The Church has got to be kidding on this one, right?

[rlg94086]

Ah…you are talking about this…

**1782 **Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. “He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.”

But, don’t forget…

**1783 **Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

Or this…

[1792](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/1792.htm’) Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

Your final analysis may not have included these items. One can not use artificial birth control to prevent pregnancy without sinning. It is contrary to the teaching of the Church.
jack roscoe:

Great discussion. In the final analysis, as Catholics we are required to form our conscience based upon the teachings of our church. All of her teachings combined with scripture and tradition.

When making the decision to use birth control (not NFP), a person must use their rightly formed conscience to decide. No sin is committed if this is followed. If the woman, for example, in a marriage is convinced that having another child will end their marriage and her husband will not use NFP, she may decide to use birth control without sinning. For Catholics, a rightly formed conscience is the final arbiter for which we will be held accountable.

 

[jack_roscoe]

RLG94986,

Great reply but, alas, incoreect in its judgement section. This is the key quote:

“He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.”

If one has a rightly formed conscience but honestly believes following the church teaching will wreak havoc on one’s marriage, one’s children, one’s faith, then the person may, no must, follow their conscience. It is upon our decisions of conscience that we will be judged. Don’t you see that each of us are free to choose and if we have honestly studied our faith and sought guidance, then we, who are to be judged ultimately, must decide our course.

 

[paramedicgirl]

jack roscoe:

RLG94986,

Great reply but, alas, incoreect in its judgement section. This is the key quote:

“He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.”

If one has a rightly formed conscience but honestly believes following the church teaching will wreak havoc on one’s marriage, one’s children, one’s faith, then the person may, no must, follow their conscience. It is upon our decisions of conscience that we will be judged. Don’t you see that each of us are free to choose and if we have honestly studied our faith and sought guidance, then we, who are to be judged ultimately, must decide our course.

As a Catholic, you must follow the teachings and doctrines of the Church. What you are desribing is cafeteria catholicism, where people pick and choose what they like about the Church. We are subject to the magisterium of the Church, which is guided by the Holy Spirit. Birth control is a sin, and will always be a sin, no matter how you rationalize it away. Couples using birth control cannot receive communion, either. forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=68881&highlight=birth+control

 

[Pug]

jack roscoe:

If one has a rightly formed conscience but honestly believes following the church teaching will wreak havoc on one’s marriage, one’s children, one’s faith, then the person may, no must, follow their conscience. It is upon our decisions of conscience that we will be judged. Don’t you see that each of us are free to choose and if we have honestly studied our faith and sought guidance, then we, who are to be judged ultimately, must decide our course.

If a person knows following the Church teaching on this matter will cause marital distress, that is not the same as the person having their conscience tell them it would be wrong to follow Church teaching in this instance. Knowledge of possible consequences is not conscience. Conscience is our *final *determination of what would be right or wrong to do. Then one either follows the conscience or not. There is no further (name removed by moderator)ut afterwards except decision. No additional circumstances considered. If a person thinks Church teaching is retarded, backwards, dangerous, burdensome, etc., but still knows deep down that the right thing to do is to follow Church teaching, then they are breaking their own conscience if they don’t follow Church teaching. They don’t get to say to their conscience, “But the Church teaching is dumb and impractical!”, and go and do something against their conscience.

I’m probably off-base here. I can tell because the post is long. Sigh.

To redeem myself, I concur with some of your points. If a person’s last, best judgment is that it would be evil not to practice birth control, then they have got to practice it. However, since this judgment is not in concurrence with the Church, the person is on notice to spend time figuring out what went wrong. And if they don’t spend that time, they will become culpable.

I’ll add some CCC quotes to the fray:

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin."59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

 

[Bella3502]

Seatuck:

Common sense says if you don’t want to get pregnant then don’t have sex. That’s more common sense than have an operation.

The overwhelming majority of Catholic couples use some form of artificial birth control. They have common sense and I’m pretty sure that they would disagree with you…

 

[Bella3502]

“We” is the people, or body of the Catholic Church. If we are disobedient to Rome, then we aren’t following the teachings of the Catholic Church. It’s not a buffet religion, where we pick and choose what looks good to us.

Yes it is, to the millions of Catholics who choose to use artificial birth control.

 

[rlg94086]

I repeat, you may have made your assessment without taking the whole of the Catechism, rather than taking one quote. You have what CCC 1792 refers to “a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience” as I bolded in my post.

Main Entry: au·ton·o·my webster.com/images/audio.gif
Pronunciation: -mE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -mies
1 : the quality or state of being self-governing; especially : the right of self-government
2 : self-directing freedom and especially moral independence
3 : a self-governing state

IOW…the Catechism itself describes the idea which you posit that your conscience can trump the teaching of the Church as “the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.” Surely, that is clear reading. But don’t worry, that’s why the Catechism describes the forming of conscience as a life-long pursuit. I also was catechized incorrectly about conscience. Fortunately, I learned the truth.

God bless,

Robert
jack roscoe:

RLG94986,

Great reply but, alas, incoreect in its judgement section. This is the key quote:

“He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.”

If one has a rightly formed conscience but honestly believes following the church teaching will wreak havoc on one’s marriage, one’s children, one’s faith, then the person may, no must, follow their conscience. It is upon our decisions of conscience that we will be judged. Don’t you see that each of us are free to choose and if we have honestly studied our faith and sought guidance, then we, who are to be judged ultimately, must decide our course.

 

[rlg94086]

Do you believe that our faith is a democracy? We should vote on what is moral and what is not moral? Sorry, that’s just not how it works. That Catholics have decided not to follow the Church in regards to contraception, divorce, etc. is sad. Perhaps, what they need is some uncommon sense.

Yes it is, to the millions of Catholics who choose to use artificial birth control.

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Linnyo:

Don’t be ridiculous. It is not wrong of these priests to give permission for a woman to help her health. The only wrong is the church making such a rule in the first place! Well seeing the church is run by men who are unlikely to ever experience such difficulties. They will be the ones answerable for the suffering of the women who think they are doing the will of God by not taking medical advice!

Linnyo:

Before I discuss the why of this 2,000 year old rule, let me talk about the experience of Christians during the Great Persecution…

You see, after 270 year cycle of persecution followed by permissiveness followed by persecution, the Church had just about taken over the Roman Empire. Just before the year 300 A.D., the worst and most shocking persecution the Church had ever experienced was lanched by the Entire Roman Empire.During this persecution, even Catechumens were targetted and taken to the arena floor.

During interrogation after interrogation, Christians were asked WHY they went to the Sunday morning services which meant almost certain death on the arena floor. Time after time, they answered that they would die if they didn’t go. The need to assemble and to receive our Lord’s body and blood was so great that they were willing to risk terrible deaths in order to do it.

The Church is an institution inhabited by human beings, but it’s also THE BODY OF CHRIST, which means that it isn’t just run by men, but it’s also run by God, for God. That means that the Moral Laws don’t come from men, they come from God, who’s the One who made us and then redeemed us. and That He has made us for a purpose, and that purpose is to be united with Him for all eternity, and to bring as many people into that union as possible.

Every rule of the Church is designed for that purpose. It sometimes makes life down here more than a little difficult. When it does, we are told to look at what our Lord did, at what our Lord experienced in order to make it so that we could share in HIs kingdom. And, Then we are told to join Him.

I don’t usually talk about myself on this board, primarily because i desparately don’t want that to get in the way… But, maybe this time it might help you. You see, I’m disabled, which means that I get to share in the sufferings of Christ daily. I was once in so much pain that I screamed while I was passed out (at least that’s what the nurses said I did). I also have a Fatwa against me that was issued by a Hamas Imam, which means that someone could consider it a religious obligtion to kill me.

This is a situation where you need to talk (and talk a lot) to your parish priest and to other Godly men and women in your parish. While there are no wrong feelings, feelings have to put into the language of feelings and not into the language of accusations.

I was brought back to our Lord by an Orthodox Rabbi. Jews argue with God all the time - Remember the scene of Abraham arguing with God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah? (Gen. 18:16-33) Or, How about when Jacob (Israel) wrestled with God? (Gen. 32:22-29)

Argue with God; talk to your priests and to other Godly people, but at some time, you are going to have to take up your cross and follow Jesus. Just remember, He’s been there first, and He won’t lay anything on our shoulder that we can’t take with His help.

He never said it would ever be easy - Only that He would do it first.

In Christ, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Bella3502:

The overwhelming majority of Catholic couples use some form of artificial birth control. They have common sense and I’m pretty sure that they would disagree with you…

Bella3502:

They also divorce at the same rate as the rest of society, while those who follow the Church’s teaching divorce at a rate of 4%.

catholic-pages.com/morality/fatal.asp

When you have time, you might want to read Humanae Vitae, paying special attention to what Pope Paul VI said would happen if Christians refused to submit to the Moral Teaching of the church and conformed themselves to the ethics of this age.

vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

I’m surprised that I have to remind Catholics that the first Christian denomination to OK Artificial Contraception was the Church of England at the Lambeth Quadrilateral in 1931. I wonder how many know that it’s ECUSA (the Branch of the C of W in the USA) and the Church of Canada (the C of E in Canada) that have OK’d Abortion, ordained sexually active gays and lesbians to be priests and bishops, blessed “gay marraige”, taken a whole series of positions at odds with the Bible and the Tradition of the Church and criticized the Pope for standing up for the Faith.

Do you really wnt to follow that lead?

I don’t - As a member of the TAC, I just want to weep over the whole situation and beg for God’s forgiveness.

In Christ, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Pug:

Can you clarify? Are you saying that you do not know whether or not the perpetual viginity of Mary is true? So if I asked if you think it is true, you would say, “No, I don’t think that. I am unsure. It could be true or it could be false. I just don’t know.”

Or instead are you saying that you do think it is true, but you don’t happen to know where to find the doctrine in the bible? What are you saying you are unsure of?

Pug:

The Church has held that called the Blessed Virgin Mary the “Ever Virgin Mother of God” since the Council of Chalcydon, and preached it for at least 350 years before the doctrine was defined. That means that the entire Church has held this to be Doctrine Catholics have to believe since the 5th Century, and has believed it since the end of the 1st Century.

This is part of the Tradition of the Church, and I there are Scriptures which support the doctrine. It’s just late, and I’m tired and I’ve forgotten where they are are. I have a friend who has shown them to me. If it’s really important to you, I’ll get them from him and post them here. It’s just would take a week or so because of Passiontide and Holy Week.

Goodnight.

In Christ, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

jack roscoe:

Great discussion. In the final analysis, as Catholics we are required to form our conscience based upon the teachings of our church. All of her teachings combined with scripture and tradition.

When making the decision to use birth control (not NFP), a person must use their rightly formed conscience to decide. No sin is committed if this is followed. If the woman, for example, in a marriage is convinced that having another child will end their marriage and her husband will not use NFP, she may decide to use birth control without sinning. For Catholics, a rightly formed conscience is the final arbiter for which we will be held accountable.

Jack:

I would submit that that the person who felt she had to use artificial contraception, or that the birth of another child would end the marriage, would have an ill-formed conscience and/or a lack of faith in God’s goodness.

Jesus said to take up our cross. He not only said to take up the croos, but for our sakes and for our salvation, He first took it it up Himself.

In Christ, Michael

 

[paramedicgirl]

Bella3502:

The overwhelming majority of Catholic couples use some form of artificial birth control. They have common sense and I’m pretty sure that they would disagree with you…

Are you saying you agree with this position which the Church has clearly condemned? And how do you know they are not simply using NFP, in accordance with Church teachings?

 

[True_Knight]

Bella3502:

The overwhelming majority of Catholic couples use some form of artificial birth control. They have common sense and I’m pretty sure that they would disagree with you…

The overwhelming majority of Catholic couples are also poorly catechized and don’t KNOW their faith very well…in fact a large majority of Catholic couples don’t even attend mass on a reglar basis…does that too, mean they have common sense?

If the KNEW why the Church teaches what it does and understood why birth control leads to selfishness in the marriage, then they would stop. If they knew it was a curse on their marriage and society…THEY WOULD STOP!

Pope Paul VI, in Humane Vitae said, that if artificial birth control was allowed to become commonly used we would see an increase in divorce (divorce has increased by 400% since the 60s), increase in abortion (47 billion dead and counting since the 70s), increase in pornography (porn is now a 14 billion dollar industry in the US, 54 billion worldwide…porn websites make up the biggest sector on the internet), increase in sexual addiction (indeed sexual addiction is out of control…that’s why I started my ministry True Knights www.trueknights.org )

Need I go any further? Where’s the common sense? Birth control?

Click on the following link to find out more about the connection between Birth Control and Abortion:
priestsforlife.org/contraception/index.htm

God Bless and may He illuminate the darkness I see in this thread… I’ll be praying for everyone!

BTW…Pope Paul VI got it right! The man was a prophet. Of course, he was just an old man who just want to impose his “laws” upon us right? Never mind the facts that history has shown he was right!

Ken Henderson
www.TrueKnights.org

 

[setter]

The overwhelming majority of Catholic couples are also poorly catechized and don’t KNOW their faith very well…in fact a large majority of Catholic couples don’t even attend mass on a reglar basis…does that too, mean they have common sense?

I agree that *common sense * does not equal an enlightened intellect, i.e., a well-formed and informed Catholic conscience.

If the KNEW why the Church teaches what it does and understood why birth control leads to selfishness in the marriage, then they would stop. If they knew it was a curse on their marriage and society…THEY WOULD STOP!

It has been my experience that this is not always the case.

 

[setter]

jack roscoe:

Great discussion. In the final analysis, as Catholics we are required to form our conscience based upon the teachings of our church. All of her teachings combined with scripture and tradition.

When making the decision to use birth control (not NFP), a person must use their **rightly formed conscience ** to decide. No sin is committed if this is followed. If the woman, for example, in a marriage is convinced that having another child will end their marriage and her husband will not use NFP, she may decide to use birth control without sinning. For Catholics, a rightly formed conscience is the final arbiter for which we will be held accountable.

You seem to contradict yourself here (as others have rightly pointed out). Can you further help me to understand your postion?

Are you contending that a rightly formed conscience, i.e., well-formed and informed, can somehow contradict clear Church teaching in matters of faith and morals?

 

[vz71]

Linnyo:

you’ve missed the point. some people need sterilised for health reasons not to prevent pregnancy. abstinence in marraige is also a sin.

If the purpose has to do with health, rather then sterilization, then the Church allows it. What are these ‘rules’ you spoke of earlier?

 

[setter]

If a person knows following the Church teaching on this matter will cause marital distress, that is not the same as the person having their conscience tell them it would be wrong to follow Church teaching in this instance. …If a person thinks Church teaching is retarded, backwards, dangerous, burdensome, etc., but still knows deep down that the right thing to do is to follow Church teaching, then they are breaking their own conscience if they don’t follow Church teaching.

I’m probably off-base here

. I can tell because the post is long. Sigh.

I’ll add some CCC quotes to the fray:

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin."59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

Actually, I think that you are right on target. I have often observed the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” phenomenon when “good Catholics” are personally confronted with a Catholic teaching that runs counter to the prevailing cultural sexual ethos and/or rudely demands too much personal sacrifice over personal prefernce or convenience.

 

[Brendan]

Linnyo:

Don’t be ridiculous. It is not wrong of these priests to give permission for a woman to help her health.

How does a priest have the authority to violate Church teachings?

The only wrong is the church making such a rule in the first place! Well seeing the church is run by men who are unlikely to ever experience such difficulties. They will be the ones answerable for the suffering of the women who think they are doing the will of God by not taking medical advice!

Really, are doctors now the one who determine what is moral or not? When exactly did God give them that authority?

 

[Brendan]

Bella3502:

The overwhelming majority of Catholic couples use some form of artificial birth control. They have common sense and I’m pretty sure that they would disagree with you…

Really, there were overwhelming numbers of Catholic who believed that slavery was permissible inspite of Church teachings to the contrary.

They formed their consciences in such a way that ‘allowed’ them to own slaves, or wished to own slaves.

I suppose that such a majority decision by so many people with ‘common sense’ made slavery also morally permissible.