Contraception: The Bacteria Devouring America’s Soul

Catholic Exchange ^ | 8/27/2010 | Judie Brown

[mlizzy]

Consequences of Artificial Methods

17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife. --Humanae Vitae

Natural Family Planning (as a group, those who participate have only a 4% divorce rate compared to 50% which is the norm).

[Boogieman]

“Society as a whole gets to decide what is morally acceptable.”

If contraception is the “Bacteria Eating America’s Soul”, then moral relativism is the retrovirus that paved the way by destroying our immune system first.

[Tax-chick]

I can’t tell whether we’re genuinely not communicating, or if you are deliberately responding obliquely to what I’ve posted in order to avoid saying, outright, “There is no right or wrong, only opinions.”

[Hoosier Catholic Momma]

It’s so important that we do...we had a Nigerian priest for a while, and he spoke out on the whole Notre Dame fiasco last year (and the Georgetown thing in the same homily). It was so wonderful to hear him speak out, heavy accent and all, LOL.

[TightyRighty]

My wife and I decided that 3 kids was enough, and then I got a vasectomy. How is that wrong?

However, had you have had 6 kids that you couldn't afford and ended up on government assistance - you would have been told your wife should have kept her legs shut. This is one of those occasions where you're damned if you do - damned if you don't.

[xzins]

Right on target.

Those who think they control the inception of life get drunk with power and then want to terminate lives they don’t want to show up and lives they don’t want to hang around too long.

This article puts it clearly about the Prop 8 argument, that marriage is for procreation. Judge Walker ruled there’s no basis for that argument. He wrong, but, we have made it harder to make our case given that we fell off the cliff on the contraception issue.

The word “matrimony” should prove that marriage is about mothering and the systemic cultural support plan that undergirds it: husband, wife, kids.

[Tax-chick]

The natural means of not conceiving a child is ... not having sex. This is different from taking a pill and then having sex. For example, I’m telling my children to not have sex while they’re unmarried, in order (among other things) to avoid conceiving children.

As further illustration of the different between “contraceptives” and “contraception,” a man’s using a condom while having anal sex is not “contraception,” because there was never any possibility of a child’s being conceived. If a woman athlete is taking a hormonal treatment to avoid having periods, she is not “contracepting,” if she does not have sex. She is simply using a medical preparation (either wisely or foolishly - these drugs are not free of risk, irrespective of sexual activity).

[Tax-chick]

We had a Nigerian priest in Tulsa, and a growing number of seminarians and deacons from Nigeria and couple of other places in Africa. Some did have difficult accents, but they improved over time. And they loved to sing!

[RockyMtnMan]

Your opinion/interpretation of right and wrong will only match up on certain points depending on who you talk to. Absolute truth, that God gives us, is still up for interpretation by men. Some are better than others at “deciphering” the truth than others. It is through communion and heartfelt discussion that agreements of truth are made when based in opinion.

Over time individuals will forget those agreements and revert to some other state of opinion.

There absolutely is a right and wrong but what that is will always be up for debate among men. I’m not trying to be obtuse just accounting for man’s failings while supporting God’s perfection.

[Hoosier Catholic Momma]

Father Chris had a nice, booming voice (he wasn’t a tall man, but you could hear him lol), and he sang pretty well too. I didn’t find it too difficult to understand him for the most part.

[Tax-chick]

I’m not trying to be obtuse just accounting for man’s failings while supporting God’s perfection.

Okay, that clears it up! Doing tax law made me very precise about words, down to the last comma, and I get confused easily when others aren't as fixated ;-).

I agree with you on this, and on what you were saying in some posts above, about how we're all going to fall short in all kinds of ways, needing always to rely on God's mercy toward us.

[Tax-chick]

I think a diocese will get one priest from Nigeria, for example, and then others will come when they learn how it’s working out. Many English-speaking African clergy/seminarians were coming to Oklahoma and Missouri, but we don’t seem to have them here in Charlotte.

[verdugo]

It's a Christian thing. If one is not a real Christian then they'll use contraceptives, as well as divorce and remarry whenever theyu feel like it.

My years have taught me that the litmus test of a REAL Christian is marriage and birth control. Real Christians stay married till death and have as many children as God sends. They don't use birth control. If I see a person who calls themselves Christian and is divorced and remarried, I know that they are hypocrites. If I see a couple with no children because they use birth control, I know they have not God's Grace.

How many Christians like that do any of you know? FEW!

[CynicalBear]

So if you refrain from having sex during the time that a woman could get pregnant, is that birth control? Thus not being a Christian? Oey !!

[RockyMtnMan]

Hmmm, I don’t believe Christ would agree with you. We are flawed, ALL of us, and I don’t think birth control or divorce are the litmus test for a Christian. The only REAL Christian was Christ himself, everyone else is just aspiring to his example.

[little jeremiah]

Placemark for pingout.

[Dudoight]

Well, I was thinking that if one of the persons in the ‘civil union’ was employed full time and had ‘partner’ benefits, like health insurance, etc., and the other worked part time or possibly did not work (older sister, mother, etc)then those legal benefits should be allowed and one shouldn’t have to be gay to access those rights.

If it were just inheritance or estates and trusts, a will could take care of that. I just think that if Gays get all the legal rights and privileges of a ‘spousal relationship’ in a civil union, then others should have the right to draw up civil unions for the same advantages.

The a civil union should not be necessarily based on sexual preference or lack there of.

[Tax-chick]

You’re right, the health insurance issue is difficult in this context. A change in insurance law, to allow an insured employee to include another adult, would address it. I think it would be reasonable to say the employee could add another adult to his insurance only once a year, unless the other adult were a dependent according to IRS rules.

[eccentric]

Exodus 1:19 the first prolifers

[narses]

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