Sterilization followed by confession?

[LaSainte]

My first (now 10) did not sleep the night until 17 months. Consistantly. At around 6 months he would switch it up a bit by sleeping the night 2 times in a row occasionally, then start up with his waking every 1 /1/2 hours.

My second slept the night at 6 weeks, sleeping 14 hours at a time. Might happen with you as well.

Oh you give me hope!!!

 

[1ke]

He does not care if you get the chance to write a book or see Europe. He cares if you get to see Him, forever, in Heaven. Any assertion to the contrary is a flimsy rationalization.

I absolutely love this. May I use it in the future? What a great comment.

Of course, if God has big plans for you, he does give you everything you need to accomplish that and fulfill your duties to God and family too. (Phyllis Schlafly, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin [mother of St. Therese of Liseux] come to mind pretty readily).

 

[Debora123]

I don’t agree. My mom is the most devout Catholic I know. She used the rythym method as it was called back then. She had 5 pregnancies. She fell pregnant at age 42 and gave birth at age 43. She had a tubal after consulting a priest on the matter. He said she had done her duty. She still carries great guilt over the matter.

There are so many grey areas that people don’t see. Noone knows what is carried on the heart.

My mom’s priest also advised her to use (barrier) contraception when she found herself in a similar situation. Seems like more and more priests are treating the whole contraception issue as a grey matter - and I agree that it can be a very grey matter sometimes. Contrary to what Church doctrine says though.

 

[1ke]

Ike, if inthought this teaching came from God, all my problems would be solved. This is NOT about me rejecting God. Not at all.

There is no other proposition. Either the Church teaches all the Truth given by God or none can be trusted.

 

[LaSainte]

It is objective moral truth, regardless of how well people are able to live in accordance with it. And the prohibition on deliberate subversion of the human sexual configuration is very logical, and also very clear.

To reject it as the foundation for morality is to reject nearly all of the Church’s teachings. It is practically to reject God, who ordained the natural order and who sustains it in every moment that it is.

No. The only sane, logical, and moral thing to do would be to refrain from further sex until your natural fecundity has run its course. It would, in fact, be outrageously immoral to subject yourself to such risk just a few paltry orgasms.

At any rate, the issue is not whether or not you will die for having more children (unless you added new info somewhere that I missed – I have not kept up with this thread very carefully); as you said, the issue is that you want to travel and have a career and so on and you cannot reconcile this with your marital duties. If your marriage suffers, it will be solely because you have elected to prioritize your worldly ambitions and desires and dreams over the duties to which you committed yourself, not because of the Church’s (morally legitimate) prohibition on contraception.

The prohibition on sterilization does not stem from the relative complexity or simplicity of the procedure. It does not exist to make your life easier or more difficult. The God of the Church is not the God of your earthly wants or your material well-being or your sexual satisfaction or your personal convenience. He does not care if you get the chance to write a book or see Europe. He cares if you get to see Him, forever, in Heaven. Any assertion to the contrary is a flimsy rationalization.

The course you are contemplating is contrary to natural law; it is impiety against the Church, which has a legitimate basis for its claim to truth and which commands your deference; it risks scandalizing your husband if he consents to it and it compounds the sin with dishonesty if you do it behind his back. It is folly piled upon folly, and I cannot strongly recommend enough that you rethink your position, since it seems to me that you are pretty intent on embarking on it regardless of what anyone here says.

If you only see sex with one’s beloved spouse as “a few paltry orgasms”, hen of course lifelong abstinence wouldn’t seem like a problem. If you only see women as baby-makers, then of course you would trivialize everything they might work to achieve that doesn’t involve changing dirty diapers and cleaning up spit-up.

I find your whole attitude and position to be offensive.

 

[sw85]

If you only see sex with one’s beloved spouse as “a few paltry orgasms”, hen of course lifelong abstinence wouldn’t seem like a problem. If you only see women as baby-makers, then of course you would trivialize everything they might work to achieve that doesn’t involve changing dirty diapers and cleaning up spit-up.

I find your whole attitude and position to be offensive.

Given that the alternative is to risk your soul, the benefit seems paltry indeed.

I do not see women as mere “baby-makers,” I have said nothing of the sort, and your hostile attribution is evidence to me that you have no interest in doing anything here but rationalizing post hoc a decision you’ve already made. Although I apologize if my tone has offended you, my concern here is with the health of your soul and with the objective truth of natural law, not with your feelings.

I absolutely love this. May I use it in the future? What a great comment.

Of course, and you needn’t ask in the future – I don’t copyright my forum posts or anything.

 

[LaSainte]

There is no other proposition. Either the Church teaches all the Truth given by God or none can be trusted.

That is so not true. Jesus promised to GUIDE the Church into all truth, not that it would possess he whole truth at any given moment. The rigidiy of this teaching could very well change as doctrine develops. One misunderstanding would not make the whole Church a pile of junk. I never will understand why the faith of so many Catholics hinges so mug on the Church never EVER making even the tiniest of mistakes. My faith in the Church itself doesn’t depend on its total perfection. Maybe yours does. If so, I can see why you cling so hard to this. It’s a house of cards for some people I guess.

 

[LaSainte]

Given that the alternative is to risk your soul, the benefit seems paltry indeed.

I do not see women as mere “baby-makers,” I have said nothing of the sort, and your hostile attribution is evidence to me that you have no interest in doing anything here but rationalizing post hoc a decision you’ve already made. Although I apologize if my tone has offended you, my concern here is with the health of your soul and with the objective truth of natural law, not with your feelings.

Of course, and you needn’t ask in the future – I don’t copyright my forum posts or anything.

Way to make assumptions. The ONLY decision I have made thus far is the one to use NFP after this baby is born to avoid conception and to pray to God that it works.

 

[Bookcat]

Bookcat, you can control an 8 year old. You cannot monitor a 16 year old 24 hours a day. Tell her to just abstain and give her no alternatives and get ready to be grandpa Bookcat.

I will raise my 16 year old…well any Children in the faith… in virtue.

No need for 24 hour monitoring. Though I will be a vigilant parent…

I want her to live in the life of grace…living in Christ. If I tell her to use contraception…" --to be ‘safe’…she will not be safe…nor will I for that matter…death has already come to both me and her…

I want her to have* true life*

 

[PRmerger]

But your statement above that your ENTIRE LIFE would be RUINED by another child really leads me to believe you do have underlying problems that counseling might help.

Indeed.

And one has to wonder what happens when ABC/sterilization fails, and one turns up pregnant.

I daresay every single person on this forum knows at least one woman this has happened to, no?

Does one then resort to abortion?

 

[PRmerger]

I think you have some issues-- or at least many years of feminist brainwashing-- based on your statements that you don’t believe you can have kids and a career or a fulfilling life. That may be true for you, but it is very sad if it is true. Many, many women have both. It’s just a FALSE premise to state that a woman who has a family must necessarily be “barefoot and pregnant” or relegated to the “kitchen.” That is REPUGNANT and a fallacious and illogical argument. If you cannot argue logically, we can never get anywhere.

There are MANY examples of women who have been successful AND mothers.

I count myself in that category. I have a master’s degree, a fulfilling job and have/am raising 4 fabulous daughters. Of course, I couldn’t have done it without my honey, who is an amazing husband and father, and he cooks! And without my mom and MIL, who aided in chauffeuring all of our girls to all of the numerous activities.

 

[Bookcat]

That is so not true. Jesus promised to GUIDE the Church into all truth, not that it would possess he whole truth at any given moment. The rigidiy of this teaching could very well change as doctrine develops.

There can be not “development” in regards to contraception…where it is no longer evil…such would not be a develepment. Such is contrary to the nature of marriage.

And this teaching has been with us since the early days of the Church and it is to be held to be “definitive and irreformable”

 

[PRmerger]

Way to make assumptions. The ONLY decision I have made thus far is the one to use NFP after this baby is born to avoid conception and to pray to God that it works.

I guarantee you that it will FAIL if you don’t take a class, taught by a professional. It’s not as simple as counting the days after your period.

Going back to my theme: we all know women who’ve gotten pregnant this way, too!

 

[Bookcat]

You act as if that is the end of the world. It isn’t.

If a child commits a sin, you continue to help them form their conscience and correct their behavior. You help them come back to the Lord. You don’t help them sin.

The most important aspect…is that ones beloved children have not a fictional “safety”…

but * true life* in Christ.

 

[Isaiah45_9]

If a person disagrees fundamentally with Church teaching on contraception, to the point where after YEARS of prayer and study, honestly believes the Church to be in error on this, believes that God does not have a problem with contraception, etc., and decides to become sterilized, what happens?

If this person decided to get sterilized and then confess to the priest that although they are sorry to have gone against the Church, they do not believe that what they did was a grave sin and are happy with the outcome, and also confesses the sin of presumption (since they intended to be sterilized and confess it all along), would they be able to be absolved and start receiving communion again?

This is not a debate about contraception.

Let’s add to this:

What if the reason for the sterilization was because the spouse would certainly die if pregnant again?
A life of celibacy then?

 

[Little_One0307]

Little One0307;8069729:

Thanks for posting this, I was going to post it a few minutes ago but wanted to read through the thread.

God

This is just a guide for confessors, right? Not an infallible document.

Actually you will have to ask Bookcat as they posted this document. It is a guide for confessors, but the guide also has infallible teachings and practices that the Church hands down to the Faithful to adhere to .

There are other documents that are more of an infallible nature than this guide to confession. They have been referred to many times already.
God bless.*

 

[Little_One0307]

There is La La land and there is the real world. I live in the real world. I understand that there is Church teaching and the people on this board are there to set people like me straight. However, it bugs me that people can sit there and throw the Catechism and act holier than thou and say it’s this way or the highway. There are SO many grey areas in life. Quoting the Catechism is one thing. Living in real life situations is another.

I have posted this before, but I choose to post it yet again. There are basically two choices here. Either you are Faithful to the Magisterium of the Church and submit to her Teachings and Practices that she holds for the Faithful to practice, or else you do not hold to the Magisterium of the Church, nor the Church, nor God’s law and you do you own thing.

It’s not a matter of acting holier than thou, no one said it would be easy. Others may struggle in other areas than this topic, but that does not excuse them to disregard Church Teaching to pursue something that is contradicitory to Faith and Morals. You are right quoting the Cathechism is one thing, but living what you quote when you quote the Catechism is another thing. May I be given the grace to live what I quote.

Just because there are grey areas DO not change the Moral evil or Moral good concerning a moral act, in this case contraception. The Church has always from its inception taught against it and I am confident that it will continaully do so. What people are failing to realize is that there are several and a good many Catholics who are adhering to the Teachings of the Church in this area and are blessed because of it.

God bless.

 

[Little_One0307]

I would say that the Catecism is the ideal, and that you can’t always trust that someone, especially a child, will always perform to the ideal standards. That’s like insisting that they only get straight "A"s in school, and only giving them an application to Harvard University. If they happen to fall short of your standards, you have further crippled them by only giving them an application to a school they will never get into, insuring that they will end up with NO college education at all. We shoot for the ideal, but we have to have contingency plans.

So what are these contigency plans? If they do not match with the Teaching of the Church in regards to Faith and Morals, then they are really not contingency plans, they are means of living in sin or justifying a sin.

I know I am coming down hard constantly in this thread, but I cannot steer away from Truth, nor sit idly when Truth needs to be written.

One who is dependant on God’s grace in everything and submits to God and what He has revealed through Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church will be finding that they are keeping the norm of the Church - finding that they are indeed living the life that is exmplefied and exhorted that one lives by following what is taught in the CCC.

God bless.

 

[Little_One0307]

LaSainte,

Maybe then you will understand why saying “just submit to the teaching” is not as clear-cut as it seems to you.

Actually circumstances do NOT change the objective reality of a morally evil act into a good act or vice versa. Morally bad acts are always morally bad acts. Contraception is always wrong

You wake up one day and find out that there is a Church teaching you never knew about. The Church teaches that Proverbs 13:24 (the old “spare the rod, spoil the child” adage) means that each day, you must start the day out by administering a very sound beating to your children and end each day the same way. You find out that NOT following his teaching is grave matter according to the Church and apparently this has long been a teaching of the Church that you were unaware of.

Disciplines of the Church may change from time to time, this is what is called tradition with a small t. But Doctrines, dogmas, and Traditions will never change. If they did than that would imply that the Church would have been in error, and the Church can NEVER err in matters of Doctrine, Dogma, or Traditions.

This is a poor analogy becuase the act in itself does not constitute a morally evil act. Nothing, can ever justify or make an evil act good.

Would you believe in this teaching? Is this consistent with anything you were taught to believe about God and Jesus? Would you find this teaching abhorrent and immoral? Would you follow it anyway if you did just because the Church said so?

This is how I feel about he Church’s stance on ABC,

What one feels does not change the ontological reality of whether an act if morally good or evil. I can feel all day that it would be right to murder people who believe that contraception is right. Feeling this way does not change the fact that IT is WRONG to murder under any circumstance of course barring self-defense, just war, the exceptions set forth in the CCC].

Anyway, I was just hoping to shed some light in my FEELINGS about the matter to see if anyone here could honestly agree with and follow a teaching he/she found to be so repugnant to their own conscience just because the Church said so? How am I supposed to reconcile these feelings?

We are not called to pick and choose which Church Teachings we will follow based on our feelings. We are called to follow ALL Church Teaching because of God revealing through His Church. It is not the Church that we are disobeying when we do not follow her Teachings, it is ultimately God.

God bless.

 

[Little_One0307]

I think if your life is at stake and you have children, the moral choice is to be sterilized, period. NFP and ABC are far too risky and total abstinence in a marriage is ridiculous and even immoral.

THAT is what I mean by taking having more kids off the table. I mean forever, with no chance of having more barring a miracle. So no, the Church does not permit that.

Ahhh the key words in your post is “I think”. It is not what the Church teaches, it is not what the Magisterium Teaches, it is what LaSainte thinks.

So we come to the crux of the situation. I have read your posts and I empathize with you as I have stated in a previous post, but sometimes one must be asked hard questions?

Do you or do you not wish to follow the Church, meaning ALL the Church teachings? One cannot follow the Church and disregard just one teaching.

You either stand with Christ and His Church or you stand against Christ and His Church. I pray that God may give you the grace to stand with the Church in ALL things.

God bless.