"Every sperm is sacred/Every sperm is grand!"
Posted on 10/05/2006 1:19:51 PM PDT by Pyro7480
The beloved founder of Human Life International, Fr. Paul Marx, was not known to mince words when it came to what he called the "conspiracy of silence" from the pulpits of our Church on the issue of contraception, but his insights of twenty and thirty years ago were right on target and remain true to this day: "Future generations," he said, "will wonder why so many Catholic bishops and priests in the West didn't see contraception as a seminal evil and the chief cause of the Church's swift decline." There is the core issue. Priestly silence about contraception is deadly both to the Church and to our society.
To this day the vast majority of Catholic clergy refuse to talk about contraception despite their moral obligation to do so. I can tell you that it is not only in the United States that this is the case; it is true in every part of the world. The reasons for this negligence range from outright heresy to lack of moral courage to inexcusable ignorance of the subject matter. Whatever the reason, the effect is the same: something I call clerical contraception.
Contraception itself is a rejection of God's sovereignty over one's marriage and a refusal to obey the Lord's command to "be fruitful and multiply." The priest, though not married, analogously contracepts the life-giving seed of truth when he refuses to preach the Catholic Faith - all of it. Faith comes through hearing, says St. Paul, and it is through the priestly ministry that Christ transmits the Faith to His bride, the Church, so that she can be fruitful and multiply the souls who are brought to salvation.
This is probably the main reason why so many Catholics today contracept or sterilize themselves and see absolutely no contradiction in receiving the Eucharist every Sunday and believing themselves in perfect communion with the Church. They've never been admonished that it is a mortal sin to use contraception or get sterilized. They've never been told of the physical and spiritual danger of these practices, and they've never been made aware of the magnificent, life-giving alternatives that the Church offers to the Ideology of Infertility.
Priests who are silent about the teaching on contraception also forget two very important things: first, priestly vocations generally come from large families. Failure to preach openness to life and generosity with children has a direct effect on how many men will be standing in the trenches with us later on. Contracepting this teaching has the same effect as contracepting the marital act: sterility. The persistent sterility of priestly vocations in the West is caused by priests who are silent about the plague of contraception among the laity and forget that their own vocations are the result of their parents' generosity with life. Overworked priests will be reaping the fruits of their silence on contraception for a long time.
Secondly, priestly silence about contraception has eternal consequences. The price of that silence is the loss of souls.
Contracepting men and women who are not warned of their sin and who therefore do not repent of it risk the death of their immortal souls, and that is a scandal of immense proportions. To be warned is to be forewarned, especially about something so crucial. Perhaps the only danger of greater consequence is the danger to the priests themselves who don't do their job: they risk their own spiritual deaths because in the end they will be held accountable for preaching the Church's full message "in season and out of season."
All priests should read the Lord's message to the prophet Ezekiel to know the high stakes of failing to preach the fullness of Christ's teaching: "If I say to the wicked man, You shall surely die; and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his wicked conduct so that he may live: that wicked man shall die for his sin, but I will hold you responsible for his death" (Ez 3:18). May every priest take this warning to heart!
Catholic ping!
big bump
It's helping the Islamist cause long-term, for crying out loud!
In 10-15 years one-third of all baies born in Europe will be born to Muslim mothers.
"Every sperm is sacred/Every sperm is grand!"
All it took was 6 posts. It isn't about the "sperm" or "egg" being sacred, but the marital act itself, though I do find Monty Python to be hilarious.
It's a very funny film - too bad no one in the Emirate of Great Britain will be able to understand the humor a century from now.
"Sexual Suicide" bump
Good article, and very true. I attribute many of our problems in the Church - that is, the attitude problems, which in turn lead to doctrinal problems - with the contracepting mentality and the fact that the clergy not only permitted but even encouraged the faithful to take an attitude of defiance to traditional Catholic teaching (reaffirmed even by one such as Paul VI) on the matter. This planted a fundamental disconnect between the faith and the practice of the church, sowed disobedience, and gave people the idea that they could pick the parts that appealed to them and ignore the rest.
This is without even getting into its disastrous effect on family life, sexual life, the Catholic birth rate, and the future of Europe...
When it meets with an ova, human life begins at conception. Yes, then it is sacred, then it is grand.
For your information:
Christopher West's Theology of the Body Webiste
Books, tapes, CDs, DVDs, etc.
From book by the same name by Pope John Paul II.
| 2399 The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception). |
| 2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:
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| Couple say Natural Family Planning strengthens marriage |
Clerical Contraception (Important Read! By Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer)
I have to say that this point:
Contracepting men and women who are not warned of their sin and who therefore do not repent of it risk the death of their immortal souls ...
is accurate but a bit, er, nuanced. While contraception is objectively "grave matter," the couple is only guilty of that particular mortal sin if they have full knowledge of its sinfulness and full consent of the will.
It's true that they're guilty of venial sin, even if they do not have the full knowledge and full consent, and that participation in the sin of contraception can lead to other sins and therefore, as Father says, "risk the death of their immortal souls.
Simply pointing out that in this case, doing the morally right thing happens to promote earthly well-being as well.
Pastorally speaking, is it right to speak of such things from the pulpit? Children are present, and in such circumstances specific sexual matters are generally eschewed in favor of circumlocutions.
I don't think you need to use graphic language to go over what the Church teaches.
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