Struggle accepting Church’s teaching on Contraception, Homosexuality, and Priest Chastity

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Thanks for your response. I agree with what you said, and I appreciate your additional clarification in some areas. The only thing I’d comment on is when you say this:
His_helpmeet said:
Not even God can change or dispense from that law.
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God is all powerful and can do literally anything He wants. I agree that I don’t believe He will want to change this, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say He can’t. If He can’t do something, it means He is not all powerful, which obviously is not true.

The view that I cannot ascribe to (and I’m not saying that you hold this belief) is the belief that people who do not follow Church teachings will conclusively go to Hell. Some Catholics think this, but it’s not in line with the Church teachings. We cannot know what is in anyone’s heart. It is possible to be a non-Catholic non-celibate homosexual person and still be admitted into Heaven. In His infinite wisdom and mercy, He can do anything He chooses.

I’m not advocating that the Church change their teaching on this. I’m just advocating for more compassion for people of all circumstances, which sometimes gets lost in the process of apologetics.
 
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MrsK0224 said:
If He can’t do something, it means He is not all powerful, which obviously is not true.
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Getting a bit into the Philosophical parts of the Faith, it is contrary to God’s own nature for Him to “do” something that contradicts Himself. God cannot make a square circle, because such a thing cannot exist.
 
That’s fine. The point is that it is well within His authority and right to take mercy on anyone regardless of whatever laws they have broken. We all break God’s laws in some way throughout our lives. Without mercy, no one on this earth would enter Heaven.
 
True. But in order to receive God’s mercy, a person has to repent.

We cannot state that a hypothetical gay person in a gay relationship would not be able to attain heaven AT ALL, because we do not know the state of that person’s soul.

BUT we can state authoritatively that if that person knew that homosexual acts were gravely sinful, he or she would need to repent of those acts before he or she could be allowed into heaven.
 
The reason that God cannot change or dispense from natural law is that to do so, God would have to will the absence of Himself.

God cannot will the absence of Himself, therefore He cannot contradict natural law.

Natural law is the most basic moral code that exists.
 
His_helpmeet said:
BUT we can state authoritatively that if that person knew that homosexual acts were gravely sinful, he or she would need to repent of those acts before he or she could be allowed into heaven.
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I agree, but I think this is a bigger “if” than it is sometimes given credit for. We are all born with our own set of struggles and personal biases that affect the lens we use to view the world. There are exceptions, but I think that for the most part humans do the best they can with what they understand to be true.

As Jesus says in John 16:12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” In saying this, Jesus acknowledges that there are certain truths that our puny human brains cannot yet wrap our minds around. I believe this is true to this day. There are also certain truths that some people can understand, but are still outside the scope of understanding for other people. It is a grace to know and understand the truth.

If you know and understand the truth and know that you are acting in opposition to God’s law, of course that is a sin. But, if circumstances of your life (whatever they may be) render you incapable of fully appreciating what the natural law is, then you never intended to sin in the first place and didn’t realize what you were doing.

If it is a “law” in my house that everyone has to put their own dish in the sink after dinner, I would not hold a baby to this law because I would know that they are incapable of comprehending it and therefore abiding by it. (Edited to add: I expect this baby will one day be able to comprehend the law, but not yet.)

God knows who you are. He meets you where you are in life.

Of course, you can’t fool God by claiming that you didn’t know it was wrong if you actually did. If you know, you know… but only God knows if you deliberately disobeyed the law and knew full well what you were doing.
 
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God cannot go against natural law (the most basic moral code that exists) because God cannot will the absence of Himself. End of.
 
strangenotions.com

Why Miracles Are Not Incompatible with Science

Skeptics argue that miracles are impossible because the laws of nature are necessary. A miracle, they argue, involves a violation of a law of nature. But the laws of nature cannot be violated. Therefore, miracles must be impossible. One modern skeptic of repute who argues this is Richard Dawkins.
strangenotions.com
 
MrsK0224 said:
Your issue is in the word “contraception.” I don’t really want to keep arguing semantics, so let me rephrase from my original post:
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It’s not just semantics at all. It’s at the core of why contraception is wrong and abstaining periodically through observable data is not.

It is perfectly fine to abstain from intercourse, periodically or completely. What we may not do is use our sexual faculties for pleasure and actively attemp to thwart the procreative end of marriage.

What the Church actually teaches is that each act of intercourse must be per se ordered to both unity and procreation.

Not having intercourse (NFP) is moral. Having intercourse while simultaneously trying to disrupt the natural end (contraception) is not moral.
 
I understand what the Church teaching is.

I reject the assumption that NFP is always moral.
 
Forms of NFP are processes or methods. In themselves, they ore not moral or immoral. The reason for their use can be moral or immoral. The church teaches it may be us for just reason. In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI used these terms to describe the conditions for the moral use of NFP: “grave motives”,.… “serious motives… reasons which appear to be honest and serious… plausible reasons, and just motives”.

Using NFP solely to avoid children for personal, superficial, or selfish reasons would be using it in an immoral way.
 
Two exemple in what NFP is not moral:
When the couple use it for avoiding children but do not abstain during the fertile period (using contraceptives or not). It is the way NFP is often used or promote in the secular world.
When they used it for personal/medical/ecological preference but without any opness at life, and abort the child that may be conceived.
 
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Anicette said:
When the couple use it for avoiding children but do not abstain during the fertile period (using contraceptives or not).
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Your examples don’t make any sense.

If a couple doesn’t abstain during the fertile period, they haven’t done anything wrong. A married couple can have sex whenever they want to. If they engage in intercourse during the fertile period then they are not using NFP to avoid pregnancy. They are either using NFP to achieve pregnancy (perfectly moral) or they’ve abandoned their method of NFP and are neither avoiding nor trying to conceive and simply leaving it up to nature and God (also perfectly moral).

If they use contraception when they have sex, then their sin is contraception, not “NFP”.
Anicette said:
When they used it for personal/medical/ecological preference but without any opness at life, and abort the child that may be conceived.
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Which would be totally weird.

But stull not the sin of “NFP” but rather the sin of abortion.

Your two examples make no sense.
 
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It is perhaps make more sense than you think.

Sorry for not being explicit, when I write about abstinence, I mean from “sex” in general, not only natural intercourse.

Nfp, or fertility awarness, if you want to have a more accurate definition is lived and promoted by mainstream society like my first exemple.

We have a different vision because of our beliefs, but it does not represent all the way of thinking of it.

So, thoses two exemples are what is not acceptable for us, as Catholic.
 
Anicette said:
Nfp, or fertility awarness,
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NFP and fertility awareness are similar but not the same thing.

NFP uses abstaining during the fertile period while FAM allows barrier methods of contraception during fertile times. The sin is in contraception not in tracking your cycle.
 
Yes, I agree.

But I will make the commentary, that it is obvious in english language, but not in all languages. So there might be a confusion for some.
 
Voting used to between a white man and the government. Church leaders are people. they are not infallible. Things change, views shift. That cannot be helped, everything changes. Just because you don’t agree with every teaching doesn’t mean you can’t believe in god. My aunt says “I go to church to pray and worship god not to listen to ther people.”
 
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