Posted on 02/26/2012 1:22:06 PM PST by NYer
In this picture made available by the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI greets the faithful of the Pontifical Academy for Life during a private audience at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano, Handout)
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday urged infertile couples to shun artificial procreation, decrying such methods as a form of arrogance.
Speaking at the end of a three-day Vatican conference on diagnosing and treating infertility, Benedict also reiterated church teaching that marriage is the only permissible place to conceive children. Matrimony "constitutes the only 'place' worthy of the call to existence of a new human being," he said.
The pope pressed the church ban against artificial procreation, saying infertile couples should refrain from any method to try to conceive other than sex between husband and wife.
"The human and Christian dignity of procreation, in fact, doesn't consist in a 'product,' but in its link to the conjugal act, an expression of the love of the spouses of their union, not only biological but also spiritual," Benedict said.
He told the science and fertility experts in his audience to resist "the fascination of the technology of artificial fertility. Benedict cautioned the experts against "easy income, or even worse, the arrogance of taking the place of the Creator," an attitude he indicated underlies the field of artificial procreation.
Sperm or egg donation and methods such as in vitro fertilization are banned by the church for its faithful.
The emphasis on science "and the logic of profit seem today to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation," the pope said.
But he added that the Church encourages medical research into infertility.
Your post really touched me. I was where you are (minus the menopause) 12 years ago. Today I am the mother of three beautiful children by adoption. We, too, struggled with the pain of infertility, but decided to trust in God and follow the “rules” of the Church. We have been blessed beyond measure. It was *not easy* to walk away from those medical options at the time, but I know that God had plans for me beyond biological children. You will be in my prayers.
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You seem to be confusing Jesus’ message with church doctrine, invented and disseminated by men who sin as much and often as any of us. The church could never have spread its message (or become profitable) without abiding by social norms including centuries of discrimination of women. For the church to fail to acknowledge this sin and change their doctrine, they simply prove their own message that we are all primitive and imperfect.
Yours is not according to Catholic teachings. I ask you again, are you Catholic?
My apologies for the previous post, RM. I should have pinged you.
The wife could have been raped and brought up a child to bring love into the world.
That doesn't make rape right.
On the contrary. Christ stated that the Church should be the final authority: "And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church: but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." (Matthew 18:17 ) In addition, St. Paul states that the Church, not Scripture is "THE pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Timothy 3:15) Since the Church alone is mentioned as the pillar of truth, then It alone has the right to discern the truth and interpret Scripture. For if individuals could correctly interpret Scripture, then all interpretations would be exactly the same as there can only be one Spiritual Truth for the plural of the word "truth" never appears in Scripture.
If you want to believe leftist wiki, OK. But obviously, you didn’t check church law, canon law.
Men only are to be in the sanctuary. It’s to foster vocations to the priesthood. Sorry, if that offends you.
AND don’t believe leftist wiki!!!!!!
Rude people are their own punishment. Sux to be them.
I'm going to send this quick before I chicken out and delete.
Why are you asking a question I have already answered very clearly? And why are you pinging these Moderators, as if they should feel a need to investigate me? Haha! So I think women are spiritually equivalent to men, able to guide and learn as equals. And you don’t. That’s where we stand. And for the record, I’m embarrassed for you.
Ah, okay, the CHURCH (sound the gong) is THE pillar and ground of the truth. Maybe Timothy didn’t count on people like Ferdinand II and Cardinal Law being policy maker in the church... As I stated in my last post to the other annoying dogmatist, “I think women are spiritually equivalent to men, able to guide and learn as equals. And you don’t. That’s where we stand. And for the record, I’m embarrassed for you.”
I just wanted to say thank you for your series of beautiful and thoughtful posts.
The daughter of a good friend has just confirmed she is pregnant by IVF (her husband has some problems “south of the border,” shall we say). Like most, I was both pleased - known her from two days old and she will be a wonderful mother - and concerned.
I asked her what she is going to do with the spare embryos and she was refreshingly blunt. She said “There are no spares. Only two eggs were taken and fertilized, both were implanted successfully.” No culls, no waste of life, and she reduced her chances hugely by insisting on that.
I am pretty proud of her. She walked a fine line.
And I stand with you on filling your home with kids and laughter. Our two youngest (both girls) are adopted, after 4 of our own. We fostered for a few years as well - something I would encourage every family to consider. Fostering is harder - most of the children have serious problems - but is so worthwhile.
Such surgeries, which are intended to restore damaged or diseased organs to their proper function, are commendable. Note that the surgery is addressed directly to repair the malfunction organ; it is not an attempt to replace or bypass it.
Sadly, they are not always successful.
You do have a point and just because the pope states something, its for Catholics not everyone. Not all fertility clinics use hormones to cause a woman to produce multiple eggs for fertilization. There are many ways to bring about a baby...
She didn’t “walk a fine line.” She closed her eyes and stepped over a bright shiny moral line with all the others who are Entitled. To. Have. Children. At any price.
The thousands and thousands of human embryos who were slaughtered to develop this ghoulish procedure — which RARELY works as you reported it did in this case — are on her.
IVF is the methods of animal husbandry applied to human life. Any cattleman could tell you about the problems associated with it. Any ordinary person back in 1968 could tell you about the moral dilemmas that would arise. “The lady or the tiger?”
Since Streep won tonight, a more telling example occurs to me: Sophie’s choice.
One of the most wicked things feminists have done is to discredit adoption as the moral alternative to abortion. I am alive today because my mother, long ago, decided not to have me killed but to put me up for adoption.
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