|
|
Post by homeschooldad on May 13, 2021 21:09:09 GMT
Now, before I begin, let me state, for those who have not been familiar with my poor, pathetic musings here on CCS, on CAF, or on other forums both Catholic and secular, that there is no greater foe of artificial birth control, directly willed and desired contraception (more on this distinction in a moment), than HomeschoolDad. I am both scandalized and horrified by contracepting people receiving communion as though they are doing nothing wrong (in their defense, there has been no shortage of errant shepherds who have led them to believe this, even if just by silence), in the pastors and others who keep a cricket-like silence about it from the pulpit and elsewhere, and even though I got beaten to a pulp on CAF for proposing this (as though I care), priests in the confessional asking about this, if they "get the vibe" that a penitent may be "confessing other sins but not mentioning contraception". If I were a priest, and if I had sufficient reason to suspect there might be a problem, yep, I'd be asking. I don't understand why priests don't ask in such circumstances, and I have my thoughts as to why, but I'll leave that part alone for now. There is such a thing as teaching a penitent that something is a mortal sin, even if they didn't know it before, and saying, "yes, I know, you didn't know,or didn't comprehend the gravity of it, what's done is done, you're not the only Catholic who is confused about this, I shall absolve you, but I need a promise from you that you will accept the Church's teaching, and cease this behavior, otherwise I can't absolve you until you make this firm purpose of amendment".
But having said all this, I can foresee some circumstances, in which either contraception is not a willful act, or whether contraception is just an undesired side effect of some other action. The two scenarios I have in mind are the following:
Let's say there is a wife who, for the “grave” or “serious” reasons as taught in Casti connubii and Humanae vitae, must avoid pregnancy --- the family simply cannot afford another child, or another pregnancy would cause her serious health problems or worse. She would be perfectly happy either to abstain for certain intervals, or (which would be even safer) entirely, and does not wish to use any means that the Church teaches are mortally sinful. Yet her husband insists upon sex on demand, and will not abstain. There is such a thing as the “marriage debt”, but it is not absolute, otherwise a spouse could demand consortium from the other spouse even if they were in traction, recovering from surgery, or gravely ill in another fashion. This husband is pretty much a swine of a human being, yet he is the husband, and he is making demands. Might the wife be justified in using non-abortifacient contraception (or even sterilizing herself entirely?), not as willful and desired contraception, but more in the nature of protecting herself against an unjust aggressor? Keep in mind that, at this point, the husband is basically raping her. She cannot leave him, and she cannot tell protective services, a family therapist, or even trusted friends or family members (assuming they could make him stop, though a “come to religion” moment with the wife's burly father and brothers, maybe one or two of them being former Marines, sitting the husband down and telling him that this had better stop or else, is a foreseeable scenario, further assuming that he wouldn't go back home and beat her to within an inch of her life) --- she is defenseless and has non-abortifacient contraception as her only defense. Can she use it? It's far from a willful choice at this point. At the very least, might reversible contraception be acceptable, even if permanent sterilization were not? Why or why not?
(And, yes, I am aware that, theoretically at least, there could be a demanding wife who would seek to put her husband in this position, with his not wishing to father a child for those same grave reasons, not being able to support them, possibly not wishing to acquiesce to his wife's desire to put her own health in severe jeopardy --- and being willing to abstain but not being allowed to by the wife --- but with very, very rare exceptions, it's my perception that "women just don't function that way". I would certainly hope not, anyway. Poor guy. And another aspect of this, is that a woman could conceal her method of surreptitious contraception more easily than a man could. A man only has two options, one temporary, one permanent, and neither could be hidden for obvious reasons.)
And the second circumstance --- something I've noted in passing before on this forum --- would be where one of the partners has a loathsome disease, such as HIV, herpes, Zika, or similar, that can be transmitted by sexual contact. Could a condom be used, not with the desired objective of preventing conception, but merely to place a barrier to transmission of the disease, with contraception being merely an unwanted side effect that cannot be separated from the worthy objective of shielding against contagious contact?
(And might it make a difference that the disease is not transmitted by sperm cells from reaching an ovum, but rather by the contact of tissue with tissue, or through the male secretion in gross, of which the sperm cells are just a minuscule part? I've never heard of a disease being transmitted solely by sperm cells and by no other portions of the male element, and quite obviously, there is no way to separate the two, immoral means such as IVF excepted.)
In either of these circumstances, in which either contraception is not used willfully (or is more in the nature of a rapist defending against an unjust aggressor), or the contraceptive effect is not sought --- similar to a woman taking BCPs to moderate her cycle or to address female issues (endometriosis, etc.) --- but merely tolerated and unwanted, might the agent be justified without having committed sin? Why or why not?
I tend to think it would be justified, but as in all other things, I would submit joyfully and without the slightest hesitation to the final judgment of the magisterium. I'm not a "conscience" Catholic who has to run matters of faith and morals "up the flagpole of wonderful me" to see if they "fly" or not. If I say white and the Church says black, then it's black. Simple as that.
Any thoughts?
|
|
|
|
Post by homeschooldad on May 14, 2021 0:01:16 GMT
And WRT a priest asking in the confessional about contraceptive use, once again, Jone to the rescue:
To all the nay-sayers who assailed me when I asked this question on CAF, I can now confidently say "so there". I knew I was right. (Not real crazy about that "omit the instruction..." business in "extremely difficult circumstances", but Jone has an imprimatur, so I'm not going to get those weeds twisted around my axle. The rest of the quote speaks for itself.)
But I'm not concerned with winning arguments, I just want to see souls saved and the truth taught, proclaimed, and lived by. Nothing less is worthy of a Catholic. |
|
|
|
Post by homeschooldad on May 30, 2021 13:59:51 GMT
Bump.
Does nobody want to discuss this?
Do we have any priests here, who might want to get in on the discussion?
One thing that always made me kind of uneasy about CAF, was that it was moderated AFAIK solely by laypeople, and once I received the objection that I shouldn't prefer the opinion of a priest, over that of a well-educated and well-informed layperson. There may be some truth to that, but I am kind of "old school" and I still look to the priest for answers, as long as he is faithful to the magisterium in all things.
|
|
|
|
Post by katy777 on May 31, 2021 17:15:34 GMT
Couples have to discuss this with their priest before marriage.
The only birth control dh and I had was abstinence. I don't believe in nfp as that's true birth control and I'm sorry it is gross.
God gave us the perfect number, no more no less.
|
|
|
|
Post by homeschooldad on May 31, 2021 17:32:00 GMT
Couples have to discuss this with their priest before marriage. The only birth control dh and I had was abstinence. I don't believe in nfp as that's true birth control and I'm sorry it is gross. God gave us the perfect number, no more no less. And the priest cannot give them permission to sin, if he does, then he either needs to stop giving people advice like that, or just leave the priesthood. There have been legions of priests, in the confused environment of the past fifty years, who have "made exceptions" for people, and this cannot be pleasing to Almighty God. We'd be better off without them.
My question was whether a victimized wife could defend herself against the unjust overtures of an overbearing husband who asserted the "marriage debt", or whether someone with a loathsome (or perhaps even deadly) disease could use a condom, or allow her husband to use one, not for the purposes of preventing conception, but to place a barrier to transmission of the disease, with the contraceptive effect being both unwanted and unwilled, merely tolerated.
No couple has to use NFP, but the Church teaches us that they may, if they have reasons that have, at various times, been judged "grave", "serious", "just", or "well-founded". True, certain methods of attaining fertility awareness aren't exactly dinner-table conversation, they may be gross, but committing the mortal sin of contraception is far more objectionable, and has eternal consequences that mere "grossness" doesn't. There are various technologies nowadays, none of them per se offensive to traditional Catholic morality, that give NFP a high degree of reliability and do not require unappetizing self-diagnosis.
|
|
|
|
Post by katy777 on May 31, 2021 17:39:23 GMT
Couples have to discuss this with their priest before marriage. The only birth control dh and I had was abstinence. I don't believe in nfp as that's true birth control and I'm sorry it is gross. God gave us the perfect number, no more no less. And the priest cannot give them permission to sin, if he does, then he either needs to stop giving people advice like that, or just leave the priesthood. There have been legions of priests, in the confused environment of the past fifty years, who have "made exceptions" for people, and this cannot be pleasing to Almighty God. We'd be better off without them.
My question was whether a victimized wife could defend herself against the unjust overtures of an overbearing husband who asserted the "marriage debt", or whether someone with a loathsome (or perhaps even deadly) disease could use a condom, or allow her husband to use one, not for the purposes of preventing conception, but to place a barrier to transmission of the disease, with the contraceptive effect being both unwanted and unwilled, merely tolerated.
No couple has to use NFP, but the Church teaches us that they may, if they have reasons that have, at various times, been judged "grave", "serious", "just", or "well-founded". True, certain methods of attaining fertility awareness aren't exactly dinner-table conversation, they may be gross, but committing the mortal sin of contraception is far more objectionable, and has eternal consequences that mere "grossness" doesn't. There are various technologies nowadays, none of them per se offensive to traditional Catholic morality, that give NFP a high degree of reliability and do not require unappetizing self-diagnosis.
|
|
|
|
Post by katy777 on May 31, 2021 17:40:11 GMT
Of course but it does open the possibility of an annulment later. Not that the priest would approve of any marital act with contraceptives.
It would be several loong talks. Adoption could work.
But if it's the act itself, either the man or woman needs to refrain and control themselves and pray.
|
|
|
|
Post by homeschooldad on May 31, 2021 19:19:06 GMT
Of course but it does open the possibility of an annulment later. Not that the priest would approve of any marital act with contraceptives. It would be several loong talks. Adoption could work. But if it's the act itself, either the man or woman needs to refrain and control themselves and pray. I'm not following your reasoning here --- "open the possibility of an annulment". How so?
No priest is supposed to approve of contraception, but in the confused times of the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond, surely many of them did. Even silence from the pulpit, or not asking in the confessional if he has a well-founded suspicion (Jone backs me up on this, see my post above), constitutes a type of "approval". I just about caused a riot over on CAF when I suggested that the priest might ask this question, but as it turns out, he's within his rights, and possibly even has an obligation to.
WRT my question about the liciety of using a condom to prevent disease, with no intention whatsoever of avoiding pregnancy --- it's just accepted as an unwanted result of using the barrier --- I just wondered if this could be a legitimate alternative to total abstinence. You might never know it from my writings, but I actually want to help people and give them all the liberty I possibly can. Life is hard. Why make it harder when you don't have to? Not all people see heroic penance and hardship as the way that leads them to God. Some, in their weakness (a weakness I once shared myself), find it to be something entirely different. There is such a thing as despair.
|
|
|
|
Post by katy777 on May 31, 2021 19:23:14 GMT
If your wife for example had a disease that required contraceptive devices to prevent further spread it is opening the door for future. The priest may say it's unacceptable.
What if 5 years down the road you want relations?
It's like saying someone's daughter takes the pill for acne
There are other solutions to children and the above without contraceptives.
best asked to a priest because I don't know them.
All I know is infertile couples or couples with disease adopt.
|
|
|
|
Post by ratioetfides on May 31, 2021 21:19:45 GMT
There seems to be some persons who are particularly mystified by a seeming lack of adherence to Humanae Vitae. Many papal documents go relatively unheeded, yet this particular one often seems to the cause of much angst.
For those persons invested in a complete and rigorous implementation of Humanae Vitae perhaps it may helpful to examine what is happening on the ground level.
At the very basic and most simplistic level are children being welcomed into the church? Are churchgoers supportive of parents bringing children to church or, as we have seen here, quick to complain about children‘s behavior? Are churchgoers actively engaging, supporting, and encouraging these parents?
On the parish level:
What services and support are pregnant women receiving from the parish? (Are they being judged negatively if irregularly married?)
Who is offering care assistance for the other children while the mother is giving birth and in the following weeks?
Are parishes offering material support (diapers, formula/baby food, clothing, bedding, strollers, car seats, toys, etc.) for newborns, infants, and growing children?
What counseling is being made available for those suffering from miscarriage, infertility, or postpartum mental health challenges?
What medical services are being provided to the un/under-insured mothers and children?
Is robust NFP counseling available?
What financial assistance is available for the healthcare needs of these families? (Family deductibles and co-insurance can be massive in addition to astronomical premiums).
What parenting, homemaking and financial education is being provided?
Is the parish community providing free or reduced cost child-care?
What financial assistance is the community providing for the education of these children? (Secondary, Vocational, College)
What engaging programs are being made available to these children?
Are members of the community providing transportation assistance for the children when needed?
What mentoring programs are available for high school or college aged children?
What vocational education is being provided for the youth?
What free or low cost extra-curricular programs are available for the youth?
What employment opportunities are being made available enabling working age youth to contribute to the family’s financial needs?
|
|
|
|
Post by homeschooldad on Jun 1, 2021 2:34:19 GMT
If your wife for example had a disease that required contraceptive devices to prevent further spread it is opening the door for future. The priest may say it's unacceptable. What if 5 years down the road you want relations? Using a barrier to prevent direct contact, whether it is licit or illicit being beside the point, is something that could be discontinued at any time. It's not going to affect anything "five years down the road". |
|
|
|
Post by homeschooldad on Jun 1, 2021 3:04:02 GMT
There seems to be some persons who are particularly mystified by a seeming lack of adherence to Humanae Vitae. Many papal documents go relatively unheeded, yet this particular one often seems to the cause of much angst. For those persons invested in a complete and rigorous implementation of Humanae Vitae perhaps it may helpful to examine what is happening on the ground level. At the very basic and most simplistic level are children being welcomed into the church? Are churchgoers supportive of parents bringing children to church or, as we have seen here, quick to complain about children‘s behavior? Are churchgoers actively engaging, supporting, and encouraging these parents? On the parish level: What services and support are pregnant women receiving from the parish? (Are they being judged negatively if irregularly married?) Who is offering care assistance for the other children while the mother is giving birth and in the following weeks? Are parishes offering material support (diapers, formula/baby food, clothing, bedding, strollers, car seats, toys, etc.) for newborns, infants, and growing children? What counseling is being made available for those suffering from miscarriage, infertility, or postpartum mental health challenges? What medical services are being provided to the un/under-insured mothers and children? Is robust NFP counseling available? What financial assistance is available for the healthcare needs of these families? (Family deductibles and co-insurance can be massive in addition to astronomical premiums). What parenting, homemaking and financial education is being provided? Is the parish community providing free or reduced cost child-care? What financial assistance is the community providing for the education of these children? (Secondary, Vocational, College) What engaging programs are being made available to these children? Are members of the community providing transportation assistance for the children when needed? What mentoring programs are available for high school or college aged children? What vocational education is being provided for the youth? What free or low cost extra-curricular programs are available for the youth? What employment opportunities are being made available enabling working age youth to contribute to the family’s financial needs? The answer is very simple --- mortal sin of the flesh. Not all encyclicals deal in hard-and-fast, black-and-white moral issues. Humanae vitae does. The social encyclicals admit of a very broad range of interpretation and application depending upon circumstances. Humanae vitae doesn't. It couldn't be more crystal-clear. There's absolutely no "wiggle room". Paul VI spoke very well.
The traditional moral teaching of the Church is that any directly willed sexual sin that results in a complete act, is mortally sinful given the three classical conditions (grave matter, sufficient reflection, and full consent of the will). You really cannot commit a deliberate venial sin of the flesh. Neither can the sin of contraception, unless it would be a panicked incident of coitus interruptus, a last-second "changing of the mind" or "freaking out" by a couple in poverty who can't afford to feed the children they do have, ever be anything other than fully deliberate. People don't go to doctors and drugstores in fits of passion and impaired will. You have to make an appointment. You have to keep the appointment. You have to get in the car. You have to go in the drugstore. And so on.
I hope especially the female readers here will pardon the analogy (in that I am a male), but when two people deliberately use contraceptives with contraceptive intent (as opposed to, for instance, using BC pills to address a gynecological condition, with the contraceptive side effect being merely tolerated and unwanted), they are in essence using each other to masturbate. There is absolutely no way the Church can tell these couples "there, there, now, it's okay, this is something you have to do". Nobody has to have relations. What if one's spouse is irreparably injured in such a way that they can never again perform the natural sex act? What if they are in a coma for life? What if they are missing and not known to be dead or alive? How can you say that you "love" your spouse, if you want to use their body in an illicit matter to assist them in sinning mortally, and using their body to commit mortal sin yourself? That's not "love". That's no "love" I've ever heard of.
Each and every one of the objections you cite, just though they are, never give a license to commit mortal sin. I am most emphatically in favor of the faithful of the congregation "chipping in" and helping couples who are attempting to live by the Church's teachings, but can't quite make ends meet. Everything you list is something the Church should take seriously --- I would truly like to see a "family aid department" in every Catholic parish, from which those who are down on their luck could derive benefits --- but the lack of any of these things can never excuse mortal sin. I don't think you are saying that, I am just making the point. And there are so many Catholics who have achieved phenomenal success in business or the highly compensated professions --- and may not have had the children they should have, thus enriching themselves all the more with that money they didn't have to spend to raise them! --- they could very easily give much more than they do. Perhaps they could view such financial sacrifice as a form of penance and atonement if they have, God forbid, used contraception to increase their own net worth. Kind of "paying it backward", you could say. Sell the Land Rover and give that money to a struggling family who lives by the Church's teachings. Maybe some people do this. But I'm willing to bet that it's not common. The LDS church maintains "bishop's storehouses" to feed their needy (and, I would hope, the needy of all faiths or none, who come to them and say they're hungry) --- what is our major malfunction that we couldn't do likewise?
It would be a powerful act of charity, for the Church to ease the burdens of following her teachings, and make them easier to follow, by providing precisely the kinds of help both you and I have cited in this thread. Sometimes I fear that the Catholic Church could morph into a "success cult", with only the wealthy able to marry and raise families, while those of more modest abilities and fortunes have to stay single because they can't think of raising a family.
|
|
|
|
Post by ratioetfides on Jun 3, 2021 4:28:47 GMT
No objections were made. Concrete, practice ideas were presented to help create a coherent and wholistic culture of life which is receptive and helpful to parents rearing children.
Each of those offered is relatively simple to implement. No one need sit around and hope for the church or rich Catholics to implement such suggestions. A single person could engage any of the suggestions or a multitude of other ideas to provide such a receptive community environment.
The main point is are individuals and/or the faith community at large willing to engage in such ways? Or are persons and communities lamenting over a less than full and robust implementation of Humane Vitae content to wag fingers and pass judgement concerning those they presume have not fully integrated this particular teaching into their lives?
|
|
|
|
Post by homeschooldad on Jun 3, 2021 16:30:46 GMT
No objections were made. Concrete, practice ideas were presented to help create a coherent and wholistic culture of life which is receptive and helpful to parents rearing children. Each of those offered is relatively simple to implement. No one need sit around and hope for the church or rich Catholics to implement such suggestions. A single person could engage any of the suggestions or a multitude of other ideas to provide such a receptive community environment. The main point is are individuals and/or the faith community at large willing to engage in such ways? Or are persons and communities lamenting over a less than full and robust implementation of Humane Vitae content to wag fingers and pass judgement concerning those they presume have not fully integrated this particular teaching into their lives? I know you're not objecting to the Church's teaching, nor to people trying to obey and follow it. By "objections", I meant giving a list of very good things, as you did, that the Church and her faithful could do, but are not doing to the extent needed, if at all, to making this teaching easier to follow. I think it falls short of the mark, for the Church to see people struggling to follow her teachings, or despairing of being able to live up to them, without saying "here, let's see what we can do, let's help bear each other's burdens, and make it easier to refrain from mortal sin, not harder". Anything less smacks of Our Lord's words to the lawyers, "you bind up burdens too heavy to be borne, and lift not a finger to help bear them yourselves". Again, the LDS church "gets this" and helps people --- including, doubtless, those with large families who struggle to feed them --- and I'd like to see us have both a similar support network and a similar mentality. (Of course, the LDS take ten percent of their adherents' gross income, which is a chunk of change the Catholic Church doesn't have to play with --- imagine what would be possible if she did!).
I have known of two families, and I'm sure there are many more where these came from, who had large families, who obeyed the Church's teachings on married life, who had financial reverses, and who lost their homes and were forced out of them. I'd like to see the Catholic Church develop a culture of giving where, without exposing such families to public embarrassment, a "whip-around", a GoFundMe account, or whatever, could take place, everyone chipping in money to help people keep their homes, feed their families, and so on. The apostate secular world looks at such families and says "that's enough kids, now stop!", "don't you know what causes that?", and so on. (One then has the unholy urge to kick the apostate secular world in a sensitive spot, but one has to get past that.) In my wildest Walter Mitty fantasies, I dream of being able to find families struggling to adhere to the magisterium, having trouble raising their families, and help them. If I ever won half a billion dollars in the lottery, you'd see a lot of changes made --- but for various good reasons (that I shall not get into here), I'd have to choose anonymity, so you'd know the money was there, you'd just not know where it came from. I just need $10 million, tops, to live in the way I could only dream of (invested very conservatively at a 1% annual return, $100K/pa), the rest, I have no need of. One can only visit Paris so much, or eat so many filets mignons. (I am fond of both. Ditto for a bungalow on a Caribbean beach, which I have rented before and would buy one if I could.)
Oh, well, enough rambling. I am not "wagging fingers and passing judgment", I am just raising the eternal truth that we much choose death before sin, a fortiori mortal sin, and that this sin --- again, when you strip away all of the excuses, is mutual self-gratification --- should be made easier to avoid, and not harder. When couples with many children lose their homes because they have been faithful to the magisterium and have had more children, and other couples who have enriched themselves, and have had perfectly timed, "fun-sized" families by choosing the "broad way" rather than the "narrow way" get to keep their homes, that's messed up.
|
|
|
|
Post by katy777 on Jun 3, 2021 21:35:17 GMT
Contraceptives are wrong. Abstinence is required and offered to the Holy Spirit for fortitude. I never practiced nfp and just practiced abstinence. Therefore I have the number of children I wanted and God ordained.
I think I'm repeating myself.
|
|
