I understand that most people in America, including Catholics, have a hard time believing or understanding that contraception hurts them and their marriages. This is a bigger issue and one that I will not take on right now; but I would suggest that the church has many reasons for this controversial position, which it has held firmly after Protestants abandoned it in 1930 and even after it was urged from within the church in the 1960s to change the teaching.
Blessed Pope John Paul II proclaimed it time and again. Blessed Mother Teresa advocated NFP at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994, among other places, and she taught the poor and illiterate how to read the signs of fertility in their bodies. If anyone were to be immune from O’Brien’s criticism that the church needs to “meet people where they already are and find out what they need,” surely it was she.
Perhaps a woman seeking contraception needs more than birth control pills. She needs compassion and love that calls her to a different kind of life— a life in which she does not have to fear conceiving a child.
Editor’s note: Catholics (and others) who have thoroughly studied the matter typically understand and agree with Ms. Perla … even if they sometimes fail to faithfully practice what the church teaches.
Any married couple who is in the habit of using artificial contraception is certainly free to discontinue the practice at any time, and go to confession … instantly making things right with God, their own marriage, and the Catholic Church.
Married couples must be the primary object of the Catholic Church’s teachings on artificial contraception, since unmarried Catholics are presumed (and expected) to remain chaste and celibate, and should (ideally) have no need of contraception.
And that’s where the real world and the ideal fatally diverge. To put it bluntly, the real problem is the the extraordinary amount of “cheating” that’s going on … both inside and outside the sacrament of matrimony.
People who choose to engage in sinful, illicit sexual relationships don’t want children, and they aren’t too concerned about what the Catholic Church teaches. What they really want is convenient, risk-free sex.
That’s where Obama and his group of sexual panderers come in … with their supportive, affirming, and totally phony secular theology … encouraging people to simply give in to their baser instincts … rather than struggling to live the good, Catholic ideal.
That’s why Barack Obama is bad for the country … a near occasion of sin, for so many … and why the man must be officially retired by the voters … come November.
3 Comments
I found your post and was interested to read an opinion very different from my own. My thoughts are here:
http://definingmotherhood.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/emotions/
Another article you might be interested in reading is here:
http://open.salon.com/blog/floor_pie/2012/02/16/moms_need_birth_control_too
It expresses an opinion different from yours but does bring up an issue you skip – namely the need for contraception to treat certain medical conditions that can make women infertile.
Dear kcerise,
The Catholic position on artificial birth control is based essentially on the earlier, Judaic tradition, where human life and family was valued above nearly everything else, and God’s law was always to be respected and upheld.
Jesus Christ personally affirmed all of this, so it should be no surprise to see the Catholic Church doing so, as well.
Contraception and abortion were widely practiced during ancient times. For the last 2000 years, the Catholic Church has constantly opposed those who would contracept and/or abort, for four main reasons: 1) every human being, no matter how small or undeveloped, born or unborn, is created in the image and likeness of God; 2) Love of God, along with love of neighbor (more clearly defined as caring, charity, or self-giving) typically satisfies all the requirements of God’s moral law, while artificial contraception and/or abortion is to the contrary; 3) The Catholic family, doing ordinary things that every family does, interacting with each other and with society at large, according to Catholic Church tradition, is the primary means of sharing the authentic Christian faith with the world.(i.e. saving souls); 4) Nothing has happened over the last two thousand years in the fields of science, medicine, or philosophy (including the invention of the birth control pill) that has managed to improve on God’s original plan for his human creation, which according to the Book of Genesis, includes the permanent, divine admonition to “Go forth and multiply”.
Since Jesus Christ is the true head of every Catholic family, and since God never runs short of provisions, and since God is always more than generous with his blessings, any family that faithfully lives up to the authentic teachings of the Catholic Church will somehow manage to survive, and even thrive. This is and always has been a prime article of the Catholic faith.
These principles have unfortunately, not been widely taught or successfully communicated to the majority of today’s Catholics, while the prevailing, secular world view on artificial contraception most certainly has. Hence the “mixed signals” coming from various sources, all claiming to be Catholic.
Regarding the other article about the ovarian cysts: Any skilled, faithful Catholic doctor could prescribe several good alternatives to the treatment mentioned there.
The low cost and wide availability of birth control pills makes that choice a “no brainer” for many, but Catholics are obliged to seek out other alternatives. And those alternatives do indeed exist.
There’s obviously much more we could discuss, but this will have to do, for now.
May God bless you and yours,
Doug
Posted for Peter by Doug:
Thank you so much for this vital information. My church in this part of the world is being swept up in this powerful current due international bilateral policy, especially International Parenthood, which promotes unethical family practices in the name of population control, for a better family socioeconomic sustainability.
It is a great mask of deception by the devil to promote a false utopian lifestyle, built on the sifting sands of time.
Catholics in Papua new guinea are also affected by the fearsome tide of the culture of death. My fellow Catholic Americans, your battle on the front lines is also our battle
cry, in this part of world.
God will never forsake His beloved children. He always carries us in the palm of His Mighty Hands, and so His Beloved Blessed Mother Mary is leading the final assault on the gates of hell.
Our Lady of Guadalupe pray for us, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Yours in Jesus and Mary
Peter Christopher
Papua New Guinea