saying that’s what it sounds like to me. They would have been much better off just saying “because we said so”, which is ultimately what it comes down to anyway.

Also, if this teaching actually IS infallible, why doesn’t the pope come out in clear and CERTAIN IRREFUTABLE terms and declare it, once and for all to be so, so that people like me (and the other 95% of Catholics) can stop worrying about it and just accept it? He won’t, because it’s not. The pope knows good and well that people have trouble with this, that people don’t believe it and that even clergy and theologians do not think it’s infallible and he could put the whole argument to rest in 5 minutes. He won’t.
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Ok, maybe my point got lost in the above post.

So let me repeat again. Please pay careful attention and tell me where you don’t see the distinction.
  1. Spouses are to give themselves completely to each other during the act of sexual intercourse
2a) Contraception rejects the fertility of the spouse during the act of sexual intercourse
  1. Therefore Contraception is INTRINSICALLY immoral
The argument for NFP
  1. Spouses are to give themselves completely to each other during the act of sexual intercourse
  2. The couple practicing NFP, at the moment of sexual intercourse accept the spouses fertility/infertility (whichever it is that is present at the moment)
  3. Therefore NFP does not violate any moral condition
Now as you can see above, there is nothing to do with intention. Both methods intend to AVOID CHILDREN. So as I said before, you are attacking a strawman.

The church does not object to contraception solely on the grounds that it avoids children. It is all to do with the sexual act and the requirement to give each other completely and accept each other completely during intercourse that makes Contraception IMMORAL.

Do you understand what I am saying?

God Bless 🙂
 
PRmerger said:
Yes, LaSainte. I thought I said that. Right here:

My point is that your opposition to the Church’s teaching is *not *because you are so invested in proclaiming that the Church is wrong about this teaching or that you are so committed to providing apologia for the morality of ABC…but that you are freaked out maximally about the thought of being pregnant again. And it is because of this place that you’re at mentally you cannot accept the Church’s teaching.

Yet, you could still be in the same place (pregnant and maniacal) and accepting of Church teaching (abortion is wrong).

So why not be accepting of Church teaching when you’re at this place mentally?

Am I articulating this clearly? (I fear not, alas…but can anyone else help me here who can dimly see what I’m trying to say but not being so eloquent about it???)
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Well I don’t ONLY believe abortion is wrong because the Church teaches it to be so. Just like I don’t believe murder or adultery to be wrong JUST because the Church teaches it to be so. I truly believe those things in my heart (my conscience, which the CCC sites as the place where I am alone with God, my most secret core and sanctuary).

I don’t get this conviction at all from the teaching on contraception. On the contrary, in some situations, I see not using it as downright immoral. Of course, this teaching affects me personally, so I have even more difficulty with it. There is a reaching or two that I don’t really agree with or that I have difficulties with, but that do not affect me personally, so they are more or less non-issues for me (like the fact that a quadriplegic can’t get married just because he can’t consummate the marriage, when Mary and Joseph never consummated their marriage and I challenge you to find a Catholic who would say they weren’t married). But then, I haven’t studied these issues as much as this one because they don’t pertain to me personally. If I did, maybe I would understand them better. But it seems like the more I study this issue, the more I don’t agree with the teaching on it 😦
 
ddarko said:
Ok, maybe my point got lost in the above post.

So let me repeat again. Please pay careful attention and tell me where you don’t see the distinction.
  1. Spouses are to give themselves completely to each other during the act of sexual intercourse
2a) Contraception rejects the fertility of the spouse during the act of sexual intercourse
  1. Therefore Contraception is INTRINSICALLY immoral
The argument for NFP
  1. Spouses are to give themselves completely to each other during the act of sexual intercourse
  2. The couple practicing NFP, at the moment of sexual intercourse accept the spouses fertility/infertility (whichever it is that is present at the moment)
  3. Therefore NFP does not violate any moral condition
Now as you can see above, there is nothing to do with intention. Both methods intend to AVOID CHILDREN. So as I said before, you are attacking a strawman.

The church does not object to contraception solely on the grounds that it avoids children. It is all to do with the sexual act and the requirement to give each other completely and accept each other completely during intercourse that makes Contraception IMMORAL.

Do you understand what I am saying?

God Bless 🙂
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I understand what you are saying. Part of my trouble is that I do not see that the conclusion (#3) logically follows from the first 2 in either case.

Secondly, with NFP, you are not rejecting the fertility of the spouse DURING intercourse, true, because there is nothing there to reject. The couple, by definition, is infertile at the time. But you are taking extreme measure to ensure that when the couple IS fertile, no intercourse ever takes place. That to me shows more of a rejection of fertility than sex with a condom during the fertile times, because you are just saying “well if you’re fertile then sayonara…come back in 2 weeks when we have no chance of conceiving any of those pesky kiddos” True, the act itself isn’t altered, just totally shelved altogether until the possibility of pregnancy no longer exists.

And before somebody comes out and says “Then it would be immoral to not always be having sex”. That is a silly argument as well. I am not saying it is sinful to “just so happen” not to have sex during fertility, but that to put so much effort in making sure that you NEVER have sex during fertility amounts to the same thing as having sex during fertility but using a barrier. I think either both are moral, or both are immoral.
 
Little_One0307 said:
This might be moral according to your standard, but not God’s standard which is revealed through the Church in Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and The Magisterium.

What you think does not hold water, it is what the Church teaches with Divine authority. What we are going to be judged in when our soul separates from our body is not what we think, but how we conformed to God’s commands in this life.

All that the Church teaches comes from Christ alone. Are you questioning Christ? It’s not a matter of obeying the Church, ultimately it comes to disobeying Christ.

The Church does not expect our blind obedience when it comes to Church Law such as the precept you quote above. That situation is moot and irrevelant to what you are saying. What the Church asks for is that we Trust and Obey God in all things and trust in His Divine Providence. Where is the faith that you have in God? Where is the child-like trust that we are called to have in God present in your life? Where is the filial obedience done out of Love for the Father? We either trust in God in all areas of our life, or we do not trust Him at all. God can be trusted, for He is TRUTH.

Really, if you are not obeying the Church now, how do you think you will obey the Church later if things come up? What is asked and commanded of God of you presently is that you OBEY his authority and teaching revealed through the Church. There is no fence sitting. Why not just entrust your future and your children’s future in the loving hands of God, becuase someday you will stand before him and what then will you say?

Again it is not what you think on this situation, it is what the Church teaches.

Hard, hard truth. In the end it is Truth that matters, not what one thinks or does not think.

God bless.
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Little One, I truly and sincerely appreciate your prayers, and I’m glad that my love for the Church and Christ comes across through this difficulty, because I do get frustrated and I don’t want anyone to think that I am against the Church or that I am encouraging anyone to disobey Her teachings, because I definitely am not.

As far as infallibility goes, there is a really good and VERY informative article here (ministryforwomen.org/teaching/gaillard.asp) on the magisterium’s criteria for it. Some of the article deals with things like women’s ordination and things like that, but it does amgood job of pilling together all of the Vatican documents and sources for the teaching and putting them in one place, so it’s a good source for that if you want tomperuse it. I warn you, it’s long, and infallibility of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium is not as simple as “anything pertaining to faith and morals”…this by the Vatican’s own definition, not mine. But if you have time, give it a look 🙂
 
LaSainte said:
Also, if anyone wants to read up on the infallibility of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium, here is a good article with good sources that come directly from the popes and the Vatican itself.

ministryforwomen.org/teaching/gaillard.asp
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Again, Lasainte: whether it’s been infallibly taught or not is really irrelevant.

Asking, “Is it taught infallibly” is the exact wrong question for any lover of Christ to ask.

As apologist Mark Shea writes:
No lover asks "What's the absolute bare minimum amount of contact with my Beloved I can get away with?" Similarly, if, as the Church claims, the fullness of revelation subsists in the Catholic communion, then "How little contact with the fullness of revelation can I get away with?" is the exact wrong question for somebody who is serious about discipleship to Christ.
 
LaSainte said:
I understand what you are saying. Part of my trouble is that I do not see that the conclusion (#3) logically follows from the first 2 in either case.
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Well I mean is it not obvious that it does not/does violate (1)?

If you do not see how it logically proceeds, then you must surely have a counter argument why (3) does not follow from (1) and (2). But you have not yet presented one.
LaSainte said:
Secondly, with NFP, you are not rejecting the fertility of the spouse DURING intercourse, true, because there is nothing there to reject. The couple, by definition, is infertile at the time. But you are taking extreme measure to ensure that when the couple IS fertile, no intercourse ever takes place. That to me shows more of a rejection of fertility than sex with a condom during the fertile times, because you are just saying “well if you’re fertile then sayonara…come back in 2 weeks when we have no chance of conceiving any of those pesky kiddos” True, the act itself isn’t altered, just totally shelved altogether until the possibility of pregnancy no longer exists.
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Sure. So whats wrong here? You seem to have made up a moral yourself which does not exist i.e. you MUST always have SEX so that you can have children.

But that is not a position of the church. You are fabricating a false position so that you may disqualify NFP also as a possible choice.

The church position is that a couple should be open to life. They should never marry if they think they don’t want to have children forever.
LaSainte said:
I
And before somebody comes out and says “Then it would be immoral to not always be having sex”. That is a silly argument as well. I am not saying it is sinful to “just so happen” not to have sex during fertility, but that to put so much effort in making sure that you NEVER have sex during fertility amounts to the same thing as having sex during fertility but using a barrier. I think either both are moral, or both are immoral.
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Yes, you see, again, you are basing your argument on a fabricated position that has nothing to do with church teaching.

The amount of effort you put in, or the amount of time you stay without having sex has NOTHING to do with the morality of NFP or Contraception.

The right and wrong of the act is determined by what takes place during the act. Contraception is holding back fertility/rejecting fertility. NFP is accepting everything in the spouse at the moment of sexual intercourse. Thats where the argument ends.

What you’ve done is, perhaps unknowingly, made up a position that the church teaches that one cannot put effort to avoid having a child during a certain period of time where they cannot support a child. But that is NOT church teaching. In fact, if the spouse cannot have sex during a certain period of time due to a disease, there is a moral responsibility to abstain from sex.

So while you keep saying that you’ve looked in this issue a lot, it appears that you are looking to justify your position rather than learn the truth.

God Bless 🙂
 
LaSainte said:
Also, if anyone wants to read up on the infallibility of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium, here is a good article with good sources that come directly from the popes and the Vatican itself.

ministryforwomen.org/teaching/gaillard.asp
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What is your point? Contraception teaching is not infallible?

If so, think again.

Read the following:-

ewtn.com/library/christ/confatal.txt

ewtn.com/library/Theology/AUTHUMVT.HTM

So as you can see, the church teaching contraception is infallible.

God Bless 🙂
 
LaSainte said:
Also, no, I do not see a difference either in intent, method, or results in the morality of NFP vs. ABC. I think there is a lot of stress placed on semen and where it goes-Freud and the Church may have had more in common than is immediately evident 🙂 This whole concept of “rejecting” your spouse’s fertiliy is just silly. The whole idea of not totally giving oneself to your spouse because you’re using a condom as opposed to NFP doesn’t wash for me either. Basically, it all just sounds made up to me, like they realized that the teaching wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, couldn’t change it because they wanted to maintain credibility, and came up with an argument after the fact. I’m not saying that’s what actually happened, I’m just saying that’s what it sounds like to me. They would have been much better off just saying “because we said so”, which is ultimately what it comes down to anyway.
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I think I agree with you on the above. I think they’re better off just saying “because we said so”. I think it would be easier for some to swallow because the reasons don’t make sense, and yes, they seem made-up. And not just to me obviously, considering the high rate of ABC usage among Catholics. I just can’t see anything beyond what I think is complete silliness about the claim that one isn’t totally giving onesself to your spouse because of using ABCs…especially when both want to use it. If one spouse is opposed, then I can see the argument – on both sides.

But then also, when one spouse insists on using NFP and the other is opposed, depending on the circumstances, one of them is being selfish and not giving completely of themselves, and it’s not always the one insisting on NFP and it’s not always the one who doesn’t want to use NFP.

The teaching about ABCs being a barrier to the unitive property also doesn’t wash with me, because there is also a barrier when a married couple can’t come together due to NFP. Yeah, I know, some will argue with their most obvious reasons why this isn’t true. But like with you, it doesn’t wash with me. It’s just another rule of the Church that we must obey in order to be in communion with the Church. End of story. They’re better off saying just that.

But you know, they had to come up with something LaSainte. Some people want answers to their questions, and no matter what the answer is, some are okay with an answer, and will accept it, as long as it’s an answer. Everyone’s different. Some will look at a rationale for a teaching and completely understand it, some will completely swallow it hook, line and sinker regardless of their understanding of it (or not), and others will not swallow it at all. So for you and me, the answers are silly, but some people really need the answers.

Like I said before on other threads, everyone has their stumbling blocks at one time or another.
LaSainte said:
Also, if this teaching actually IS infallible, why doesn’t the pope come out in clear and CERTAIN IRREFUTABLE terms and declare it, once and for all to be so, so that people like me (and the other 95% of Catholics) can stop worrying about it and just accept it? He won’t, because it’s not. The pope knows good and well that people have trouble with this, that people don’t believe it and that even clergy and theologians do not think it’s infallible and he could put the whole argument to rest in 5 minutes. He won’t.
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They did. A Pope compiled the CCC, which itself is not an infallible document, but a collection of infallible teachings, teachings on faith and morals. I have posted it a few times, and I’m not going to type it all out again, but in the into of your Catechism, if you have the actual book, the infallibility of the teachings collected in it is declared by the Pope with Magisterium. And A Pope wrote Humanae Vitae, which itself is not an infallible document, but contains infallible teachings. It is a statement on teachings on faith and morals. And it’s consistent with past teachings, so it’s nothing new.

Face it LaSainte, the teachings regarding ABCs is infallible, whether we like it or not. Like you, I don’t like it either, but it is what it is. Even if they wanted to change the teaching, they can’t, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to claim continuity. And even if they were to change it and claim they have changed it due to a better understanding and new information, it will just get out of hand because when you give people an inch, they take a mile. They’ll say that for example, married people can use condoms with grave reasons, and then headlines will read: Catholic ban on premarital sex lifted!!! Pope says it’s A-OK for everyone to use condoms! Yay! or something stupid like that.
 
LaSainte said:
I understand what you are saying. Part of my trouble is that I do not see that the conclusion (#3) logically follows from the first 2 in either case.

Secondly, with NFP, you are not rejecting the fertility of the spouse DURING intercourse, true, because there is nothing there to reject. The couple, by definition, is infertile at the time. But you are taking extreme measure to ensure that when the couple IS fertile, no intercourse ever takes place. That to me shows more of a rejection of fertility than sex with a condom during the fertile times, because you are just saying “well if you’re fertile then sayonara…come back in 2 weeks when we have no chance of conceiving any of those pesky kiddos” True, the act itself isn’t altered, just totally shelved altogether until the possibility of pregnancy no longer exists.

And before somebody comes out and says “Then it would be immoral to not always be having sex”. That is a silly argument as well. I am not saying it is sinful to “just so happen” not to have sex during fertility, but that to put so much effort in making sure that you NEVER have sex during fertility amounts to the same thing as having sex during fertility but using a barrier. I think either both are moral, or both are immoral.
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The problem is that you’re thinking about circumstances, while natural law is concerned with principles.

What matters is that the sexual act is in principle ordered toward procreation: it doesn’t matter if the couple happens to be fertile at the time or even if the couple is, for whatever reason, chronically infertile. What matters merely is that the sexual act conforms to the procreative norm arising from nature.

If it were the case that the couple could not licitly have sex except when fertile, it would logically follow that the Church would deny marriage to couples that are chronically infertile (e.g., women with hysterectomies or the very elderly). But they don’t. Therefore it must be the case that the teaching on NFP has to do with general principles, not specific exceptions. 🙂
 
LaSainte said:
Also, if anyone wants to read up on the infallibility of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium, here is a good article with good sources that come directly from the popes and the Vatican itself.

ministryforwomen.org/teaching/gaillard.asp
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Careful with sources. The article you linked does NOT come from the Vatican. It is from a dissindent and heretical site. The bottom of the articles says:
Please, credit this document
as published by www.womenpriests.org
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LaSainte said:
Absolutely nothing!
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I just clued in that you’re expecting. Congratulations!

Married couples can be called to pregnancy just as we can be called to avoid pregnancy. Either way, it’s acceptable for us as Catholics to make good use of all the fertility information at our disposal. Even some celibate women do this.

If you ever do go through with sterilization (and I pray that you don’t), you should refrain from participating in the sacraments until you experience true contrition. A good confessor can offer spiritual guidance, and others can pray for you, but the experience of contrition is something you will ultimately have to discern for yourself.

I’ve given some thought to your earlier analogy (comparing Catholic teaching on marriage to the required beating of children). I think that I would not follow such a teaching, refrain from the sacraments (a heartbreak I know all too well in real life), and prayerfully work toward understanding in order to reconcile with the Church.

LaSainte, I know you don’t take the issue of contraception lightly. It’s important for us in this forum to remember that most Catholics who feel like disobeying just do it without a second thought. Maybe it’s because I struggle with contraception myself, but I admire the effort you put into understanding this teaching. This effort is not lost on a good and loving God, so I pray you find the answers you need. Please pray for me too.
 
LaSainte said:
Secondly, with NFP, you are not rejecting the fertility of the spouse DURING intercourse, true, because there is nothing there to reject. The couple, by definition, is infertile at the time. But you are taking extreme measure to ensure that when the couple IS fertile, no intercourse ever takes place. That to me shows more of a rejection of fertility than sex with a condom during the fertile times, because you are just saying “well if you’re fertile then sayonara…come back in 2 weeks when we have no chance of conceiving any of those pesky kiddos” True, the act itself isn’t altered, just totally shelved altogether until the possibility of pregnancy no longer exists.
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It’s not always wrong to reject your spouse’s fertility, in fact sometimes it’s prudent. The Catholic view is that it’s wrong to reject your spouse’s fertility while having sex.
 
Is it a sin to give up a child for adoption simply bc you don’t want it? If NFP fails or (ABC for that matter) and you could support it but just don’t want it, is that something that needs to be confessed?
 
samiam1611 said:
Is it a sin to give up a child for adoption simply bc you don’t want it? If NFP fails or (ABC for that matter) and you could support it but just don’t want it, is that something that needs to be confessed?
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“simply becasue you don’t want it’” isn’t enough information. Why don’t you want him/her? Is it emotional stress, family dynamics, psychological issues? Doing something as drastic as putting a child up for adoption should be for a real reason. It would be sinful to separate a child from his/her parents and siblings for purely selfish reasons, but there are many good reasons why this might be a couple’s best choice.
 
LaSainte said:
Little One, I truly and sincerely appreciate your prayers, and I’m glad that my love for the Church and Christ comes across through this difficulty, because I do get frustrated and I don’t want anyone to think that I am against the Church or that I am encouraging anyone to disobey Her teachings, because I definitely am not.

As far as infallibility goes, there is a really good and VERY informative article here (ministryforwomen.org/teaching/gaillard.asp) on the magisterium’s criteria for it. Some of the article deals with things like women’s ordination and things like that, but it does amgood job of pilling together all of the Vatican documents and sources for the teaching and putting them in one place, so it’s a good source for that if you want tomperuse it. I warn you, it’s long, and infallibility of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium is not as simple as “anything pertaining to faith and morals”…this by the Vatican’s own definition, not mine. But if you have time, give it a look 🙂
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LaSainte,

I can see where you are coming from right now. In fact I would be a hypocrite if I did not say what I am struggling with right now. I am struggling with Vatican II and how some things were implemented as a result of the Council. It has gotten to the point where I have almost become very bitter on it, I certainly don’t agree with all the implementations and things of that nature, and am having to beg God for the graces to accept the Council and the Implementations of the Council. Everything that I have said to you about Church and God, I have had to swallow the bitter and hard Truth as well. Truth is not easy. And I have to say becuase of your struggle with contraception and seeing it as Church Teaching, it makes me feel better that there are others out there struggling with some of the Church’s Teaching. So now, I am going through the Documents with my Spiritual Director and we are working through them slowly and prayerfully. I still get angry if I think too much about it. SO please pray for me as I struggle through this. Please pray that I may see the beuaty of the Council rather than the shortcomings.

I had debated about posting it becuase it seemed to me to be off topic and it certainly is talking about a bannable topic, but I think its okay to share what I am struggling. After much prayer, I feel that I needed to post this, so that you can see that I too have problems with some of the Church’s Teaching per say.

To those following the thread, I am in no means wanting or intendeing to derail this thread, I wished to post it for the reasons given above.

I will definetly go and check out the Infallibility document. IN fact it is pulling up right now. Thanks so much for sharing this source. As there is much I too can learn when it comes to infallibility.

God bless you.
 
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