alng
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Post by alng on Jan 26, 2022 2:40:22 GMT
The priest in our Catholic high school in the late 1970s taught our religion class that you did not have to follow Humanae vitae if your "conscience" told you it was okay not to. According to a news report 125 people, including former and current Catholic priests, teachers, church administrators and volunteers, identified themselves as gay and queer, ask the church to do away with "outdated statements of church doctrine" when it comes to sexuality... www.dw.com/en/german-catholic-priests-come-out-as-queer-demand-reform/a-60531857I guess that this aligns somewhat with the goals of the New Ways Ministry?
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Post by homeschooldad on Jan 26, 2022 5:18:17 GMT
The priest in our Catholic high school in the late 1970s taught our religion class that you did not have to follow Humanae vitae if your "conscience" told you it was okay not to. According to a news report 125 people, including former and current Catholic priests, teachers, church administrators and volunteers, identified themselves as gay and queer, ask the church to do away with "outdated statements of church doctrine" when it comes to sexuality... www.dw.com/en/german-catholic-priests-come-out-as-queer-demand-reform/a-60531857I guess that this aligns somewhat with the goals of the New Ways Ministry? It seems to, and if they are advocating Church acceptance of homosexual sex and same-sex marriage, they are simply wrong. The Church is not a democracy where doctrine and morality are determined by the popular will, or by the "times". Their use of the word "outdated" (or whatever the word would have been in German, I'm assuming they didn't level this demand in English) implies either that it was once true but is no longer true (because the "times" determine what is true or not), or that it never was true, and thus the Holy Spirit lied to us all these centuries. Just because a majority, or even a vast majority, of people see something as true, doesn't make it that way.
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Post by tth1 on Jan 26, 2022 16:51:46 GMT
He no longer functions as a priest. The story is not pretty. The only thing I can say, is that at least it was a female instead of a male. Thank God for that, at least.
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alng
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Post by alng on Jan 26, 2022 19:11:20 GMT
Please don't take this as a personal affront --- I appreciate the fact that our discussions can always remain cordial and respectful --- but would I be correct in inferring that you are either not a Catholic, or are a Catholic who wants to see a Church where morality can change with the times and circumstances? Thank you. I am not sure why you are so hostile to the Winnipeg statement which seems to be a pastoral attempt to help out a few people facing conflict. I am just trying to figure things out with reference to this topic which you brought up for discussion. I became acquainted with a case of a woman with five children who attends Mass regularly and is faithful to her children and to her husband. But she lives in fear of being in mortal sin and going to hell. She does not receive Holy Communion or go to confession. When asked why she does not go to confession, she says she can confess her sin, but she knows that the next day or so that she will commit the same sin with her husband and so the confession would not be valid since she did not have the firm purpose of amendment. The confession would then be a sacrilege, which is another mortal sin. She says that she is facing financial difficulties and her husband has two jobs but they cannot afford any more children. Further, she has a severe heart problem and the doctor has told her that any future childbirths could be fatal. It is not that easy to raise 5 children today in the USA, especially if the mother has died. Do you then go along with the idea that she will go to hell for the mortal sin of contraception? It looks to me like she has fulfilled the procreative aspect of marriage and is fulfilling faithfully the unitive aspect of marriage. It seems wrong to send a wonderful woman like this to burn forever in hell. Would it be wrong to advise her to join a “sister” Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, where she would be most likely given permission by an Orthodox priest to use contraception under these trying circumstances? I recall that the Orthodox Churches are Sister Churches of the Catholic Church and that Pope Paul VI has lifted the excommunications and anathemas imposed in 1054?
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Post by homeschooldad on Jan 26, 2022 19:11:51 GMT
He no longer functions as a priest. The story is not pretty. The only thing I can say, is that at least it was a female instead of a male. Thank God for that, at least. Not clear whether you were intending to make a comment or not, though one is really not necessary, the matter speaks for itself. I would certainly hope that no one would excuse this as having been done by a duly authorized priest of the diocese, using texts approved by the diocese. Nor would I want to see anyone excuse this as reflecting the mindset of many Catholics whom, I am charitably willing to assume, are acting in good faith, albeit with malformed consciences and a flawed understanding of the binding force of this teaching. There's no way we can say it is okay, to leave people in ignorance about this, or to have them think this is one teaching they don't have to accept or live by. And they shouldn't be receiving communion or failing to mention it in confession (assuming anyone actually does that). And priests need to be asking, if they have reason to suspect it's not being volunteered. As I've alluded to before, some people get posterior-hurt at the thought of being asked about unconfessed sins in confession. Doesn't bother me a bit. I'm grateful when the priest does that. It shows he cares about whether I make a good confession or not. Why on earth would this offend anyone?
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Post by homeschooldad on Jan 26, 2022 19:28:50 GMT
Please don't take this as a personal affront --- I appreciate the fact that our discussions can always remain cordial and respectful --- but would I be correct in inferring that you are either not a Catholic, or are a Catholic who wants to see a Church where morality can change with the times and circumstances? Thank you. I am not sure why you are so hostile to the Winnipeg statement which seems to be a pastoral attempt to help out a few people facing conflict. I am just trying to figure things out with reference to this topic which you brought up for discussion. I became acquainted with a case of a woman with five children who attends Mass regularly and is faithful to her children and to her husband. But she lives in fear of being in mortal sin and going to hell. She does not receive Holy Communion or go to confession. When asked why she does not go to confession, she says she can confess her sin, but she knows that the next day or so that she will commit the same sin with her husband and so the confession would not be valid since she did not have the firm purpose of amendment. The confession would then be a sacrilege, which is another mortal sin. She says that she is facing financial difficulties and her husband has two jobs but they cannot afford any more children. Further, she has a severe heart problem and the doctor has told her that any future childbirths could be fatal. It is not that easy to raise 5 children today in the USA, especially if the mother has died. Do you then go along with the idea that she will go to hell for the mortal sin of contraception? It looks to me like she has fulfilled the procreative aspect of marriage and is fulfilling faithfully the unitive aspect of marriage. It seems wrong to send a wonderful woman like this to burn forever in hell. Would it be wrong to advise her to join a “sister” Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, where she would be most likely given permission by an Orthodox priest to use contraception under these trying circumstances? I recall that the Orthodox Churches are Sister Churches of the Catholic Church and that Pope Paul VI has lifted the excommunications and anathemas imposed in 1054 ? I'm as sorry as I can be, but contraception is a mortal sin, and if she cannot think of having another child --- as clearly she can't --- then the only sure remedy is abstinence. Humanae vitae is crystal-clear that artificial means of birth control (which do fail, BTW) are intrinsically evil and can never be permitted. What I seem to be hearing here, is that there is some pressing need for her to be conjugal with her husband, and that this "pressing need" would make the sin, at most, only venial --- "I don't want to practice ABC, but my husband and I have to have relations, and I'll die if I get pregnant". The best you could say, is that this is a matter of impaired volition (i.e., lacking full consent of the will), and that she and her husband are under some kind of psychological and/or physical compulsion to have relations, but to try to avoid the possible natural consequences. IOW, they are slaves to the desire. Pardon me for having to be so graphic, but what if her husband were in an accident and lost his genitals? Would she then say "we have to have relations, so we shall do it in another fashion?". (I shall not describe the alternatives any further.) What if her husband were lying in a coma in the hospital? What if he were missing in action in a foreign war zone? I'm not hearing "we have to" so much as "we really, really want to". Two different things. Yes, it sounds "cruel of God", but His ways are not our ways, and we are not guaranteed tomorrow, much less that Situation X will always fall out in a way that doesn't require heroic sacrifices of us. No, she may not leave the Catholic Church and take up with the Romanian Orthodox Church. Quite aside from having gone into schism, she would be following a teacher who is simply wrong about the matter. The intrinsically evil nature of contraception, and the mortal sinfulness of it, are not open for debate. The Romanian Orthodox Church, despite what she might think, has no authority to dissent from Humanae vitae. She doesn't get a "free pass" because she finds a schismatic priest who tells her what she wants to hear.
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alng
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Post by alng on Jan 26, 2022 19:54:00 GMT
I'm as sorry as I can be, but contraception is a mortal sin,.. Abstinence can be seen as failing to fulfill the unitive aspect of marriage. I thought that the Orthodox Church was a Sister Church of the Catholic Church? So you say that this woman, who says her rosary every day, asking the Blessed Virgin for help in her situation, should not go to confession or Holy Communion as she does not have the firm purpose of amendment?
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alng
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Post by alng on Jan 26, 2022 20:32:06 GMT
[ Pardon me for having to be so graphic, but what if her husband were in an accident and lost his genitals? Would she then say "we have to have relations, so we shall do it in another fashion?". (I shall not describe the alternatives any further.) What if her husband were lying in a coma in the hospital? What if he were missing in action in a foreign war zone? In cases like this an exception could be made to the general rule on fulfilling the unitive aspect of marriage. That is why many people say that exceptions should be made to the general rules which apply in normal circumstances. And are there other cases of where exceptions should be made to the general rule as the example that I gave of the woman who says her rosary daily and attends Mass but lives in fear of mortal sin because she believes that she cannot confess her sin with a firm purpose of amendment. As far as the Orthodox Church is concerned, did not the Holy Father bow down in front of the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople and ask for his blessing? I saw the reports and the photos of such.
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Post by homeschooldad on Jan 27, 2022 0:30:24 GMT
I'm as sorry as I can be, but contraception is a mortal sin,.. Abstinence can be seen as failing to fulfill the unitive aspect of marriage. I thought that the Orthodox Church was a Sister Church of the Catholic Church? So you say that this woman, who says her rosary every day, asking the Blessed Virgin for help in her situation, should not go to confession or Holy Communion as she does not have the firm purpose of amendment? Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. You must have firm purpose of amendment, to be forgiven for mortal sin. You cannot be forgiven for a sin that you are not determined to remove all possibilities of committing again. You may "know you are just going to commit it again", but at the time you go to confession, you must have the resolve not to. It is a matter of the will. Do you fear mortal sin more than you would fear, for instance, putting your arm in the mouth of a tiger? You should. It's far worse. Even if one grants that the Orthodox Church is a "Sister Church", that does not mean that she is right when she teaches against traditional, unchanging Catholic moral doctrine. Contraception cannot be right for Orthodox because their errant bishops tell them so, and wrong for Catholics because the Pope (armed with perennial moral teaching that has never changed regarding this matter) tells them so. Incidentally, Patriarch Athenagoras said after Humanae vitae that Paul VI could not have taught anything other than what he did. Actually, abstinence "fails", if that's the word, to fulfill both the unitive and procreative aspects of marriage. But you can no more commit a sin to effect the unitive aspect, than you could to effect the procreative aspect. In vitro fertilization arguably fulfills the procreative aspect of marriage, but it utilizes several sins to do so. The end can never justify the means.
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Post by homeschooldad on Jan 27, 2022 0:34:57 GMT
[ Pardon me for having to be so graphic, but what if her husband were in an accident and lost his genitals? Would she then say "we have to have relations, so we shall do it in another fashion?". (I shall not describe the alternatives any further.) What if her husband were lying in a coma in the hospital? What if he were missing in action in a foreign war zone? In cases like this an exception could be made to the general rule on fulfilling the unitive aspect of marriage. That is why many people say that exceptions should be made to the general rules which apply in normal circumstances. And are there other cases of where exceptions should be made to the general rule as the example that I gave of the woman who says her rosary daily and attends Mass but lives in fear of mortal sin because she believes that she cannot confess her sin with a firm purpose of amendment. As far as the Orthodox Church is concerned, did not the Holy Father bow down in front of the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople and ask for his blessing? I saw the reports and the photos of such. The Church's teaching on contraception, i.e., deliberately willed and sought artificial impeding of the natural generative function proper to the sexual act, does not admit of exceptions. What I am hearing here sounds something like "make an exception when the case is so hard that it is seen as unbearable, not least of which because it is possible to lift that cross with technology now at our disposal". Arguendo, if that were true, then what happens when the birth control method fails and the wife with compromised health falls pregnant even in spite of resorting to these methods? Does she then have an abortion so she won't die --- IOW, the baby dies but she doesn't? What then? With abstinence, you won't have that problem of a life-threatening pregnancy. As I alluded to elsewhere, the refusal to commit the mortal sin of contraception is the "smithy" in which salvation is found through leading one's conjugal life in accord with the mind of Christ and His Church. Any married couple has to go into the marriage realizing that they might, just might, face an extended period of unwanted abstinence, due to an absolute need to avoid a pregnancy that might arise some time into the marriage. If they can't face that possibility, then they just should not get married, or in the case of the woman, she should wait for marriage until she is past the menopause. You can't have it both ways. And as a kind of sidebar aspect, I daresay that if all people contemplating marriage saw it this way, you would have a certain percentage who would, very sensibly, say "the risk just isn't worth it", and might even be open to priestly or religious vocations as a better alternative. That would be a very good thing. Marriage is more attractive when you know that you can turn on, and turn off, your childbearing abilities at will, either temporarily or permanently, and have relations to your heart's delight without fear of pregnancy. I wonder if anyone's ever thought of it that way before. And as another sidebar issue, it should just be stating the obvious, that if a faithful, fully orthodox Catholic is contemplating marriage, they'd better be totally, absolutely sure that their intended spouse is "on the same page" and has the same "buy-in" that they do. This would have the side effect of putting a screeching halt to imprudent marriages where the intended spouse is either a lukewarm "cafeteria" Catholic, or a non-Catholic who sees nothing wrong with contraception (and that would be virtually all non-Catholics). What's going to happen down the road, when NFP becomes more than they bargained for, or if a scenario arises such as you describe, and one spouse is willing to abstain where the other isn't? Isn't life hard enough as it is, not to borrow trouble by marrying someone who doesn't share the same commitment?
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alng
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Post by alng on Jan 27, 2022 1:24:27 GMT
... if a faithful, fully orthodox Catholic is contemplating marriage, they'd better be totally, absolutely sure that their intended spouse is "on the same page" and has the same "buy-in" that they do. I think it is pretty much impossible to be ABSOLUTELY sure of that. For one thing your future spouse has free will. Not only so, but with more than 90% of Catholic students who have graduated from Catholic college with four years of Catholic theology saying that ABC is OK for married couples, it seems like it would be very difficult to hope for such in your future spouse. And I have been reading that living together before marriage has become more frequent among Catholic couples. And contraception would be another mortal sin on top of fornication. BTW, it was reported that His Holiness Pope Francis had said something about fornication between unmarried couples living together ?
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alng
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Post by alng on Jan 27, 2022 1:48:14 GMT
He no longer functions as a priest. The story is not pretty. The only thing I can say, is that at least it was a female instead of a male. Thank God for that, at least. I don't know what you mean by that. Anyway, apparently there are now going to be women priests in the Catholic Church - at least they are biologically women, although they identify as men because of a gender reassignment procedure. www.ncregister.com/news/us-seminaries-grapple-with-the-issue-of-transgender-applicants?
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Post by homeschooldad on Jan 27, 2022 1:56:18 GMT
He no longer functions as a priest. The story is not pretty. The only thing I can say, is that at least it was a female instead of a male. Thank God for that, at least. I don't know what you mean by that. Anyway, apparently there are now going to be women priests in the Catholic Church - at least they are biologically women, although they identify as men because of a gender reassignment procedure. www.ncregister.com/news/us-seminaries-grapple-with-the-issue-of-transgender-applicants?I mean that his indiscretion was with a female, and not with another male. IOW, at least he's straight. And, no, there are not going to be women priests in the Catholic Church. Sad as it is that it has come down to this, the Church is going to have to find a way to screen out transgender FTM applicants. A physically and hormonally altered woman remains a woman, even if she has managed to change her body into one that resembles a man. Being a woman, she cannot be ordained.
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Post by homeschooldad on Jan 27, 2022 2:07:06 GMT
... if a faithful, fully orthodox Catholic is contemplating marriage, they'd better be totally, absolutely sure that their intended spouse is "on the same page" and has the same "buy-in" that they do. I think it is pretty much impossible to be ABSOLUTELY sure of that. Not only so, but with more than 90% of Catholic students who have graduated from Catholic college with four years of Catholic theology saying that ABC is OK for married couples, it seems like it would be very difficult to hope for such in your future spouse. And I have been reading that living together before marriage has become more frequent among Catholic couples. And contraception would be another mortal sin on top of fornication. BTW, it was reported that His Holiness Pope Francis had said something about fornication between unmarried couples living together ? Yes, for fully orthodox Catholics, who seek the same in a prospective spouse, the marriage pool is quite small. Thankfully there are now apostolates such as CatholicMatch that can bring together like-minded Catholics in this and other regards. If something such as CatholicMatch had existed in my single days, it would have been a no-brainer for me, just join and try to find a future wife from among fully orthodox members, and don't even think of "dating" out in the secular world. Sadly, many people who call themselves Catholic live together before marriage and fornicate. I don't know what you are referring to in Pope Francis's comments, but fornication remains a mortal sin, regardless of how many people do it, or how well it is socially accepted. They must not approach the altar for communion until they have made the resolution to quit fornicating, and, ideally, have established separate residences until they marry. If there is some grave reason they cannot do this, then a simple solution is to have an older person (and it would have to be a woman, the alternative "just wouldn't look right") live with them as a "chaperone" of sorts, not allow them to be alone behind closed doors overnight, and the chivalrous husband-to-be would volunteer to sleep on the couch. Due to my late father's illness, and the need for all of us to live together during his round-the-clock in-home care, I can attest that sleeping arrangements can be made very creative, and many is the night I've slept on an air mattress or even a thin cot mattress on the floor.
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alng
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Post by alng on Jan 27, 2022 2:30:40 GMT
I don't know what you are referring to in Pope Francis's comments, I try to keep up with the news on what is going on in the Catholic Church today. I understand that His Holiness Pope Francis has declared that that cohabitating couples can be in a true marriage having the grace of marriage even though they are not officially married. "...e sono sicuro che questo è un matrimonio vero, hanno la grazia del matrimonio, proprio per la fedeltà che hanno." This is officially posted on the Vatican website page: press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2016/06/16/0447/01021.htmlYou say that they are in a state of mortal sin, but His Holiness the Pope says that there are cases where they have the grace of marriage even though they are not officially married, and this is because of their fidelity ? His Holiness says: "Eppure davvero dico che ho visto tanta fedeltà in queste convivenze, tanta fedeltà"
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