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opus101
Guest
Well, it’s going to be a big research project, but I think it will be worthwhile. Here’s some interesting information to tide us over:
wf-f.org/04-3-Inside.html
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wf-f.org/04-3-Inside.html
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iloveangels
Guest
It’s like the translation thing. American catholics are only about 5% of the church. Not only that, but in Rome they think Americans are a little nuts because of the stuff that goes on here all the time. So we’re not on the top of the work stack. They finally got around to us, I guess, in about 2009, and this disciplinary letter dates from that investigation, I imagine. Rome doesn’t move very fast, but when it moves, it moves. We can expect some changes now, I think.
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jwinch2
Guest
Thanks for that. I’m not doing anything exhaustive. I was just curious.
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opus101
Guest
But now you have me curiouser. I don’t want to distract anyone here, but those who are disposed might want to read some of this. The whole thing is interseting, but if you scroll
down to the sections captioned “Embittered Feminists react”, “Ambitions of WomenChurch” and “Conferences Extend” you’ll get a taste of the time period.
Sadly, it describes how the Bishops at that time were quite complicit in it all. Most of them are retired or dead now.
Let’s pray for our current Bishops as well as our past Bishops.wandererforum.org/publications/focus013.html
This is also intersting:catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8138
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jwinch2
Guest
Scary stuff…
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opus101
Guest
…
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ForeverGrace
Guest
As a Protestant following this news, I must admit that I have been asking some of these questions from among some close friends who are Catholic.
Since I don’t have a good foundation on the heirarchy of Catholicism, I’ve been wondering how people such as Sr. Keehan can get away with the things she has. Given that I am vehemently opposed to Obamacare, I keep asking how can x, y, and z happen? Obama at Notre Dame was the first question I put to faithful Catholic friends. What was Notre Dame thinking? My friends were just as concerned as I was . As things progress and the federal government becomes more and more hostile to believers, I ask again. Where is the church? Why are these things allowed? Does the Vatican know about this and if so, why let those in Catholic leadership who do not support Catholic teachings get away with their actions? Are these leaders autonomous?
I watched Bill Theirfelder from Belmont Abbey defend the Catholic church against HHS and cheered him on. What a positively lovely person, gracious, kind, and exquisitely communicative. I trusted him right away and was reminded how many truly good people are Catholics.
I keep seeing the idea that 90% of Catholics in America use contraception, yet I’ve never seen a source quoted for it. Is that possible? A huge majority of American Catholics defy the church teachings?
I am not criticizing Catholics, I just don’t understand how this could be true. Personally, I find the Catholic teaching on birth control to be inconsistent with itself. I have asked many times how the church can criticize artificial birth control but approve of NFP. If someone can help me with that, I would greatly appreciate it.
I have some contact with a Nun from extended family. She supports the Vatican but says it’s getting harder and harder to support some of the teachings of the church. She has said that if she were in a different country where the moral code is more rigid, there would be less strife.
I sincerely hope that those who serve the church faithfully as Nuns are not hurt by this recent edict.
I live in Phoenix and our Bishop is Bishop Olmsted. Even as a non-Catholic, I think he is an extraordinary leader and I’m very impressed by his vision for Catholic education. He was the Bishop who excommunicated a nun for allowing an abortion in her hospital. I don’t know all the facts.
If someone can help me with my question about NFP I’d appreciate. You can send me a pm. I’d rather not be the source of a thead hi-jack.
Since I don’t have a good foundation on the heirarchy of Catholicism, I’ve been wondering how people such as Sr. Keehan can get away with the things she has. Given that I am vehemently opposed to Obamacare, I keep asking how can x, y, and z happen? Obama at Notre Dame was the first question I put to faithful Catholic friends. What was Notre Dame thinking? My friends were just as concerned as I was . As things progress and the federal government becomes more and more hostile to believers, I ask again. Where is the church? Why are these things allowed? Does the Vatican know about this and if so, why let those in Catholic leadership who do not support Catholic teachings get away with their actions? Are these leaders autonomous?
I watched Bill Theirfelder from Belmont Abbey defend the Catholic church against HHS and cheered him on. What a positively lovely person, gracious, kind, and exquisitely communicative. I trusted him right away and was reminded how many truly good people are Catholics.
I keep seeing the idea that 90% of Catholics in America use contraception, yet I’ve never seen a source quoted for it. Is that possible? A huge majority of American Catholics defy the church teachings?
I am not criticizing Catholics, I just don’t understand how this could be true. Personally, I find the Catholic teaching on birth control to be inconsistent with itself. I have asked many times how the church can criticize artificial birth control but approve of NFP. If someone can help me with that, I would greatly appreciate it.
I have some contact with a Nun from extended family. She supports the Vatican but says it’s getting harder and harder to support some of the teachings of the church. She has said that if she were in a different country where the moral code is more rigid, there would be less strife.
I sincerely hope that those who serve the church faithfully as Nuns are not hurt by this recent edict.
I live in Phoenix and our Bishop is Bishop Olmsted. Even as a non-Catholic, I think he is an extraordinary leader and I’m very impressed by his vision for Catholic education. He was the Bishop who excommunicated a nun for allowing an abortion in her hospital. I don’t know all the facts.
If someone can help me with my question about NFP I’d appreciate. You can send me a pm. I’d rather not be the source of a thead hi-jack.
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Elizium23
Guest
Bishop Olmsted did not excommunicate Sr. McBride, she incurred her own excommunication latae sententiae by formally cooperating in the abortion, and his announcement affirmed this.
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KSU
Guest
“Personally, I find the Catholic teaching on birth control to be inconsistent with itself. I have asked many times how the church can criticize artificial birth control but approve of NFP…If someone can help me with my question about NFP I’d appreciate.”
In a nutshell, ForeverGrace, artificial methods contradict God’s human blueprint for procreation, and thus bad, while NFP is neutral towards procreation as God intended.
I may be wrong, but you can research it all you want on this Forum and Google, but you will come full circle to the above nutshell explanation.
In a nutshell, ForeverGrace, artificial methods contradict God’s human blueprint for procreation, and thus bad, while NFP is neutral towards procreation as God intended.
I may be wrong, but you can research it all you want on this Forum and Google, but you will come full circle to the above nutshell explanation.
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iloveangels
Guest
Catholics tend, overall, to be pretty tolerant people, Forever Grace. It has to do with our respect for the human being as God created each one. We’re made in the image and likeness of God, the scriptures say. The necessary downside of that is that people don’t always do the right thing, even though they are loved by God and they do have free will.
We’re coming back from a period of considerable disarray after the excesses of the late 20th century. People need catechesis, which is religious education, very badly. We’re working on that.
And yes, we do have some great leaders now. The last two popes, but especially Pope Benedict XVI, who we have now, have done a great job to insure that. We’re grateful and it’s helping.
Nevertheless, you can still see evidence of the turmoil of the past in some of our religious orders and so on. The sisters’ organizations are one of the places where the disarray and dissent is still pretty bad. We’re working on understanding it, and correcting it, as you can see. Some of the stuff they’ve been involved in hasn’t been made clear to the general Catholic public and we’re catching up on it in many conversations like the one in this thread. The confusion and so on has finally also gotten bad enough that the Church is dealing with it legally. It’s got to be fixed for everybody’s good now.
The birth control thing is covered, probably exhaustively, elsewhere on this forum. There is one interesting thing though, not on topic for this thread, but I’m going to say it anyway. The Church teaches us that we can’t treat other people like things. You don’t decide whether to have a child or not like you decide to get a puppy or not. People are made in the image & likeness of God; they’re not pets or things, most particularly in issues of life and death. So abortion is wrong; some reproductive technologies are wrong that treat people like things to be procured or bought-particularly if they dispose of a human being because of convenience, denial, money or force. Slavery is wrong. Human trafficking is wrong. And so on. This is the reason for our stances on birth control, abortion, slavery, euthanasia and so on.
Thank you for asking earnestly about these things. We really appreciate it. God bless you.
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iloveangels
Guest
BTW, Elizium23 is right about Sr. McBride too. She excommunicated herself by her action, but she has reconciled herself to the Church now. We took the hit in the media to allow her to save her soul and it worked. Every single person is precious.
The thing many people don’t understand is how excommunication works. Excommunication isn’t a punishment like jail. It’s a remedy and a warning. And it works best on those who are not so far gone that they are likely to just walk away in anger or craziness. With those, you have to use other means to try to keep them from hurting other people.
People get really bent out of shape when the Church doesn’t formally excommunicate some of its most blatant dissidents, for example. But if the medicine has a low chance of working, why would you use it? This is why it appears to be unevenly used.
For instance, the SSPX bishops had excommunications. This was meant to bring them back. They may be on their way back now, for which we are grateful because they’re good people. They had a scare in the late 20th century and over-reacted. We’ve all done that in one form or another. The medicine worked, and it looks like we’re going to get them back which is a good thing. This is why the excommunications were lifted. We’re talking now.
On the other hand some of our crazier dissidents, particularly on the left, haven’t been formally excommunicated. The probable assessment on some of these people is that excommunication isn’t the right medicine, because right now they may be beyond talking and beyond reasonable communication. And we don’t want to make “martyrs” out of them either. They don’t deserve the attention.
The thing many people don’t understand is how excommunication works. Excommunication isn’t a punishment like jail. It’s a remedy and a warning. And it works best on those who are not so far gone that they are likely to just walk away in anger or craziness. With those, you have to use other means to try to keep them from hurting other people.
People get really bent out of shape when the Church doesn’t formally excommunicate some of its most blatant dissidents, for example. But if the medicine has a low chance of working, why would you use it? This is why it appears to be unevenly used.
For instance, the SSPX bishops had excommunications. This was meant to bring them back. They may be on their way back now, for which we are grateful because they’re good people. They had a scare in the late 20th century and over-reacted. We’ve all done that in one form or another. The medicine worked, and it looks like we’re going to get them back which is a good thing. This is why the excommunications were lifted. We’re talking now.
On the other hand some of our crazier dissidents, particularly on the left, haven’t been formally excommunicated. The probable assessment on some of these people is that excommunication isn’t the right medicine, because right now they may be beyond talking and beyond reasonable communication. And we don’t want to make “martyrs” out of them either. They don’t deserve the attention.
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iloveangels
Guest
That stuff still goes on to some degree because these movements still exist, are highly motivated and are highly organized and networked. These marginal groups have insinuated themselves into speakers’ bureaus and all kinds of institutions, so they get picked up and thus it seems to the normal laity like they appear out of nowhere every now and then. It seems like a game of whack-a-mole to normal parish Catholics, but it’s continuous in some populations of the Church.
One of the Holy See’s points in that letter about the LCWR that was sent out last week is the alliance between LCWR and some political action groups.
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Corki
Guest
And I think we should have made **a really big deal **about the reconcilliation. It’s not only the Church that took the hit in the media. As far as most people know, including the news outlets,Sr.McBride is still excommunicated. That’s not fair to her or the Church.
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ForeverGrace
Guest
Thanks to those who answered my questions. I understand viewing all humans as precious in God’s sight and agree with that completely. I’ve read pages and pages of debate and discussion on this issue.
My objection is regarding NFP. The purpose of using NFP is to avoid pregnancy. The purpose of artificial birth control is to avoid pregnancy.
I grant that NFP can still result in pregnancy, but the same can be said for artificial birth control. I can personally attest to the fact that using NFP to purposely become pregnant works quite well! LOL.
After we sweep away all of the philosophy and theology we are left with human beings choosing to use some method to avoid pregnancy.
If the church said that practicing any kind of birth control was wrong, then I could accept that as being the determination of the church as the church understands the scriptures. I might not like it, but I could accept and understand it. NFP seems like a half-measure to me. The church says birth control is wrong, but if you have to, then the least egregious method of birth control is NFP. Either birth control is wrong or it’s not wrong. It can’t be both wrong and not wrong. This is why I think this directive is inconsistent with itself.
BUT… just because I find it inconsistent doesn’t mean I don’t honor the people who accept it. I respect your beliefs on this. God Bless and again thank you.
My objection is regarding NFP. The purpose of using NFP is to avoid pregnancy. The purpose of artificial birth control is to avoid pregnancy.
I grant that NFP can still result in pregnancy, but the same can be said for artificial birth control. I can personally attest to the fact that using NFP to purposely become pregnant works quite well! LOL.
After we sweep away all of the philosophy and theology we are left with human beings choosing to use some method to avoid pregnancy.
If the church said that practicing any kind of birth control was wrong, then I could accept that as being the determination of the church as the church understands the scriptures. I might not like it, but I could accept and understand it. NFP seems like a half-measure to me. The church says birth control is wrong, but if you have to, then the least egregious method of birth control is NFP. Either birth control is wrong or it’s not wrong. It can’t be both wrong and not wrong. This is why I think this directive is inconsistent with itself.
BUT… just because I find it inconsistent doesn’t mean I don’t honor the people who accept it. I respect your beliefs on this. God Bless and again thank you.
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jwinch2
Guest
While I laud your desire to discuss this openly, I would respectfully suggest that this is not the thread to do it. There are scores of threads on NFP should you desire to ask questions and discuss your situation.
Peace of Christ,
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ForeverGrace
Guest
Actually, I asked for pm’s to avoid a thread hi-jack. It seems other CA members thought it acceptable to answer here on the forum. To say that this isn’t a part of the issue being discussed seems a bit unfair. I just spent a good deal of time looking at supposed Catholic organizations such as ‘Call to Action’ and ‘Catholics for Choice’. Surely the artificial birth control question is appropriate to the reason the vatican is asking for correction. Especially so since the HHS mandate.
But, I will take my leave.
Mea Culpa.
But, I will take my leave.
Mea Culpa.
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iloveangels
Guest
The groups you mention are very small but vocal dissident groups that have nothing at all to do with the great majority of Catholics. These groups have no official standing within the Catholic Church.
Jason is correct. And you probably don’t need to ask for PMs. I’m sure there are many threads on NFP in this forum that cover just about every aspect of NFP. At any rate, this is not a thread on NFP. This is a thread on the LCWR, entitled “Vatican demands reform of American nuns’ leadership group [CWN].”
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jwinch2
Guest
I know you asked for a PM, which is why I tried to very polite. Since the polite thing seemed not to work I will be a bit more direct. Yes, it is related in a way to the topic. However, the thread was already being taken, by you, in a different direction when you started questioning the doctrine and the application of it.
In short, if you want to question the wisdom of allowing NFP, this is the wrong thread.
If you want to discuss how dissension from Church doctrine on NFP and Contraception has led to the situation we are in, have at it, but your opinions on Church teaching regarding NFP are not germane to this discussion. Again, there are scores of threads on the subject where I am sure you will get all the discussion you can handle.
Peace,
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iloveangels
Guest
Actually now that you mention this, I don’t think that birth control had much to do with the decisions that were made by the sisters. They don’t usually use birth control very much.
To the degree that birth control has been used in American Catholic power politics, it’s been used only as a tool. Let me explain:
Some of the dissident organizations that were involved in some of the political ferment of the 70-90s hoped (and probably still hope) to capture the backing of the laity by exploiting the issue of birth control to drive a wedge for female ordination, the married priesthood and a bunch of other similar issues that really mattered to them, thinking that they could win by numbers if they got the laity on their side.
It’s never worked. One thing is that the laity know better than that, even if many of them do use birth control at some time in their lives. Most of the laity don’t really have dogs in any of the far leftist squabbles. They just don’t care. And they know they can get birth control on the side without it having anything to do with political pressure groups like the CTA. They’re Catholics, and even though birth control might not be a big political deal for them, but more of a private or personal one, they want the Church to stay the Church and the parish to stay the parish without huge changes of the far left activist kind. Many of the laity have some fairly negative opinions about the kinds of very radical changes these dissident groups favor, in fact.
But the issue at stake in this thread isn’t really the laity. This is really about the LCWR and what went on inside the women’s congregations during the 40 years since the LCWR came into existence with its present constitutions. Birth control doesn’t really account for much of that story. If these political groups, most of whom have individual sisters as members, touched the topic at all, as I said before, it was only as a tool to try to manipulate the laity. And it didn’t work.
PS: The thing the media doesn’t want to talk about is that opposition to the HHS mandate is not grounded primarily on birth control. The mandate also forces Catholics to pay for ABORTION, the abortion pill and some other grisly practices. Again people are using birth control as a tool to try to mobilize large numbers of Catholics into a radical stance. It won’t work. That’s not how they view it. But there are many HHS mandate threads on this forum…
And birth control doesn’t have much to do with the LCWR in the final analysis.
Returning to the topic of the thread: “Vatican demands reform of American nuns’ leadership group [CWN]”
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Mickey
Guest
The LCWR will fight reform every inch of the way. I’m afraid to say that I think it will get very ugly. These “nuns” are so entrenched in their disobedience, I think they would rather leave the church than to reform their deranged teachings and practices.
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