What should I do? (a conscience vs church issue)

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Debora123 said:
It is definitely something to consider. I always said I’d try again if I felt God was calling me to it. I don’t feel God is calling me to it… well, at least I don’t* think *I do. But I will give it some further thought, and you are right, it is lent. Thank you.
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Whatever you do, Debora, please don’t profane the Eucharist by receiving it in an improper disposition. I imagine you are quite familiar with the consequences that using artificial contraceptives will have on your spiritual grace. Please confess your sins before receiving.

There’s also nothing wrong with abstaining from the Eucharist time to time…there is nothing shameful about acknowledging one’s unworthiness to receive the Sacrament (indeed, our grace is partially unmerited by virutue of our fall and our concupiscence) God knows I abstain every now and again, but not many people do anymore. I pray that you do.

God bless you.
 
wild_thing said:
I just wanted to say thank you, Debra, for having the guts to post this question. I have been struggling mightily with the same issues- not so much about contraception, but about sexual intimacy within marriage. Sad to say, more and more I find myself pulling away from the Church. How people have responded to your query was pretty much what I was expecting everybody to say. It pretty much seems like a black and white issue. My particular situation does not seem at all black and white to me and thus I have a hard time with ‘Church’s way or the highway.’ I guess I’ve kind’ve taken the highway. 😦
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Wild Thing. The options really are black and white. He said, “A man is either for me or against me”. It is the way of Jesus, or the highway to hell. Take Him or leave Him. Your choice. The Church’s teaching is guaranteed by Him. It is very plainly there in the Bible. She can only teach what she is taught. Go into all nations and teach… I am with you until the end of time. I will send you the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth. Those who hear you hear me. Those who reject you reject me.

His words are very plain, either or, black and white.
 
michelleds said:
Deborah…I would suggest to you that your conscience is in fact NOT leading you in opposition to Church teaching. it is your conscience that is subtly continuing to push you and not allow you to just settle into that contrary position.
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That is a really deeply profound statement. I had not thought of it like this, but it makes true sense.
I would agree with this, Debora123…that it may very well be your conscience guiding to keep asking the questions, keep searching for clarity, question the questionable advice from a spiritual director, keep fighting the urge to just “settle into that contrary position.”

-ahs
 
Joe_5859 said:
I’m certainly not your spiritual adviser, but have you tried following the Church’s teaching even though you disagree with it?

With Lent upon us tomorrow, perhaps that is something to consider for a Lenten spiritual exercise: try to live out the Church teaching on that matter, pray for understanding, and see if Easter brings you any change in your perspective.

After all, it certainly wouldn’t be wrong not to use contraception, even if you think it is morally just fine. Perhaps putting the Church teaching into practice will make a difference. It’s just 40 days after all.
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Yes, it may just be 40 days, but someone could EASILY become pregnant in those 40 days. This is a very, very serious decision for this person. It almost seems like you’re making light of it - the possibility of children is a VERY SERIOUS subject NOT to be taken lightly. I’m sure this poster has reason for not wanting to currently be pregnant (not asking)- how that is dealt with is something for her spouse herself and her spiritual adviser and God to deal with.
God Bless
Rye
 
michelleds said:
(…)I would suggest to you that your conscience is in fact NOT leading you in opposition to Church teaching. it is your conscience that is subtly continuing to push you and not allow you to just settle into that contrary position. Does this make sense?

(…)
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I second this. I’m not happy that you (Debora) or anyone struggle with sin but I’m that you haven’t stopped wrestling with this. You seemed so strident awhile back that I thought you might have just decided to go with your own understanding and not the Church’s teaching. But being on the defensive, trying to explain again and again that you have studied and prayed can do that to a person. I have not wish to make you feel that way; it’s not helpful.

Sometimes I think laws, like the commandments, are for people who aren’t smart enough handle life and therefore need someone telling them what to do and how to live.* And when it comes right down to it we can’t handle it; “it” being concupiscence. We might be the master of something but become prideful and find ourselves fighting against something we’ve believed and practiced for years because we bought into a lie. It’s hard to come around from that.

Also, this doesn’t make you not Catholic as someone suggested above. You are Catholic to the core and you love the Church.

*Aaaaand someone is probably going want to argue with me like I actually believe that.
 
ryecroft said:
Yes, it may just be 40 days, but someone could EASILY become pregnant in those 40 days. This is a very, very serious decision for this person. It almost seems like you’re making light of it - the possibility of children is a VERY SERIOUS subject NOT to be taken lightly. I’m sure this poster has reason for not wanting to currently be pregnant (not asking)- how that is dealt with is something for her spouse herself and her spiritual adviser and God to deal with.
God Bless
Rye
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So going against the Churches teachings and possibly putting your soul at risk is not a VERY SERIOUS subject? :confused:
 
Contraception is one of the hardest teachings to follow in this day and age. And of course it effects your life and your marriage. It effects everyone’s. We all had to comes to terms with this and make up our minds to follow the Church in faith. It’s easy to believe the stuff that doesn’t effect your life. This is where the rubber meets the road.

This is not an issue that is open to debate for Catholics. What you have to do now is act in faith. Stop trying to make excuses as if you know better than the tradition of Catholicism. Sin if you will but don’t accuse the Church of doctrinal error when you do. It really is an insult to the Church what you are saying.
 
Link0126 said:
Contraception is one of the hardest teachings to follow in this day and age. And of course it effects your life and your marriage. It effects everyone’s. We all had to comes to terms with this and make up our minds to follow the Church in faith. It’s easy to believe the stuff that doesn’t effect your life. This is where the rubber meets the road.

This is not an issue that is open to debate for Catholics. What you have to do now is act in faith. Stop trying to make excuses as if you know better than the tradition of Catholicism. Sin if you will but don’t accuse the Church of doctrinal error when you do. It really is an insult to the Church what you are saying.
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debora didn’t accuse the Church of being wrong. Her conscience doesn’t hold the same reasoning of the Church’s and she’s aware of that discrepancy.
 
@OP: I would pray and meditate on these verses;

[bibledrb] Isaiah 55:8[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] john 14:15[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] John 15:10[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Matthew 18:17[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Luke 10:16[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Mark 10:15[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Matthew 18:3[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Luke 11:28[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Ephesians 5:6[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]Psalms 1:1-2[/bibledrb]

Disobedience is a sign of pride especially after Christ has spoken to us through His Mystical Body; the Church. Maybe God is testing you and withholding from you the grace to understand these teachings of the Church until you make an act of faith and freely choose to be obedient to them.

[bibledrb]James 4:6-10[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]1 Peter 5:6[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]2 Corinthians 2:9[/bibledrb]

You can’t say you have done everything to understand until you have given trust and obedience a chance.👍

Suscipe

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace.
That is enough for me.
I will pray for you and I hope you will pray for me.
 
Hi Debora.

I think we all struggle with one thing or the other most of the time.
especially if we haven’t always been Catholic.

I think that the posts on page 1 about 3 principles to determine a moral act are fantastic.
I believe that the theory of totality: meaning, that if we are just open to children most of the time, sometimes doing contraceptive or nonunitive sexual acts is okay, the Church has, by these principles proved wrong.

Anyway what I really want to say is there have been times where I was in rebellion. I sinned and rationalized my sin. Then I sinned again. The darkness came into my life, the emptiness, the disbelief… I began loosing sensitivity to the Holy. I began having no taste for the Holy. I began being bored with what is right and pure. I began making fun of everything that smelled like sacrifice.
I laughed at things in order to cover my disapointment in myself, because I could never forget the eyes of Jesus that I had seen a long time ago… Those eyes were Holy.

I wanted to be a righteous person, and so it hurt like purgatory to let the EGO die by admitting I was just a foul sinner in need of salvation. The more I ran against the wall, the more I wanted faith to conform to my sense of reality, instead of actually working on myself. Because it hurt.

I have found out from my own life that the Bible is exactly true: sin brings confusion and blindness, it darkens the intellect, it creates pride, it creates more rebellion. The beginning of the letter to the Romans is so correct.
sin creates a vicious circle…
Thats why its so important to RUN to the confessional as soon as you have sinned and really be repentant. Rebellion makes blind!

Maybe because I have experienced some of the contrasts so clearly in my life, I cannot hide this fact from myself. And even long after I stopped the rebellion my soul is still in a pitiful state, I am lukewarm and in need of a lot of healing still.

I think grandfathers posts are remarkably wise. He describes these things in a Biblical way. I don’t know if one can understand it, unless one takes a step into honesty and repentance and sees all the mess one has made out of ones own life. This takes courage.
The spiritual things are real! The effects are real. There is really darkness and light and someone who wants to pull us away from the light.
 
Credo_in_Deum said:
@OP: I would pray and meditate on these verses;

[bibledrb] Isaiah 55:8[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] john 14:15[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] John 15:10[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Matthew 18:17[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Luke 10:16[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Mark 10:15[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Matthew 18:3[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Luke 11:28[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb] Ephesians 5:6[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]Psalms 1:1-2[/bibledrb]

Disobedience is a sign of pride especially after Christ has spoken to us through His Mystical Body; the Church. Maybe God is testing you and withholding from you the grace to understand these teachings of the Church until you make an act of faith and freely choose to be obedient to them.

[bibledrb]James 4:6-10[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]1 Peter 5:6[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]2 Corinthians 2:9[/bibledrb]

You can’t say you have done everything to understand until you have given trust and obedience a chance.👍

Suscipe

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace.
That is enough for me.
I will pray for you and I hope you will pray for me.
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Thanks for taking the time to post all of this! I really enjoyed reading it. 🙂

Side note, can you tell me about the picture attached to your posts?
 
dailey said:
Thanks for taking the time to post all of this! I really enjoyed reading it. 🙂

Side note, can you tell me about the picture attached to your posts?
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Hello dailey,

Here is the discription that came with the photo when I found it. I heard about this picture from my parish priest who keeps a copy of it to give him strength.

Martyrdom of Fr. Francisco Vera
The picture below shows the martyrdom in early April of 1927 of Fr. Francisco Vera, a parish Priest of Sangre y Cuerpo de Cristo in the city of Jalostotitlan, Jalisco.

Padre was celebrating Mass in secret for his people when he was discovered by Freemasons and, with the support of a socialist and vehemently anti-Catholic government and media, executed on the spot. He was not allowed to remove his vestments, and this photograph was sent to President Calles by the leader of the squad to prove how zealous he was being against the Catholic Church. Father Vera’s body was taken to a garbage dump outside the city, where it was further desecrated.

This scene was just one of numerous anti-religious atrocities committed by the Mexican government during the Cristero War, a period of Catholic resistance to state persecution comparable in sentiment if not in scale to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany.
 
Credo_in_Deum said:
Hello dailey,

Padre was celebrating Mass in secret for his people when he was discovered by Freemasons and, with the support of a socialist and vehemently anti-Catholic government and media, executed on the spot. He was not allowed to remove his vestments, and this photograph was sent to President Calles by the leader of the squad to prove how zealous he was being against the Catholic Church. Father Vera’s body was taken to a garbage dump outside the city, where it was further desecrated.

This scene was just one of numerous anti-religious atrocities committed by the Mexican government during the Cristero War, a period of Catholic resistance to state persecution comparable in sentiment if not in scale to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany.
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Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
 
I’m gonna take a different approach and ask a question.

How is your conscience being violated by the Church teaching?

Peace and God bless!
 
Yes if there is a serious reason one may make use of NFP…it is something that she and her spouse and perhaps her spiritual adviser can discuss…and the couple can judge before God.

Such is the only moral means open to the person.

No spiritual adviser/director/confessor can say contraception is a possible good choice…

They cannot say “using contraception is ok” anymore than “murder is ok”

(such would be invalid spiritual direction from the get go)

It is an intrinsically evil means.
 
Debora123 said:
No problem.
  1. I don’t think non abortificient contraception is wrong. (as long as the couple is still open to bringing children into their marriage, and lovingly accept whatever child they do conceive)
  2. I don’t think it’s wrong for husband and wife to sometimes bring each other to climax outside of intercourse. (as long as it doesn’t become a substitute for intercourse, I see nothing wrong with it happening on occasion).
The second one is something I can follow, though the first really effects my life and my marriage, and this is mainly what I’ve talked to my adviser about and have decided to follow my conscience.
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You don’t have to wear non-abortificient contraception (you know, condoms and the like). Not meaning to sound crude here but suppose a woman wanted to have sex with her husband while at the same time not wanting to become pregnant all the time. She can do it, specifically, they can have sex when the woman isn’t ovulating. According to a website which knows a lot on pregnancy:

*During my ovulation time, how many days am I really fertile?
During the time of ovulation, an egg is available to be fertilized for only about 12-24 hours. But since sperm can live in the body for 3-5 days and then the egg is available for one day, your most fertile time is considered to be about 5-7 days. *

I don’t suggest taking contraception because sex is love and though the husband and wife may not have the intention of having a baby every time they have sex, when they find out the wife’s pregnant they should become happy and thank God and Mary because their act of love brought them a child. Contraception just reduces the marriage act into a show of lust.

As for climaxing outside of sex, well, speaking as a budding Priest I honestly don’t think its bad. Every happy couple should do what they call spooning or cuddling up or caressing each other now and then. A certain Saint did it a lot with his wife so much so that he was often accused of overdoing it yet in reality he was just showing affection as Francis de Sales said. Though hugs and caresses aren’t the essence of love itself, they bring the spouses closer together. In fact, I once saw a page from a breviary or something which showed Saint Anne and Joachim meeting at the gate as tradition goes; the painting actually showed Joachim caressing Anne’s chest. It wasn’t depicted as sexual, it was depicted as an act of intimate love between Joachim and Anne.
 
MrSylvester said:
You don’t have to wear non-abortificient contraception (you know, condoms and the like). Not meaning to sound crude here but suppose a woman wanted to have sex with her husband while at the same time not wanting to become pregnant all the time. She can do it, specifically, they can have sex when the woman isn’t ovulating. According to a website which knows a lot on pregnancy:

During my ovulation time, how many days am I really fertile?
During the time of ovulation, an egg is available to be fertilized for only about 12-24 hours. But since sperm can live in the body for 3-5 days and then the egg is available for one day, your most fertile time is considered to be about 5-7 days.

I don’t suggest taking contraception because sex is love and though the husband and wife may not have the intention of having a baby every time they have sex, when they find out the wife’s pregnant they should become happy and thank God and Mary because their act of love brought them a child. Contraception just reduces the marriage act into a show of lust.

As for climaxing outside of sex, well, speaking as a budding Priest I honestly don’t think its bad. Every happy couple should do what they call spooning or cuddling up or caressing each other now and then. A certain Saint did it a lot with his wife so much so that he was often accused of overdoing it yet in reality he was just showing affection as Francis de Sales said. Though hugs and caresses aren’t the essence of love itself, they bring the spouses closer together. In fact, I once saw a page from a breviary or something which showed Saint Anne and Joachim meeting at the gate as tradition goes; the painting actually showed Joachim caressing Anne’s chest. It wasn’t depicted as sexual, it was depicted as an act of intimate love between Joachim and Anne.
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For a budding Priest, you sure have a whole lot of learning to do about what the Church teaches. You condemn lust, then promote it. Worse, you use as an example some concocted story about a “certain Saint”. What you suggested about climaxing outside of sex is the first step down a very slippery slope towards exactly what the Church says is wrong and which has been so well pointed out by others here.

And what you wrote about the NFP is puerile, to say the least, on a thread full of married people and started by a married woman. As a matter of fact, I doubt you are a ‘budding priest’ and say you are far from ready to even entertain the idea.
 
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