I am Catholic and thank God for my birth control
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Anonymous
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On this Pro Life March Day I want to share how painful it is to watch Catholics present themselves as nso arrow-minded on this issue. We should be advocating for more birth control. I'm friends with older priests and sisters who talk about how awful it was in 1968 when Humanae Vitae came out. Here's a story about Fr. Horace McKenna, one of the greatest priests to work in DC:
Horace’s most difficult time as a priest came in 1968, after Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical Humanae Vitae. He publicly dissented from the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal O’Boyle, who had issued guidelines for priests to apply the teaching prohibiting the use of artificial birth control. Horace, who had great personal affection for the cardinal, joined a group of priests in protesting a literal application of the encyclical. Relying on more than 40 years experience hearing confessions, Horace argued for some pastoral accommodation for married couples who as a matter of conscience found the teaching unduly burdensome. Because of this dissent, Cardinal O’Boyle, who had equal esteem for Horace, restricted him from hearing confessions. Being kept from the “peace box” pained Horace deeply. After two-and-a-half years of canonical appeals and personal pleas, Horace and other dissenting priests expressed assent to a series of statements of doctrine, after which O’Boyle restored their faculties to hear confessions. http://americamagazine.org/issue/625/faith-focus/horace-mckenna-apostle-poor |
Anonymous
| Catholic birth control is NFP |
Anonymous
| And what, pray tell, is NFP? |
Anonymous
| About NFP: I've practiced NFP and it only worked well for me in narrow set of circumstances. The science doesn't support that other forms of birth control are abortifacients. And the Catholic moral argument against using contraceptives for family planning (as spelled out in Theology of the Body) is just not reality. |
Anonymous
Natural Family Planning. If you are trying not to have children than no intercourse during woman's fertile period. Of course, you need to figure out when fertile time is (read Taking Control of Your Fertility for good tips). If you are still legitimately interested you should take an NFP class. They are usually offered several times a year throughout the diocese on a weekend. You don't have to be a (practicing) Catholic to attend. Catholics are open to life. So anything that contradicts that (contra-ception, abortion, euthanasia) goes against the teachings of the Church. If you disagree, fine, but don't bash those who do. |
Anonymous
That's fine, but you don't get to take your moral stance in a vacuum. If you're Catholic and oppose birth control AND take political stances that involve opposing sex ed (so people don't actually know how to avoid getting pregnant, because celibacy only programs have been determined not to work) cutting support for pre-natal wellness, cutting SNAP, cutting Head Start, etc., then I call you a hypocrite. If you don't help reduce the number of pregnancies by supporting education, and you increase the risk to babies through lack of maternal nutrition/education, and you don't support those children your moral stance helped bring into the world, then you deserve to get bashed and you should be ashamed of yourselves for your hypocrisy. If you take that moral stance and support education/wellness/healthy children/etc., go in peace and enjoy your beliefs. |
Anonymous
natural family planning Assuming your cycles are completely regular, I suppose it works for some. I prefer not to play Russian roulette, however. |
Anonymous
Social justice is also a core Catholic teaching so a good Catholic would support ALL of the programs including sex ed but with the caveat that sex should take place within marriage/ include openness to life. |
Anonymous
PP: I grew up in a severely abusive large catholic family. There is more than one way to destroy a life. It all sounds so great, but, in my experience. Catholics are full of $#it. |
Anonymous
| "Bashing" seems to mean expressing negative thoughts about the Church on any issue. |
Anonymous
Apparently it was god's will. |
Anonymous
Ah, so it's only the bad Catholics that are supporting those budget cuts. Good to know. Could someone please let them know? Thanks. |
Anonymous
| IVF is against church doctrine but you won't hear anyone tell these mothers that their conception was a grave sin. |
Anonymous
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Most Catholics do think birth control is okay. It's just that the more radical Catholics get more air time. There are many Catholic organizations that are about "social justice". What news organization wants to air good thing Catholics are doings, none.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/154799/americans-including-catholics-say-birth-control-morally.aspx |
Anonymous
You mean those radical Catholics like Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Rigali, the American Conference of Bishops and other very senior members of the church hierarchy? It's kinda tough to call the whole leadership structure of your organization "radical." Complaining that they get air time for their views over grass-roots Catholic organizations who might support the use of birth control is like complaining about the air time to the Republican leadership when they talk about gay marriage vs. highlighting the good the Log Cabin Republicans do for gay rights. Even though a lot of Republicans might be ok with gay marriage, the leadership of the Republican party - ie the people who supposedly set the Republican agenda and are responsible for speaking for the organization - are very anti-gay rights, and the media covers their position accordingly. In the same vein, just because a lot of lay Catholics use birth control (which the Church says is a sin) and doesn't see anything wrong with it, the leadership of the Church is outspoken about their objection to birth control and has, in the past, disciplined members of the clergy and threatened the laity for expressing opinions that differ from Catholic doctrine. Remember in 2004 when Cardinal Burke said that Catholic politicians who support abortion must not receive Holy Communion? So there you have someone who was a former archbishop of the Church and who, at the time, was the chief judge for ecclesiastical matters for the Church, saying politicians who express views contrary to the Church should not receive communion. That gets news. The fact that you and your spouse use birth control, not so much. When you say, "I'm a Republican," people make assumptions about your beliefs because you've aligned yourself with the positions taken by that group. When you say, "I'm a Catholic," people do the same thing. If you don't like people making those assumptions about you, you have four options: - suffer (and, if it makes you feel better, whine anonymously on DCUM how unfair it is that you get tarred with that brush) - spend a lot of your time saying, "I'm Catholic but here's where I disagree with the Church..." and see what that does for you with your other Catholic friends (not to mention your priest) - change the Church's position on the things you don't like (good luck with that) - become a member of a different religious group The choice is yours. |