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[Fr. Thomas Euteneuer] In Persona Christi: The Priest and Contraception
CatholicExchange.com ^ | March 24, 2008 | Fr. Tom Euteneuer

Posted on 03/25/2008 8:40:24 PM PDT by Salvation

Fr. Thomas Euteneuer  
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In Persona Christi: The Priest and Contraception

March 24, 2008

In Persona Christi, the priest stands for the Bridegroom in ministering to His Bride, the Church. In bringing new life to the Bride in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, he acts in a husbanding role and as a father. He cultivates.

The marriage bed is the altar of the domestic Church. Just as the priest brings new life spiritually (zoe) to the Bride on the altar, the husband brings new biological life (bios) to his wife on the marriage bed. In confecting and administering the Eucharist the priest brings new life to the family of Heaven, and the husband brings new life to the family on earth. In each case God is directly involved. Only through the Holy Spirit at the hands of the priest can bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ; and in human intercourse, only God can create a soul through the union of husband and wife.

The more one meditates on this Bridal mysticism the more staggering and beautiful it becomes, and the more the horror of contraception comes into relief.

In Genesis, when God set about to create man He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen 1:26a). He spoke in plural. God is not a lone male figure, but a family: the Trinity. He went on to say, "Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground" (Gen 1:26b) here also indicating man as family, man as species, man complete as one flesh. He also shares His dominion with man.

In the image of God, man not only images what God the Holy Trinity is, a family, but also images what God does, loves and gives life.

Feminist ideology, which often counters our message, doesn't get this. It thinks in term of separateness, not unity. It is an ideology of despair, especially despairing of love, a despair issuing from a failure of love — sin — the despair that comes from being sinned against taking refuge in more sin. It is despair buried under generational layers of abuse, exploitation and sin, whereas the Church holds up loving union with love as its path.

Human sexuality and reproduction, as one of God's greatest gifts, was wrapped by Him in pleasure and love, but too many in our time merely play with the wrappings and throw away the gift, soon finding only emptiness among the shreds.

 The priest is a soldier of love, a soldier of beauty, a soldier of truth — a soldier of life. Sin divides. Sin kills. Contraception divides sperm from egg, husband from wife and man from God. Abortifacient contraception divides the embryo from the womb and, in destroying it, divides the newly minted soul from its tiny body.

The priest is tasked with restoring all things in Christ. This is not easy, but soldiers are men who fight wars, get wounded, maimed and even killed in a cause greater than themselves. Those fallen in this war we call martyrs. In fighting this war you may be killed. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have both called for a willingness to be martyred on the part of clergy — and all Christians — in these hostile days.

One may not be physically killed, but standing with Christ on the truth of life and contraception may earn him the smaller deaths of ridicule, mockery, and ostracism — even from his brother priests, who may still be under the misapprehension that priesthood is a nice, comfortable and respectable life where they will be well-liked and popular.

It is plausible that on the first Holy Thursday, in Gethsemane, Jesus underwent another kind of death, or perhaps the beginning of the death He would suffer the next day: heartbreak. It is plausible that in that heartbreak He died for the sins of His friends, the Church throughout history, the betrayals and abandonment beginning that very night with Peter's denial and the slumber of His sleepy friends who could not stay awake and watch with Him.

It is He whom you serve. It is He in Whose place you stand. To be bland and uncontroversial is a very poor way to imitate Christ. They don't put you on the cross for mediocrity.

 



TOPICS: Catholic; Moral Issues; Religion & Science; Theology
KEYWORDS: birthcontrol; catholic; catholiclist; contraception; prolife
For your information and discussion.
1 posted on 03/25/2008 8:40:26 PM PDT by Salvation
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To: All
More from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

enter the Table of Contents of the Catechism of the Catholic Church here
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
(click on the book for the link.)
 
 
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:

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.

2 posted on 03/25/2008 8:41:32 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: All
[Fr. Thomas Euteneuer] In Persona Christi: The Priest and Contraception

A Challenging Truth, Part Two: The Day the Birth Control Died

A Challenging Truth, Part One: How Birth Control Works

Ten Challenges for the Pro-Life Movement in 2008

The concept of the "intrinsically evil"

Pope Tells Pharmacists Not to Dispense Drugs With 'Immoral Purposes'

Massive Study Finds the Pill Significantly Increases Cancer Risk if Used more than Eight Years

Birth Control Pill Creates Blood Clot Causing Death of Irish Woman

Seminarians Bring Church’s Teaching on Contraception, Sexuality to YouTube

Abortion and Contraception: Old Lies

History of Catholic teaching on Contraception

Pope: Legislation "Supporting Contraception and Abortion is Threatening the Future of Peoples"

Contraception: Why It's Wrong

On Fox News Fearless HLI Priest Takes on Sean Hannity (may be indebted for saving his soul)

VIDEO - SEAN HANNITY vs REV. THOMAS EUTENEUER (must see!)

The Early Church Fathers on Contraception - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus

3 posted on 03/25/2008 8:43:53 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: nickcarraway; sandyeggo; Lady In Blue; NYer; ELS; Pyro7480; livius; Catholicguy; RobbyS; ...
Catholic Discussion Ping!

Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Catholic Discussion Ping List.

4 posted on 03/25/2008 8:45:59 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: Salvation

“They don’t put you on the cross for mediocrity.”

Good one, Father E. Well said.


5 posted on 03/25/2008 9:01:39 PM PDT by Judith Anne (I have no idea what to put here. Not a clue.)
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To: Judith Anne

Indeed.


6 posted on 03/25/2008 9:25:52 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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Comment #7 Removed by Moderator

To: Salvation

Most people do not know, everywhere “birth control” has been introduced, abortion, divorce and many other socials ills increase dramatically.


8 posted on 03/25/2008 9:51:22 PM PDT by FranklinsTower
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To: Salvation

Is this a caucus thread?


9 posted on 03/25/2008 9:56:51 PM PDT by Judith Anne (I have no idea what to put here. Not a clue.)
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To: BlueDragon

YOPIOS contradicted by nearly 2 millenia of teaching, Christ, the Apostles, Doctors and Fathers of the Church, Scripture, Sacred Tradition, et al.


10 posted on 03/26/2008 4:22:53 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
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To: A.A. Cunningham

Christ and the Apostles were not members or priests of the RCC, so leave them out of it...


11 posted on 03/26/2008 7:26:48 AM PDT by BlueDragon (here's the thing; do recognize the bell of truth when you here it ring, c'mon and sing it children)
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To: Judith Anne

I didn’t post it as such because there are opinions of others (including Sean Hannity). BTW, Sean got told by Fr. Eutenuer.

Another thing. I don’t think enough people know just how serious contraception is.


12 posted on 03/26/2008 8:41:53 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: BlueDragon
**Christ and the Apostles were not members or priests of the RCC, so leave them out of it...**

Oh, but they are! I'm so sorry you have not read this Scripture indicatomg that the first priests/bishops were the Apostlles. The same apostles that are saints in the Catholic Church! Go figure!

The highlighting is mine.

Gospel
Jn 20:19-31

On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
But he said to them,
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples
that are not written in this book.
But these are written that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that through this belief you may have life in his name.



13 posted on 03/26/2008 8:48:27 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: Salvation; Religion Moderator

Sal, you know I always read and enjoy your pings; I’m just going to have to stay off threads that aren’t caucused because of our fellow FReepers who want to dominate these discussions, and condemn our traditions and our Church. I’m sure they are worthwhile, even without my participation, so, thanks again for the ping.

It’s just asking too much for me to put up with the so-called “debate” which is often thinly disguised (or not) evangelizing and wholesale condemnation.


14 posted on 03/26/2008 9:01:29 AM PDT by Judith Anne (I have no idea what to put here. Not a clue.)
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To: Salvation
The claims are post el-facto! I'm aware of the reasonings, and the extending backwards in time, of the claims of the RCC.

The plain fact is, the RCC did not exist, at that time.

If you are responding to my initial post here, my main objection stated was capitalized.

There is nothing in the scripture you post here, which constrains any and all future Christian priesthood to being ONLY RCC.

...and please, spare me the bogus claims to "unbroken linage" or other such nonsense, when asserting simultaneously, any such thing as sole authority.

15 posted on 03/26/2008 9:55:51 AM PDT by BlueDragon (here's the thing; do recognize the bell of truth when you here it ring, c'mon and sing it children)
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