Posted on 09/16/2017 10:08:13 AM PDT by ebb tide
Re-interpreting the Church’s teaching against contraception in light of Pope Francis’s teaching on marriage and family “would cause massive doctrinal and pastoral damage” to the Church, a moral theologian in Rome is warning.
Father George Woodall, who teaches moral theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, outlined what he called “grave” concerns about a papal commission recently set up by Pope Francis that will, he says, “re-examine Humanae vitae (HV) in the light of Amoris laetitia.” The article was published on the National Catholic Register September 12.
Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae taught that “each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of human life,” calling the use of contraception (including the pill, condom, withdrawal, and other methods) “intrinsically wrong.” The encyclical celebrates its 50th anniversary next year.
Woodall listed the “precise points of doctrine” in the encyclical that he suspects the commission will re-examine. These include:
Woodall predicted that if the commission were to use the moral principles and language found in Pope Francis 2016 Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, it would recommend that Humanae vitae “should be rejected or, more likely, should not be interpreted legalistically.”
The commission would likely say, he said, that the encyclical should not be “imposed as burdens on couples unable to bear them by those wishing to cast stones at people in difficulties, but should be presented to them as mere 'ideals', which married couples should seek to fulfill, but which they might not be able always to fulfill in pressing circumstances and which, for a good intention — and perhaps through discernment, assisted by a pastor in the light of their unique circumstances — they might violate, set aside, or interpret creatively,” he said.
Just as the “pastoral approach” in Amoris Laetitia was used to suggest that the 6th commandment against adultery does not apply to some couples in “irregular” situations, so too in this case, said Woodall, a similar approach would be used to suggest that Humanae vitae does not “really apply to some couples because, in their circumstances they could not be expected to abide by them.”
Woodall said that if such an outcome from the commission were to be “incorporated in a formal magisterial teaching,” a “new pastoral crisis” would be unleashed.
“Such an outcome of the commission, were it to be endorsed and enacted in formal magisterial teaching…would cause massive doctrinal and pastoral damage because the Pope would be contradicting previous popes and “centuries-old tradition of Catholic moral doctrine of moral theology,” he said.
“Were any decision, as a result of the commission, to call [the Church’s teaching against contraceptive use] into question expressly or implicitly, in my view, it would do untold damage to the Church's magisterium, to respect for that Magisterium by Catholics and by others, to the capacity of the magisterium to teach effectively, to the Church's moral doctrine in general, and to the mission of the Church to combat the moral relativism that is the plague of the contemporary world,” he said.
Woodall said that the Magisterium “cannot invent moral truth” but is “bound by, the gospel of Christ, revelation, dogmatically defined truths and constantly taught doctrines which have been proposed definitively or as exception-less for the universal Church.”
Woodall’s concerns echo those of Catholic philosopher Dr. Josef Seifert. In an article published last month, Seifert argued that if Pope Francis is right in Amoris Laetitia that committing the intrinsically evil act of adultery is — to quote the exhortation — “what God himself is asking” of couples in “irregular” situations, then there is nothing stopping any other intrinsically evil act, such as contraception, from being justified.
Woodall’s concerns are also shared by Cardinal Raymond Burke, who told The Wanderer last month that no matter what the Papal commission determines, the teaching found in Humanae Vitae cannot be changed.
“It is the infallible teaching of the Church that contraception is intrinsically disordered, that to separate the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital act is always and everywhere wrong,” he said at that time.
“If this teaching is not upheld, not only is there a violation of the conjugal act in its essence, but there would then be an opening for all kinds of immoral activity involving our sexual faculties while people would justify sinful genital acts,” he added.
‘Nonexistent’ commission to revise Humanae Vitae given exclusive access to Vatican secret archives
The Vatican plan to ‘reinterpret’ anti-contraception encyclical is real
Has Pope Francis set up a secret commission to ‘re-examine’ birth control? Let’s hope not.
Francis praises major Humanae Vitae dissenter in rebuke of ‘white or black’ morality
Theologian predicts how Pope Francis’ teaching could be used to allow contraception
Is anyone surprised?
What’s next , fellato? Pedophilia?
The end is near.
Amoris Laetitia—which, according to some Latinists, means The Exuberance of Sodomy—already justifies the commission of ANY sin. It teaches Proportionalism—the heresy of Curran and the rest of the dissenters from Humanae Vitae. Bergoglio has praised a number of Proportionalists by name.
Notice how Bergoglio proceeds on many fronts at once, taking small steps. He attacks all moral teaching—in a footnote. He attacks the Eucharist—but only by handing authority to bishops’ conferences. He attacks Matrimony with Fast and Furious annulments. He is permitting intercommunion—by others. He is promoting sodomy—using James Martin as a sock puppet.
The goal is to destroy the Catholic Church—not by an open, honest Protestant schism, but by painting the Catholics into a corner, where, stigmatized as kooks and “pharisees,” they will (he hopes) die with a whimper.
Prayers up for Holy Mother Church.
Your words are so true. God help us.
Your words are so true. God help us.
These are heartbreaking times, to be sure. It is painful to witness such blasphemy all around us—our own government, no less, sanctioning all manner of wicked behavior. But be of good cheer; prophecy unfolds before our very eyes! Viewed thusly, these are exciting times. Our Lord is at hand!
It does not appear that forbidding contraception is having much of an effect.
Yep.
“…One day I found myself in a vast plain alone with God. Jesus appeared to me and from the top of a small hill showing me a beautiful sun in the horizon. He said dolefully: “the world is passing away and the time of my coming draws near. When the sun is about to set one knows that the day is nearly over and that night will soon fall. Centuries are like days for me.
Look at this sun; see how much it still has to travel and estimate the time that is left in the world.“ I looked intently and it seemed to me that the sun would set in about 2 hours. Jesus said “Do not forget that those are not millenaries but only centuries and they are few in number” But I understood that Jesus reserved to Himself the knowledge of the exact number and I did not wish to ask him more. It sufficed me to know the peace of the church and the restoration of the discipline were to last a reasonably long time…” Sister Jeanne de la Royer (d. 1799)
Writing towards the end of the 18th century, Sr. la Royer was told that the “sun would set in about 2 hours”, and that these hours represented centuries - placing the significance of her prophecies as relating to sometime around the turn of the millennium. Yet before this “setting of the sun”, when the world will pass away, Sr. le Royer was shown that the Church would be restored during an age of peace which would last “a reasonably long time”. Given that her prophecies are centered around the turn of the millennium, it seems that the age of peace given to the world before the coming of the Antichrist is related to this exact time period.
The above prophecies of Sr. Jeanne de la Royer are fairly well known, having been cited in the books Catholic Prophecy by Yves Dupont and The Prophets and Our Times, by Rev. Gerard Fulton. But there is another lesser known prophecy of the Sister of the Nativity which dates the significance of her prophesied events even more specifically to the second decade of the 21st century:
“Woe ! Woe ! Woe to the last century !
Here is what God wanted to show me in his Light. I began looking in the light of God, the century which must begin in 1800; I saw by this light that judgement wasn’t there, and that it wouldn’t be the last century. I considered, thanks to the same light, the century of 1900, until the end, to see positively if it would be the last. Our Lord made me know, and at the same time made me doubt, if it would be at the end of the century of 1900, or in that of 2000. But what I saw, it is that if the judgment arrived in the century of 1900, it would come only towards the end, and that if the world exceeds this century, the first two decades of the century of 2000 will not pass without the judgment intervening, as I saw it in the light of God.”
(Vie et Révélations de Sœur de la Nativité, Charles Genet, book IV, pp. 125-126)
Please recall that Our Lady of Fatima said, “”If my requests are not answered, there will be wars and rumors of wars, entire nations will be destroyed, Russia will scatter her errors throughout the world, thousands of the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, but...
“IN THE END MY IMMACULATE HEART WILL TRIUMPH.”
Please also look up the “3 Days of Darkness” by Albert Hebert. Numerous Catholic prophecies refer to a chastisement of the earth. This is NOT however, the Apocalypse.
There are also videos on youtube regarding this matter. Here is one on Blessed Elizabeth Canori-Mora for a starter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg8W9r_cdmc
Nobody is under the illusion that Catholics use contraception less than anyone else.
It remains important for the Church to continue to teach that contraception is a sin, because that is the truth.
If the church that owns the Vatican, etc., starts teaching that contraception is not a sin, then the Catholic Church is elsewhere, and must be sought out.
Thanks.
But one must be careful not to mistake Bergoglio’s deceptive tactics for actual teaching. I.e., right now, he is doing all he can to spread the lie that abortionists, adulterers, and sodomites may receive Communion. But you will search in vain for any solemn papal pronouncement to that effect. Bergoglio will “teach” that contraception is A-OK in the same way—praising the heretics and punishing the orthodox.
As long as Bergoglio “teaches” his heresy in that manner, he remains juridically the head of the Catholic Church.
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