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Post by tth1 on Aug 14, 2023 13:54:00 GMT
I do not think the sins of other people are any business of ours. They are the business of the alleged sinner, their confessor and God.
I think if someone wants to know whether X, Y or Z is a sin they should pose their question to their confessor, spiritual director (if they have one) or to any priest.
It is a bad idea to ask in-depth questions on Internet fora about whether something is a sin. Most people on such Catholic fora are generally well-versed in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Often much better than the average Catholic. Therefore, if they need to know if something is a sin they have to be stumped. Hence, they should ask an expert, i.e. a priest.
I do not know if anyone on this forum is a qualified moral theologian. If we are not, and I am not, we risk causing an individual spritiual problems by saying yes that is a sin, no that is not a sin. This is partly because an act of commission or omission is not by and of itself a sin. There are other requirements that determine one's culpability.
If anyone wants to know if something is a sin consult a book on moral theology or, better still, ask a priest.
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Post by Lost Sheep on Aug 15, 2023 15:30:59 GMT
What about a couple who gets married but does not want to start a family right away. The use ABC for the first couple of years the go off the ABC and then begin to have children.
Is their marriage valid or not?
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Post by theguvnor on Aug 15, 2023 16:02:04 GMT
It's time for me to get my boy St Moses the Black to remind you of the following:
When a brother committed a fault and Moses was invited to a meeting to discuss an appropriate penance, Moses refused to attend. When he was again called to the meeting, Moses took a leaking jug filled with water and carried it on his shoulder. Another version of the story has him carrying a basket filled with sand. When he arrived at the meeting place, the others asked why he was carrying the jug. He replied, "My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, but today I am coming to judge the errors of another." On hearing this, the assembled brothers forgave the erring monk.
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Post by tisbearself on Aug 15, 2023 16:15:49 GMT
What about a couple who gets married but does not want to start a family right away. The use ABC for the first couple of years the go off the ABC and then begin to have children. Is their marriage valid or not? As mentioned above, once a married couple has had sexual intercourse open to life even one time, it's consummated and any question regarding validity based on non-consummation goes away. So yes it's valid.
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Post by tth1 on Aug 17, 2023 13:33:20 GMT
What about a couple who gets married but does not want to start a family right away. The use ABC for the first couple of years the go off the ABC and then begin to have children. Is their marriage valid or not? It isn't quite that straightforward. Whether a marriage is valid or not depends on how things are on the day the couple marry. What happens afterwards does not and cannot make a marriage invalid. Admittedly, what a couple do after marriage can be an indicator of their state of mind at the time of marriage.
What could impact on validity is whether at the time of their marriage one or both of them intended to exclude children. If they simply wanted to wait until they had a mortgage and good jobs before having children they would not have invalidated their marriage.
I know intending never to have children is grounds for annulment because it excludes one of the essential critieria of marriage. However, I don't know what effect it has on the validity of a marriage if a couple do this but later change their mind. Of course, as validity is dependant on the state of things at the time of marriage it would suggest it invalidates the marriage because that was the couples intent when the marriage was contracted. Of course, if the couple change their mind, have children and remain married it's just an academic point because they're not going to ask a tribunal to investigate the validity of their marriage.
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Post by tisbearself on Aug 18, 2023 1:34:21 GMT
Yeah it's important to note that if the couples never seek to annul a marriage then it enjoys the presumption of validity.
Also, the criteria for the valid marriage child-wise is "open to life", not "intends to have children". As an example, there are couples who know conceiving a child would be highly unlikely as the woman is past menopause or one or the other spouse is infertile for some medical reason. It is unlikely that these couples intend to have children, but as long as they can have and do have sexual intercourse open to life in the manner approved by the Church, their marriage is fine.
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 27, 2023 19:51:37 GMT
I have been holding off on further discussion in this thread for a few days, so that I could collect my thoughts and express them as plainly as possible. So here goes:
Mortal sin consists of three conditions;
Grave matter (or, as I prefer to say, matter that is mortally sinful in itself)
Full consent of the will
Sufficient reflection (knowledge and understanding that the matter is grave)
First, contraception is grave matter. There is no getting around that.
Second, full consent of the will. Unless it would be act of coitus interruptus committed in a fit of passion or panic (“I can't go through with this, we can't have a child right now”), with impaired reasoning, contraception by its nature is fully willful. (To be fair, it is hypothetically possible that a couple could engage in an intrinsically non-generative act --- such acts need not be named --- again, in a fit of passion or panic, but that would probably require more consent of the will, even if it were not fully willful.) But as to deliberately sought-out methods of contraception, people do not run down to the pharmacy, or go see a doctor, with anything other than full willful consent.
Third, sufficient reflection. This falls into three distinct categories:
The couple does not understand that it is gravely sinful matter. They might think it is only venially sinful, or that it is no sin at all. They may never have been taught. Then the task is simple: teach them. And then it becomes one of the two following scenarios:
The couple does understand, and does not disagree with the Church's teaching. They just say something like “we cannot, or are not willing to, follow this teaching right now, and we know it is mortal sin, we are willing to take the chance that we will live to repent of this, and we are willing to stay away from confession and communion until such time as we can give up this sin, but we just can't do that right now”. That is regrettable, but at this point, the only thing to do, is to remind them of just what mortal sin is (assuming they don't already know), remind them of the consequences if they were to die suddenly (people die in accidents, or die in their sleep of unknown infirmities, every day of the world), and implore them to repent and reform their lives. (If they stay away from confession and communion for over a year, they have committed additional mortal sins, but better that, horrible as it is, than to make a sacrilegious confession without firm purpose of amendment, or worse, a confession without mentioning it, and to receive sacrilegious communions.)
The couple does understand, and does disagree with the Church's teaching. That is when they have to be taught that this is not a debatable moral issue, it didn't begin with Humanae vitae, this has been the teaching of the Church from the very beginning. They have to be led to understand that it is the Church they must listen to, not modern society, not the majority of people in their culture, and just because “everybody else does it” doesn't make it right. They need to understand that if their conscience does not tell them it is mortally sinful, then their conscience is simply wrong, and they have to change their thinking, to make a positive act of the will, that they will accept what the Church has always taught.
This message needs to be taught from the pulpit, in catechism classes, in Catholic schools at least at the high school level (many students marry shortly after graduation), in RCIA (and, yes, it does need to be made a condition of being received into the Church or not), and in the confessional. If a penitent doesn't raise the issue, and if the priest has reason to suspect that they might be using contraception, he needs to bring this up. The mere not-mentioning of it, and being of presumed age and circumstances, is reason enough to ask. No penitent should be offended by this, and if they are, so what? Better to be offended than to be left either in error, or worse, in mortal sin. And if they are not willing to make a firm purpose of amendment and to cease using contraception, yes, absolution should be withheld. The priest needs to do everything he can to help them break with this sin, refer them to NFP instructors, or even offer to counsel them outside the confessional. And he needs to remind them that they may not receive communion as long as they are committing this sin. (Again, to be fair, given that relatively few people go to confession anymore, it is altogether likely that someone actually going to confession is not committing this sin. But it never hurts to act, the penitent can simply say “no, I don't do that”, end of story.)
And to say “it's no big deal”, well, there are exceptions, to be sure, but for most people of parenting age, it certainly is. It affects so much:
Whether you can marry (some people are just not in the position to have children, even if they are fertile, some people have health problems, and some people cannot make enough money to support a family and may never be able to)
Whom you can marry (you can't marry someone who wants to use contraception, that's just asking for trouble, and if NFP is “too much of an ask” for a prospective spouse, then that means you should not marry that person)
When you can marry (you have to be able to handle the risk, even if it is a remote one, that pregnancy could occur --- NFP is never foolproof --- and if you have circumstances that militate against even the chance of pregnancy, then that is probably a sign you should defer marriage until those circumstances no longer exist)
What your married life will be like (abstinence possibly half the month or more, possibly even total abstinence if you simply cannot have a child at some point within your marriage)
And, needless to say, sterilization isn't an option either. A couple cannot say “we'll have the children we want, and then when we're done, one of us will just have the tubes cut”. It is very common for non-Catholics, who do not believe that either contraception or sterilization is a sin, to “have themselves fixed” when they've decided that their family is complete --- women boast of this, I've heard this quite often. But we do not look to non-Catholics as a moral guide on this issue.
This is not just a matter that you can “blow off” or “sweep under the rug”. And if it is disturbing to think that so many people in the Church are at variance with her teachings regarding contraception, worst of all that they disagree with the Church on this issue, well, it's just reality and needs to be faced “head on”. Anything else is just the proverbial ostrich sticking its head in the sand.
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 27, 2023 19:57:05 GMT
And as a kind of side comment, perhaps a better title for this thread would have been "95% of marriages not consummated as long as a couple uses contraception?", but I'm leaving it as it is. Again, please note that I used a question mark.
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 27, 2023 22:51:32 GMT
I do not think the sins of other people are any business of ours. They are the business of the alleged sinner, their confessor and God. I think if someone wants to know whether X, Y or Z is a sin they should pose their question to their confessor, spiritual director (if they have one) or to any priest. It is a bad idea to ask in-depth questions on Internet fora about whether something is a sin. Most people on such Catholic fora are generally well-versed in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Often much better than the average Catholic. Therefore, if they need to know if something is a sin they have to be stumped. Hence, they should ask an expert, i.e. a priest. I do not know if anyone on this forum is a qualified moral theologian. If we are not, and I am not, we risk causing an individual spritiual problems by saying yes that is a sin, no that is not a sin. This is partly because an act of commission or omission is not by and of itself a sin. There are other requirements that determine one's culpability. If anyone wants to know if something is a sin consult a book on moral theology or, better still, ask a priest. Or when it's something on which the perennial, traditional, orthodox teaching of the Church is crystal-clear --- such as contraception --- simply look to your catechism of choice, or read the relevant teaching documents ( Humanae vitae, Casti connubii, et al). This is not a complicated issue. And it doesn't admit of parvity of matter. As to the sins of other people, no, we do not need to go around being busybodies, delving into precisely how they came to commit the sin they committed, or what kind of casuistry they used, but we are entirely within our rights to speak out, to remind people of precisely what the teaching of the Church is, and to seek to put them under conviction. Again, this is not an ambiguous issue. And while we go around in our society that hates judgmentalism (because they know the sins they commit and don't want to be reminded?), that seeks never to call attention to anything wrong that anyone else is doing (unless it is sin that all decent people in society are agreed on, such as racism), at the General Judgment, my sins, your sins, everybody else's sins, will be in view for all souls to see --- think of a Jumbotron in Dodger Stadium with your life, everything you ever did, on display, with the stadium packed full of people seeing it all, and multiply that by a factor of several hundred million. There's no getting around that. There's not going to be any "confessional secrecy". And there is one more thing. If I'm understanding correctly, when we go to confession, we are seeking not only the forgiveness of God, but seeking to be reconciled with the Church, which is not just the Pope, not just the bishops, not just the priest hearing the confession, but you, and me, and everybody else. Are we not all "Church"? (I find it a bit overwrought to refer to confession as the "sacrament of reconciliation", and it's kind of over-the-top to refer to seven-year-old children, making their first confession of what would have to be the smallest of venial sins, being "reconciled".) And while it doesn't rise to the level of traditional magisterial teaching, I'm reminded here of what Thomas Merton said, "my sins were enough to cause the Second World War". Well, if that were true, the world --- most of all the people who were killed, wounded, or genocided in it! --- would definitely have a bone to pick with Brother Thomas. Our Lady of Fatima (again, not magisterial teaching, just a private revelation, but what a private revelation it was!) said that wars are a punishment from God for sin.
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Post by tth1 on Aug 28, 2023 12:59:41 GMT
We have a responsibility as Catholics to know the teachings of the Church. It is our duty to strive to understand what is right and wrong. Avoiding sinning and the occasion of sin is a grave responsibility we all have. If someone asks our advice on a moral issue we should do our best to advise them in accordance with what the Church teaches. If we are not sure we must make this clear and counsel the individual to consult a priest for better advice. What it is not our duty to do is to pry into the lives of others and tell them they are wrong. Indeed, that is usually a fruitless path to take. Neither should we be informing others that what they are doing, or failing to day, may be a sin. We should be dealing with the plank in our own eyes rather than dealing with the speck in the eyes of others. Doling out unrequested moral advice is more likely to backfire than produce positive results. In charity give friendly warnings when your opinion is sought remembering your own sins as well. Do not be surprised when unsolicited advice does not bear fruit.
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Post by homeschooldad on Aug 28, 2023 15:03:19 GMT
We have a responsibility as Catholics to know the teachings of the Church. It is our duty to strive to understand what is right and wrong. Avoiding sinning and the occasion of sin is a grave responsibility we all have. If someone asks our advice on a moral issue we should do our best to advise them in accordance with what the Church teaches. If we are not sure we must make this clear and counsel the individual to consult a priest for better advice. What it is not our duty to do is to pry into the lives of others and tell them they are wrong. Indeed, that is usually a fruitless path to take. Neither should we be informing others that what they are doing, or failing to day, may be a sin. We should be dealing with the plank in our own eyes rather than dealing with the speck in the eyes of others. Doling out unrequested moral advice is more likely to backfire than produce positive results. In charity give friendly warnings when your opinion is sought remembering your own sins as well. Do not be surprised when unsolicited advice does not bear fruit. I had in mind not so much approaching individuals face-to-face and calling them out on their sins, but speaking up in general terms and calling attention to sinful behaviors that the vast majority of people either do not regard at sinful, or fail to comprehend or appreciate just how sinful they are. Somebody has to do it. Perhaps married laypeople, who have actually eschewed contraception, and used NFP, have more credibility than a priest in the pulpit who, most likely, has never been married, and for some, that may be their charism. (And though it may be an extreme case, a layman such as myself, who went beyond the licit use of NFP and used it selfishly for many years, would have more credibility on that count too. Pope Francis himself acknowledged that some couples may refrain from having children for selfish reasons, and he didn't say "but I'm just talking about people who use artificial birth control, if you use NFP, you're off the hook, because it's impossible to use NFP selfishly". Of course it's possible. I'm living proof.) You could go to Mass every Sunday for a year in a typical Catholic parish, and not come away with anything other than an awareness that NFP classes are available for those who wish to avail themselves of them (and that would come from reading the bulletin). That is good as far as it goes, but it does not tell people that contraception is a mortally sinful behavior that must be broken with, if you wish to save your soul. You would come away thinking that NFP is no more than a niche lifestyle choice, akin to vegetarianism or homeschooling.
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Post by ratioetfides on Sept 1, 2023 13:01:51 GMT
^
Or…
Some might view this approach as the height of hypocrisy and self righteousness.
It’s easy to wag fingers when it is no longer an issue for the one doing the wagging. It is the essence of accountability for others and a complete lack of responsibility for one’s self. A mea culpa in the box alone does not establish active credibility.
Perhaps if one who spent their life in a putative marriage, amassed enough wealth to retire, and sired a single offspring entered into a new marriage and began to have children one after the other, while completely exhausting their wealth, they would be able to establish a shred of credibility on the subject.
However, the above is super unlikely. Those in such a situation who are ‘plugged’ in and ‘well catechized’ enough to know what other should do to be real Catholics almost certainly have ‘discerned’ no vocation to a future marriage and thus are able to cloak their hypocrisy and self-righteousness in a self determined approval from almighty God.
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 1, 2023 15:17:36 GMT
^ Or… Some might view this approach as the height of hypocrisy and self righteousness. It’s easy to wag fingers when it is no longer an issue for the one doing the wagging. It is the essence of accountability for others and a complete lack of responsibility for one’s self. A mea culpa in the box alone does not establish active credibility. Perhaps if one who spent their life in a putative marriage, amassed enough wealth to retire, and sired a single offspring entered into a new marriage and began to have children one after the other, while completely exhausting their wealth, they would be able to establish a shred of credibility on the subject. However, the above is super unlikely. Those in such a situation who are ‘plugged’ in and ‘well catechized’ enough to know what other should do to be real Catholics almost certainly have ‘discerned’ no vocation to a future marriage and thus are able to cloak their hypocrisy and self-righteousness in a self determined approval from almighty God. Question: do you, or do you not, believe that contraception is grave matter that, if used with sufficient reflection and full consent of the will, constitutes mortal sin?Your objections are similar to those of pro-choice women who say "no uterus, no opinion", that only women can legitimately object to abortion. I'm not a homosexual either, but I condemn male-on-male sodomy. Using your reasoning, no priest can ever teach against contraception, unless he is either a married priest using NFP with his wife, or is a widower who has entered the priesthood after having had a large family. Actually, if I were younger, and had the length of years to be a proper father to them, and were free to marry, I would seek to have more children (though I would have to find a woman quite a bit younger than me, for that to happen). All the money in the world cannot turn back the clock, not even if your name is Richard Gere, Alec Baldwin, or Al Pacino (all men who fathered children quite late in life). The Church does not require people to have children "one after the other", but she does teach that married couples must not selfishly remain childless of their own volition. No less an authority than Pope Francis himself has spoken on this in recent years. And as to "completely exhausting one's wealth", three years after our marriage, my wife and I lost everything and had $800 to our name, yet we still practiced NFP, and, yes, at one point we thought she might be pregnant, but it was just a late period (or something). So I've been there. The Church's silence (which is not in keeping with what Paul VI asked of his bishops and priests in Humanae vitae) owes as much to being afraid that people would leave the Church, if they were to be reminded of the teaching often and in no uncertain terms (and were to be refused communion and absolution on account of it), as it does anything else. The fact that many priests do not accept this teaching either also has a lot to do with it. Humanae vitae went over like something vile in a punchbowl (at least in the affluent West), and rather than teach the truth "in season and out of season", a pall of silence has fallen over it. Everybody knows this, but few are willing to admit it.
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Post by theguvnor on Sept 1, 2023 16:50:43 GMT
My late Uncle Martin and his wife my Aunt Nancy had their last kid when Martin was 70 and she was in her early 40s. He lived to see that child grow up and go to university and graduate before he passed on. His wife used to joke that he lived such a long time because he was profoundly deaf and couldn't hear her nagging him. His wife (who was my father's older half sister) was a hilarious personality who really didn't care if you agreed with her opinions. Someone once asked her why she married a man so much older (at this point she was in her 60s) and she answered, 'He was a great shag in bed.' She did this in front of a load of prudish old biddies and I thought they were going to drop dead. She found the question annoying as by that point she had been married for well over 40 years and the person asking it was trying to make a big deal out of the age gap between herself and her husband. My father was once asked why he married someone half-Spanish when there were 'pure Irish girls' to marry. He replied, 'replay that sentence in your head and you'll realize how stupid you sound.' He came close to thumping the person who made that comment I recall as they kept going on about 'pure Irish blood' for several hours and because they were a distant relative we couldn't get away. He was lucky my mother wasn't there as her temper was not funny to be around when roused. It was normally more bark than bite and she'd calm down and laugh at herself in a few minutes but that question would have really annoyed her.
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 1, 2023 17:38:00 GMT
From Humanae vitae:
For this reason husbands and wives should take up the burden appointed to them, willingly, in the strength of faith and of that hope which "does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 36 Then let them implore the help of God with unremitting prayer and, most of all, let them draw grace and charity from that unfailing fount which is the Eucharist. If, however, sin still exercises its hold over them, they are not to lose heart. Rather must they, humble and persevering, have recourse to the mercy of God, abundantly bestowed in the Sacrament of Penance.
If contraception were only a venial sin, it could be forgiven outside of the sacrament of penance.
28. And now, beloved sons, you who are priests, you who in virtue of your sacred office act as counselors and spiritual leaders both of individual men and women and of families—We turn to you filled with great confidence. For it is your principal duty—We are speaking especially to you who teach moral theology—to spell out clearly and completely the Church's teaching on marriage.
Does this happen? Does the almost-total silence on the matter adhere to this directive?
30. And now as We come to the end of this encyclical letter, We turn Our mind to you, reverently and lovingly, beloved and venerable brothers in the episcopate, with whom We share more closely the care of the spiritual good of the People of God. For We invite all of you, We implore you, to give a lead to your priests who assist you in the sacred ministry, and to the faithful of your dioceses, and to devote yourselves with all zeal and without delay to safeguarding the holiness of marriage, in order to guide married life to its full human and Christian perfection. Consider this mission as one of your most urgent responsibilities at the present time.
Ditto.
Incidentally, this is an issue that transcends the TLM-versus-Novus Ordo debate. Someone could be the most fervent, ardent "cheerleader for the Novus Ordo", study the documents of Vatican II day and night, read the Catechism from cover to cover and quote it endlessly, eagerly await the handshake of peace at Mass, raise their hands in the orans position, and receive communion in the hand, standing, from a lay minister, at Mass every day, and still accept this teaching just as firmly, as some nostalgia-diseased "indietrist" who never attends anything but the TLM and thinks Vigano is a righteous dude.
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