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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 15, 2022 0:10:54 GMT
Let me be clear that it was me who was required to read HV, 44 years ago, not my son. I have imparted the teaching to him, consonant with his age and ability to understand the teaching and the reasons for it, but I haven't yet required him to read the document. We cover a lot in our homeschool religion class, and Catholic moral teachings on married life are just part of it. It sounds like you have a very decent homeschool procedure here. I used to think that homeschooled students did virtually nothing but in the last few years I have become more familiar with Catholic homeschooling and the benefits it can offer when done properly. Some parents in Western countries may feel they have no choice but to homeschool in order to protect their children from the things that pass at schools these days. I try. We are in our fifth year now. We have just begun our first week, and we have covered a lot of material in a fairly short space of time. We are doing a half-unit of economics (one of the state's requirements) and my son is already wanting to write up a business plan for publication of a comic book. (He's kind of fond of comics, as many youths his age are.)
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 15, 2022 0:21:07 GMT
Since I only went to Catholic school through the middle of the 6th grade, contraception never came up at school. I don't recall of it being discussed much at CCD either, but that was decades ago, and maybe I forgot. I will simply say on the subject of sex, contraception, NFP, or any of the other topics which come up over and over again, actually seems like too much on this forum. Even the folks here who had the proper Church education regarding the matters still failed to follow the Church teachings admittedly. So if you knew what the Church expected and still failed, what good was getting the proper education in the first place, it didn't work. Maybe there could be a study done as to whether or not the proper Catholic education related to all sexual matters make any difference as to whether or not those teachings are followed throughout life. Yes it is easy to say, well, I slipped and didn't follow Church teaching during X period in my life, but now I follow it to the T. Yep, after decades of marriage, or after child bearing years, or once a spouse dies, or for any other number of reasons it really does become much easier to follow Church teachings around sex in our 50's, 60's or beyond than it is when we are in our teens, 20's and 30's. Not clear on what you mean by "too much". It is unchanging moral doctrine, on matters which most people must face at some time in their lives, and failing at it doesn't make it any less true. Our Lady of Fatima warned, and this would be obvious even without her prophecy, that more people lose their souls due to sins of the flesh, than any other kinds of sins. A normally-functioning person has temptations in this regard that they do not have in any other aspect of life, in that nature, left unchecked and uninformed by Divine Grace, would prompt more-or-less doing whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, with whomever will agree to do it with you (assuming that it is not a solitary sin). The drive is there for the perpetuation of the race, and in and of itself, it is good, but it has to be harnessed, disciplined, and used the way Almighty God intends it to be used. It is not that sins of the flesh are the worst sins (though an improvident pregnancy out of wedlock can have lifetime consequences for everyone involved, not least of all the child conceived, who would not have been conceived if his parents had been chaste that one time), but they are the hardest for most people to avoid, and any deliberate act against chastity, given sufficient reflection and full consent of the will, is a mortal sin. And there's nothing in the world that is worse than mortal sin. All of this makes sin of the flesh worth discussing, and discussing often, if for no other reason that to try and reach someone who is mired in it and needs to find a way out. You never know who is going to stumble across a site such as this one. They may not know any better, or may not grasp the gravity of it. They need to know the truth. And without being too specific, throughout my entire life, no, I have not been perfectly chaste. I do not defend a single sin against chastity that I ever committed. Thankfully those days are behind me, and it's a great gift to have reached an age where the urgency no longer exists. If I am ever in a position to marry (either with a declaration or nullity or if my wife would die), I have mixed feelings about the prospect, it would be nice in some ways, but if it never happens, I'm okay either way. Truth be told, I've gotten pretty set in my ways at this age, and whatever pleasantness there might be, it might not be worth making the inevitable changes in my life. (And then there is the small matter of finding someone fool enough to take up with me.)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2022 0:21:22 GMT
It sounds like you have a very decent homeschool procedure here. I used to think that homeschooled students did virtually nothing but in the last few years I have become more familiar with Catholic homeschooling and the benefits it can offer when done properly. Some parents in Western countries may feel they have no choice but to homeschool in order to protect their children from the things that pass at schools these days. I try. We are in our fifth year now. We have just begun our first week, and we have covered a lot of material in a fairly short space of time. We are doing a half-unit of economics (one of the state's requirements) and my son is already wanting to write up a business plan for publication of a comic book. (He's kind of fond of comics, as many youths his age are.) I studied economics at school, I actually quite enjoyed it. Hard for me to believe I left secondary school less than a year ago, it feels so distant a memory given everything that has happened this year both in my life and in the tragic state of world affairs at the moment. I am not sure if the economics curriculum is similar in the USA to how it is here, but I found that with economics, if you can understand the concepts well, then it is actually quite easy. It surprised me a little because I was never very good at maths and science. I am very good with essays and analytical tasks, and there was a lot of that in economics which is probably why I liked it. I actually considered doing a commerce degree at university, but decided against it in the end.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 15, 2022 0:36:42 GMT
I try. We are in our fifth year now. We have just begun our first week, and we have covered a lot of material in a fairly short space of time. We are doing a half-unit of economics (one of the state's requirements) and my son is already wanting to write up a business plan for publication of a comic book. (He's kind of fond of comics, as many youths his age are.) I studied economics at school, I actually quite enjoyed it. Hard for me to believe I left secondary school less than a year ago, it feels so distant a memory given everything that has happened this year both in my life and in the tragic state of world affairs at the moment. I am not sure if the economics curriculum is similar in the USA to how it is here, but I found that with economics, if you can understand the concepts well, then it is actually quite easy. It surprised me a little because I was never very good at maths and science. I am very good with essays and analytical tasks, and there was a lot of that in economics which is probably why I liked it. I actually considered doing a commerce degree at university, but decided against it in the end. You've got a great life ahead of you. Don't mess it up with something improvident. As I always tell my son (and he takes it to heart), if you get some girl pregnant, she can either kill your baby, or if not, and if you do not marry her (that's a pretty grim reason to get married), you basically become her b**** for 18 years, child support checks are just one part of it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2022 1:06:15 GMT
I studied economics at school, I actually quite enjoyed it. Hard for me to believe I left secondary school less than a year ago, it feels so distant a memory given everything that has happened this year both in my life and in the tragic state of world affairs at the moment. I am not sure if the economics curriculum is similar in the USA to how it is here, but I found that with economics, if you can understand the concepts well, then it is actually quite easy. It surprised me a little because I was never very good at maths and science. I am very good with essays and analytical tasks, and there was a lot of that in economics which is probably why I liked it. I actually considered doing a commerce degree at university, but decided against it in the end. You've got a great life ahead of you. Don't mess it up with something improvident. As I always tell my son (and he takes it to heart), if you get some girl pregnant, she can either kill your baby, or if not, and if you do not marry her (that's a pretty grim reason to get married), you basically become her b**** for 18 years, child support checks are just one part of it. Your wise advice reminded me of a quote from "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “Thus it is that no cruelty whatsoever passes by without impact. Thus it is that we always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.” When I first saw that quote, it had a deep impact on me, it summarised so much of the Christian message, and of the struggle between good and evil that we are witnessing today and that youth, often more than others, are dragged into on the wrong side. I pray the Lord will save me from such temptation.
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Post by farronwolf on Oct 15, 2022 2:27:00 GMT
Since I only went to Catholic school through the middle of the 6th grade, contraception never came up at school. I don't recall of it being discussed much at CCD either, but that was decades ago, and maybe I forgot. I will simply say on the subject of sex, contraception, NFP, or any of the other topics which come up over and over again, actually seems like too much on this forum. Even the folks here who had the proper Church education regarding the matters still failed to follow the Church teachings admittedly. So if you knew what the Church expected and still failed, what good was getting the proper education in the first place, it didn't work. Maybe there could be a study done as to whether or not the proper Catholic education related to all sexual matters make any difference as to whether or not those teachings are followed throughout life. Yes it is easy to say, well, I slipped and didn't follow Church teaching during X period in my life, but now I follow it to the T. Yep, after decades of marriage, or after child bearing years, or once a spouse dies, or for any other number of reasons it really does become much easier to follow Church teachings around sex in our 50's, 60's or beyond than it is when we are in our teens, 20's and 30's. Not clear on what you mean by "too much". It is unchanging moral doctrine, on matters which most people must face at some time in their lives, and failing at it doesn't make it any less true. Our Lady of Fatima warned, and this would be obvious even without her prophecy, that more people lose their souls due to sins of the flesh, than any other kinds of sins. A normally-functioning person has temptations in this regard that they do not have in any other aspect of life, in that nature, left unchecked and uninformed by Divine Grace, would prompt more-or-less doing whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, with whomever will agree to do it with you (assuming that it is not a solitary sin). The drive is there for the perpetuation of the race, and in and of itself, it is good, but it has to be harnessed, disciplined, and used the way Almighty God intends it to be used. It is not that sins of the flesh are the worst sins (though an improvident pregnancy out of wedlock can have lifetime consequences for everyone involved, not least of all the child conceived, who would not have been conceived if his parents had been chaste that one time), but they are the hardest for most people to avoid, and any deliberate act against chastity, given sufficient reflection and full consent of the will, is a mortal sin. And there's nothing in the world that is worse than mortal sin. All of this makes sin of the flesh worth discussing, and discussing often, if for no other reason that to try and reach someone who is mired in it and needs to find a way out. You never know who is going to stumble across a site such as this one. They may not know any better, or may not grasp the gravity of it. They need to know the truth. And without being too specific, throughout my entire life, no, I have not been perfectly chaste. I do not defend a single sin against chastity that I ever committed. Thankfully those days are behind me, and it's a great gift to have reached an age where the urgency no longer exists. If I am ever in a position to marry (either with a declaration or nullity or if my wife would die), I have mixed feelings about the prospect, it would be nice in some ways, but if it never happens, I'm okay either way. Truth be told, I've gotten pretty set in my ways at this age, and whatever pleasantness there might be, it might not be worth making the inevitable changes in my life. (And then there is the small matter of finding someone fool enough to take up with me.) When I say too much, I mean there seems to be a lot of threads related to the subject. I don't see nearly as many threads on the whole host of other mortal sins which will send one to hell just as easily. I would guess if you added all the threads on other sins, combined, you wouldn't get to the number of threads related to sex of some sort. I would argue with you in that the other sins are probably more easily committed and more frequently committed than sins related to sex. Sex isn't something that comes up on a daily basis for most people to be able to sin during, whereas a whole host of other mortal sins, or the ability to commit them happen very frequently in most people's daily lives.
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Post by StellaMaris on Oct 15, 2022 3:11:32 GMT
Another thing that is so good about Vatican II is the rise of the lay apostolates approved by the Church such as the Everts, Christ Stefanick etc. We have these lay apostles in Australia as well speaking in schools but speaking at Catholic youth events and parishes about these issues to age appropriate people, but as married couples actually living the life and all the issues involved. We never had anything like that when I was at school. It was Priests and nuns and perhaps Catholic teachers whose primary role wasn't this kind of evangelization.
They present teaching in a wholesome way that considers joy and love and problem solving in relationships as part of it all. They certainly don't bang on about how NFP is contraception if you don't have enough children or have too many appliances.
I see a lot of authenticity in the model of evangelizing in Catholic sexual ethics these days inspired by VII. I don't pine for the 'good old days' for my children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews etc.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 15, 2022 3:37:42 GMT
Not clear on what you mean by "too much". It is unchanging moral doctrine, on matters which most people must face at some time in their lives, and failing at it doesn't make it any less true. Our Lady of Fatima warned, and this would be obvious even without her prophecy, that more people lose their souls due to sins of the flesh, than any other kinds of sins. A normally-functioning person has temptations in this regard that they do not have in any other aspect of life, in that nature, left unchecked and uninformed by Divine Grace, would prompt more-or-less doing whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, with whomever will agree to do it with you (assuming that it is not a solitary sin). The drive is there for the perpetuation of the race, and in and of itself, it is good, but it has to be harnessed, disciplined, and used the way Almighty God intends it to be used. It is not that sins of the flesh are the worst sins (though an improvident pregnancy out of wedlock can have lifetime consequences for everyone involved, not least of all the child conceived, who would not have been conceived if his parents had been chaste that one time), but they are the hardest for most people to avoid, and any deliberate act against chastity, given sufficient reflection and full consent of the will, is a mortal sin. And there's nothing in the world that is worse than mortal sin. All of this makes sin of the flesh worth discussing, and discussing often, if for no other reason that to try and reach someone who is mired in it and needs to find a way out. You never know who is going to stumble across a site such as this one. They may not know any better, or may not grasp the gravity of it. They need to know the truth. And without being too specific, throughout my entire life, no, I have not been perfectly chaste. I do not defend a single sin against chastity that I ever committed. Thankfully those days are behind me, and it's a great gift to have reached an age where the urgency no longer exists. If I am ever in a position to marry (either with a declaration or nullity or if my wife would die), I have mixed feelings about the prospect, it would be nice in some ways, but if it never happens, I'm okay either way. Truth be told, I've gotten pretty set in my ways at this age, and whatever pleasantness there might be, it might not be worth making the inevitable changes in my life. (And then there is the small matter of finding someone fool enough to take up with me.) When I say too much, I mean there seems to be a lot of threads related to the subject. I don't see nearly as many threads on the whole host of other mortal sins which will send one to hell just as easily. I would guess if you added all the threads on other sins, combined, you wouldn't get to the number of threads related to sex of some sort. I would argue with you in that the other sins are probably more easily committed and more frequently committed than sins related to sex. Sex isn't something that comes up on a daily basis for most people to be able to sin during, whereas a whole host of other mortal sins, or the ability to commit them happen very frequently in most people's daily lives. I do not agree with you on this. Sexual temptations, of various kinds, abound in the lives of normally-functioning people at every walk of life from puberty through courtship age, and even in marriage if a couple uses artificial birth control (including sterilization if they go that route), or resorts to other practices which I shall not name. Among secularly-oriented people, sexual sin is basically a lifestyle accessory. True, there are many other types of mortal sins, but they do not pose the temptation that sexual sin does, at least not on the same scale. Just to use one example, how many couples these days abstain from sex until marriage? When they get into a relationship, how long do they stay chaste? How common is it for couples to move in together before marriage? The only demographics I can think of, who "go against the grain" in such matters, would be very serious Catholics, equally serious evangelical fundamentalists, and Orthodox Jews. Could you name some other kinds of mortal sins, aside from sexual ones, that are anywhere near as pervasive in people's lives?
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Post by farronwolf on Oct 15, 2022 3:56:55 GMT
When I say too much, I mean there seems to be a lot of threads related to the subject. I don't see nearly as many threads on the whole host of other mortal sins which will send one to hell just as easily. I would guess if you added all the threads on other sins, combined, you wouldn't get to the number of threads related to sex of some sort. I would argue with you in that the other sins are probably more easily committed and more frequently committed than sins related to sex. Sex isn't something that comes up on a daily basis for most people to be able to sin during, whereas a whole host of other mortal sins, or the ability to commit them happen very frequently in most people's daily lives. I do not agree with you on this. Sexual temptations, of various kinds, abound in the lives of normally-functioning people at every walk of life from puberty through courtship age, and even in marriage if a couple uses artificial birth control (including sterilization if they go that route), or resorts to other practices which I shall not name. Among secularly-oriented people, sexual sin is basically a lifestyle accessory. True, there are many other types of mortal sins, but they do not pose the temptation that sexual sin does, at least not on the same scale. Just to use one example, how many couples these days abstain from sex until marriage? When they get into a relationship, how long do they stay chaste? How common is it for couples to move in together before marriage? The only demographics I can think of, who "go against the grain" in such matters, would be very serious Catholics, equally serious evangelical fundamentalists, and Orthodox Jews. Could you name some other kinds of mortal sins, aside from sexual ones, that are anywhere near as pervasive in people's lives? Pick any of the other 6 deadly sins. How many people put their jobs and making money ahead of their families, friends, community displaying greed? How many able bodied people choose sloth over productivity? How many people are prideful? See much gluttony in the world? Whether it be stuff people have they don't need, or the amount of food we eat, take your pick. Envy, seriously, just look around. Wrath, OMG, the Karen's which occupy the world, and the over the top reactions many people have to other drivers on the road, or the number of killings which occur daily. Lies abound in our current culture. Lies told so often people believe them as truth. These are just a few examples of the long list. I don't really need to go down the list do I? These listed and the other mortal sins present themselves many times per day for anyone who lives a regular life of work or school, travel, shopping, or pretty much anything other than sitting around one's home.
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Post by tisbearself on Oct 15, 2022 10:55:08 GMT
Well it's pretty obvious that homeschooldad has a great interest in the sin of contraception and posts about it a lot. Everybody has their "favorite" topics on forums. There are others who post dozens of threads about homosexuality or Pope Francis.
This forum doesn't have any rules about how many threads you can post on a subject, so if somebody wants to post 10 threads on the sin of contraception, because it's some sin important to them personally due to things that happened in their life, they're allowed.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 15, 2022 14:36:39 GMT
I do not agree with you on this. Sexual temptations, of various kinds, abound in the lives of normally-functioning people at every walk of life from puberty through courtship age, and even in marriage if a couple uses artificial birth control (including sterilization if they go that route), or resorts to other practices which I shall not name. Among secularly-oriented people, sexual sin is basically a lifestyle accessory. True, there are many other types of mortal sins, but they do not pose the temptation that sexual sin does, at least not on the same scale. Just to use one example, how many couples these days abstain from sex until marriage? When they get into a relationship, how long do they stay chaste? How common is it for couples to move in together before marriage? The only demographics I can think of, who "go against the grain" in such matters, would be very serious Catholics, equally serious evangelical fundamentalists, and Orthodox Jews. Could you name some other kinds of mortal sins, aside from sexual ones, that are anywhere near as pervasive in people's lives? Pick any of the other 6 deadly sins. How many people put their jobs and making money ahead of their families, friends, community displaying greed? How many able bodied people choose sloth over productivity? How many people are prideful? See much gluttony in the world? Whether it be stuff people have they don't need, or the amount of food we eat, take your pick. Envy, seriously, just look around. Wrath, OMG, the Karen's which occupy the world, and the over the top reactions many people have to other drivers on the road, or the number of killings which occur daily. Lies abound in our current culture. Lies told so often people believe them as truth. These are just a few examples of the long list. I don't really need to go down the list do I? These listed and the other mortal sins present themselves many times per day for anyone who lives a regular life of work or school, travel, shopping, or pretty much anything other than sitting around one's home. The other sins you cite admit of parvity of matter, i.e., they can be either venial or mortal depending upon how grave they are, whereas sexual sin does not admit of such parvity of matter. There could be insufficient reflection --- the sinner doesn't know they are sinful, or doesn't grasp how sinful they are --- or less than full consent of the will (habit that resists attempts at breaking with the sin, compulsion either external or internal, psychological factors, and so on) --- but the acts, taken as they are, are always grave matter, or as I prefer to say, "mortally sinful in and of themselves". Contraception, fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, masturbation, taking pleasure in the reading of pornography, given the other two conditions, can never be just venial sins. On the other hand, there can be slight acts of sloth, pride, gluttony (in fact, it usually is), envy, wrath, and so on. It's a Jansenist error to think that all deliberate and willful sins are grave sins. Furthermore, sexual sins of the flesh (and even of the imagination) cloud the intellect and impair reason in a way that no other sins do, because the body militates in favor of committing them even when the will otherwise resists them. As far as greed, in our culture, I don't think it's so much wanting to have more than one needs, as it is a desperate attempt to keep one's job in the face of competition and the often-overbearing demands of ambitious and unsympathetic managers and supervisors. A lot of people are just trying to get by. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to see "I need to spend more time with my family". Many, many people are mired in debt out of necessity, and that is why, when their job is cut, they have to be led out of the building crying, the HR person doing the firing handing them tissues to sop up their tears, with all of their personal effects in a box and walking to the parking lot to get in their car and leave for good. They are thinking "how will I pay my mortgage?", "how will I feed my family?", "how will I make my car payment?", and so on. I've seen it more times than I care to remember.
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Post by farronwolf on Oct 15, 2022 15:09:58 GMT
Pick any of the other 6 deadly sins. How many people put their jobs and making money ahead of their families, friends, community displaying greed? How many able bodied people choose sloth over productivity? How many people are prideful? See much gluttony in the world? Whether it be stuff people have they don't need, or the amount of food we eat, take your pick. Envy, seriously, just look around. Wrath, OMG, the Karen's which occupy the world, and the over the top reactions many people have to other drivers on the road, or the number of killings which occur daily. Lies abound in our current culture. Lies told so often people believe them as truth. These are just a few examples of the long list. I don't really need to go down the list do I? These listed and the other mortal sins present themselves many times per day for anyone who lives a regular life of work or school, travel, shopping, or pretty much anything other than sitting around one's home. The other sins you cite admit of parvity of matter, i.e., they can be either venial or mortal depending upon how grave they are, whereas sexual sin does not admit of such parvity of matter. There could be insufficient reflection --- the sinner doesn't know they are sinful, or doesn't grasp how sinful they are --- or less than full consent of the will (habit that resists attempts at breaking with the sin, compulsion either external or internal, psychological factors, and so on) --- but the acts, taken as they are, are always grave matter, or as I prefer to say, "mortally sinful in and of themselves". Contraception, fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, masturbation, taking pleasure in the reading of pornography, given the other two conditions, can never be just venial sins. On the other hand, there can be slight acts of sloth, pride, gluttony (in fact, it usually is), envy, wrath, and so on. It's a Jansenist error to think that all deliberate and willful sins are grave sins. Furthermore, sexual sins of the flesh (and even of the imagination) cloud the intellect and impair reason in a way that no other sins do, because the body militates in favor of committing them even when the will otherwise resists them. As far as greed, in our culture, I don't think it's so much wanting to have more than one needs, as it is a desperate attempt to keep one's job in the face of competition and the often-overbearing demands of ambitious and unsympathetic managers and supervisors. A lot of people are just trying to get by. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to see "I need to spend more time with my family". Many, many people are mired in debt out of necessity, and that is why, when their job is cut, they have to be led out of the building crying, the HR person doing the firing handing them tissues to sop up their tears, with all of their personal effects in a box and walking to the parking lot to get in their car and leave for good. They are thinking "how will I pay my mortgage?", "how will I feed my family?", "how will I make my car payment?", and so on. I've seen it more times than I care to remember. What is this mired in debt out of necessity? I don't grasp that. Debt is a conscious choice. It results from the choice of where to live geographically, what size house to have and the location, what type of transportation to use or own, what path one took to their career and how much debt they chose to accumulate getting there, how much stuff to have after all these other decisions are made. I have about 1,000 tax clients whom have incomes from poverty level to ones who earn in excess of a million dollars a year. That is pretty much the entire spectrum of 99 percent of American families. I see people making decent wages who can't rub two nickels together if they had to, and have had them tell me, we don't spend a bunch of money or blow it on things we don't need. I simply bite my tongue and try to help them figure out how they can pay their taxes, and not end up owing next year. One simply has to look at how our parents or grand parents lived, the size house they had, the number of cars they had, the amount of meals they cooked at home vs eating out, the number of trips they took for pleasure, and the list goes on, and compare it to what is common or expected now. Today, a kid gets out of college or into the workforce and think immediately they need a 3k sq ft house, 2 cars, a boat, a side by side, the latest I phone, and should be promoted to a management position within 6 months of getting the job. Greed and envy are rampant in todays society.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 15, 2022 15:12:18 GMT
Well it's pretty obvious that homeschooldad has a great interest in the sin of contraception and posts about it a lot. Everybody has their "favorite" topics on forums. There are others who post dozens of threads about homosexuality or Pope Francis. This forum doesn't have any rules about how many threads you can post on a subject, so if somebody wants to post 10 threads on the sin of contraception, because it's some sin important to them personally due to things that happened in their life, they're allowed. I do it because, in the Church today, it is basically "crickets", the elephant in the parlor that no one else wants to talk about. The matter is mortally sinful, relatively few people believe that anymore, and it is pretty much left alone --- let's just be frank here --- because the larger society is pretty much united in thinking that it is not a sin, and people choose to follow society's consensus rather than Catholic truth. There's a lot of "noise" and somebody has to shine a spotlight through the fog. It affects more than people realize --- whom you can marry, when you can marry, how you have to organize your life so as to live by the teaching, abstaining from sex when you don't want to, obtaining the consent of a spouse who may see matters differently, whether you can receive communion or not, how in the world you will make your confession with a firm purpose of amendment, the list goes on. I think it's even fair to say that it has affected vocations. A prospective married life where you can have sex pretty much whenever you want (not to be gross, but if you use contraception, only the wife's period would militate against it), be able to plan with precision (but all contraceptives fail) when you will have your children, and how many children you will have (ditto), being able to marry someone and postpone having children until you've completed that degree, or made partner in your firm, or saved enough money for the down payment on a nice home, makes marriage far more attractive than having to live with the knowledge that, despite whatever you do, a child could be conceived who would upset your apple cart and derail your life plan. Given the latter scenario, it would only be reasonable to view the priestly or religious life as more attractive than it otherwise would be. I can easily foresee that, especially in the case of a woman (in that, again, not to be gross, but typically a woman's desires are, shall we say, more subordinated to reason than a man's are), she would say "the convent doesn't sound so bad after all". I have heard the lament before "but... but... but... vocations must be pure and unaffected by anything other than the sheer love of God", but it's entirely possible that Our Lord can make His Will for your life apparent through circumstances, and through one's comparing the options and seeing a religious vocation as preferable, then, having gotten that "benefit analysis" out of the way, the religious vocation comes to be seen as the beautiful plan for your life that it was all along.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 15, 2022 15:30:41 GMT
The other sins you cite admit of parvity of matter, i.e., they can be either venial or mortal depending upon how grave they are, whereas sexual sin does not admit of such parvity of matter. There could be insufficient reflection --- the sinner doesn't know they are sinful, or doesn't grasp how sinful they are --- or less than full consent of the will (habit that resists attempts at breaking with the sin, compulsion either external or internal, psychological factors, and so on) --- but the acts, taken as they are, are always grave matter, or as I prefer to say, "mortally sinful in and of themselves". Contraception, fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, masturbation, taking pleasure in the reading of pornography, given the other two conditions, can never be just venial sins. On the other hand, there can be slight acts of sloth, pride, gluttony (in fact, it usually is), envy, wrath, and so on. It's a Jansenist error to think that all deliberate and willful sins are grave sins. Furthermore, sexual sins of the flesh (and even of the imagination) cloud the intellect and impair reason in a way that no other sins do, because the body militates in favor of committing them even when the will otherwise resists them. As far as greed, in our culture, I don't think it's so much wanting to have more than one needs, as it is a desperate attempt to keep one's job in the face of competition and the often-overbearing demands of ambitious and unsympathetic managers and supervisors. A lot of people are just trying to get by. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to see "I need to spend more time with my family". Many, many people are mired in debt out of necessity, and that is why, when their job is cut, they have to be led out of the building crying, the HR person doing the firing handing them tissues to sop up their tears, with all of their personal effects in a box and walking to the parking lot to get in their car and leave for good. They are thinking "how will I pay my mortgage?", "how will I feed my family?", "how will I make my car payment?", and so on. I've seen it more times than I care to remember. What is this mired in debt out of necessity? I don't grasp that. Debt is a conscious choice. It results from the choice of where to live geographically, what size house to have and the location, what type of transportation to use or own, what path one took to their career and how much debt they chose to accumulate getting there, how much stuff to have after all these other decisions are made. I have about 1,000 tax clients whom have incomes from poverty level to ones who earn in excess of a million dollars a year. That is pretty much the entire spectrum of 99 percent of American families. I see people making decent wages who can't rub two nickels together if they had to, and have had them tell me, we don't spend a bunch of money or blow it on things we don't need. I simply bite my tongue and try to help them figure out how they can pay their taxes, and not end up owing next year. One simply has to look at how our parents or grand parents lived, the size house they had, the number of cars they had, the amount of meals they cooked at home vs eating out, the number of trips they took for pleasure, and the list goes on, and compare it to what is common or expected now. Today, a kid gets out of college or into the workforce and think immediately they need a 3k sq ft house, 2 cars, a boat, a side by side, the latest I phone, and should be promoted to a management position within 6 months of getting the job. Greed and envy are rampant in todays society. I don't find it difficult to grasp at all. Not everyone has the forethought or the intelligence to plan a life that remains debt-free, or that has manageable amounts of debt. People live their lives, things happen, expenses come up, things have to be bought and paid for right now --- your HVAC system has to be replaced due to a problem that you didn't know existed, a couple ends up having an "oops baby" (regardless of their method of intended birth prevention or making-conception-highly-unlikely) and (rightly) doesn't view abortion as an option, your car dies and you have to buy a new one right now (and buy one that you know is going to be a good car, possibly even a new car instead of buying some cheaper, dodgy used car that is often "buying someone else's problems"), a family member incurs unforeseen medical expenses and even the co-pay is financially ruinous (assuming they have insurance to begin with), the list goes on. Life is complicated, and we do not have the luxury of living in an idealized society with cooperative economics, governed by social principles which ensure that everyone has a job that pays enough to allow them to live without debt that can sometime be large. Given the lack of such a scenario, sometimes what looks like "greed" is simply trying not to make a bad situation worse. Even back in the "good old days" of our financially responsible parents and grandparents, some people still ended up in poorhouses or in the predicament of Dust Bowl "Okies" (think The Grapes of Wrath) or hardscrabble farmers. My own grandmother was left a widow at age 48 during the height of WWII when my grandfather died with lungs full of dust from the coal mines and the brickyard. My father was nine years old and worked every odd job you can imagine. They did very well to have those two nickels to rub together, and, yes, they lived in debt more often than not. So if my father woke up many a morning thinking "how can I make more money today?", it was out of necessity, not greed.
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Post by tisbearself on Oct 15, 2022 15:55:55 GMT
I don’t think it had a significant effect on me except as part of the broader landscape of Church teaching on sexuality. When you are single, sexual activity is a sin anyway, regardless of whether or not you use artificial or natural means of birth control. I wanted to marry a man whose main reasons for marrying me weren’t sexual but instead were that he cared about me as a person and wanted to make a life with me and vice versa. I didn’t have much respect for people who seemed driven by their loins so to speak, and that includes me not liking myself during a couple phases in my own life when I was like that.
Maybe it’s a bigger issue for people with a different mindset or biology than myself. But not everybody finds this to be a big deal in their life.
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