Dear Holy Father: A Catholic’s Query on Contraception

One Peter Five ^ | April 6, 2018 | Brice Griffin

[ebb tide]

Another Hail Mary for you ...

[ealgeone]

Another Hail Mary for you ...

I see you continue to labor in false practices.

54 prayers to Mary verses 7 to the Father.

You are practicing idolatry.

Btw...still waiting on you to confirm/deny if you wear the Miraculous Medal or the Green or Brown Scapular and to confirm/deny if you are a member of the Confraternity.

[Campion]

Except that means matter. You can’t pursue a living end by evil means.

[ealgeone]

Except that means matter. You can’t pursue a living end by evil means.

No...the catholic is still practicing contraception just by a different name....kinda like an annulment isn't a divorce. Word games played just like the Pharisees. In either case it goes against HV as already posted.

[Campion]

Periodic marital continence is praised in Scripture. You know that, don't you? On the other hand, the whole Christian world rejected artificial means prior to 1930.

What changed in 1930? Not God, and not the Bible. You're defending an innovation, one that leads directly to approval of every kind of perversion.

[ealgeone]

You might want to read some history on this topic. The RCC, like it has in so many other areas, has redefined the terms to make it fit it’s beliefs. See annulment and worship.

[Truthoverpower]

Stupid
THE TRUTH
ALL FORMS OF CONTRACEPTION ARE EVIL
CONDOMS IN PARTICULAR

[MIA_eccl1212]

The very first commandment is:
“Be fruitful and multiply” aka “have sex and make babies”

this is not an option. it was the very first command given mankind.

Any attempt to NOT have sex, or NOT have babies and legitimize it by church policy, edict, doctrine, magisterial citation, catechism or law, is a violation of God’s prime directive.

And virtually all are guilty to some degree or another of it, if we are post pubescent... and pre-menopausal.

There may be some exceptions, but by and large... it is a unconditional command by God to man, that speaks to the plan of God for mankind.

He did NOT stutter, or change his mind.
Death impacted our capacity to continue in obedience, as a human ages... but the plan, the means and the intent of God on this matter, is clear. Crystal.

[piusv]

Periodic continence may be praised, but I doubt that any praise included continence to avoid getting pregnant. As a traditional Catholic, I question whether NFP is traditional Catholic teaching, but I don't know enough about the pre-Vatican II teaching on this to say much more than that.

I tend to think that NFP is a modern twist on Catholic teaching equivalent to the surge in "valid" annulments post Vatican II.

[af_vet_1981]

one (wrong) southern baptist does not speak for all protestants. Abortion has always been rejected as sinful in my church. And multiple examples have been given of RC leaders accepting abortion going back hundreds of years. So I suggest you remove the log in your own eye first. The RC church has no claim to primacy here....

What examples have you provided of RC leaders accepting abortion going back hundreds of years?

It was not just one southern baptist. It was W.A. Criswell.

Wallie Amos Criswell (December 19, 1909 – January 10, 2002), was an American pastor, author, and a two-term elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1968 to 1970.[1] Supporters have described him as one of the 20th century's greatest expository preachers[2] and the patriarch of the "Conservative Resurgence" within the SBC.

In 1944 Criswell was called to replace George Washington Truett as the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas. He would spend the remainder of his life at First Baptist, preaching more than four thousand sermons from its pulpit. During his tenure membership grew from 7,800 to 26,000, with weekly Sunday School attendance in excess of 5,000. The church expanded to multiple buildings covering five blocks in downtown Dallas, eventually becoming the largest Southern Baptist church in the world. The popular evangelist Billy Graham joined the church in 1953, became a close friend of the Criswell family, and remained a member of the Dallas congregation for 55 years.

...

Criswell sometimes got involved in political campaigns. In 1960, he published an article attacking the appropriateness of Roman Catholics to serve as president, titled "Religious Freedom, the Church, the State, and Senator Kennedy." The address, the text of which is available from the Kennedy Library archives,[11] represented the widespread concern preceding the presidential election to which Senator Kennedy responded in a speech on religious freedom and the separation of church and state.[12] In 1976, Criswell urged from the pulpit the election of the Republican U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., an Episcopalian, rather than the Southern Baptist Democratic nominee, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.[13] Carter nevertheless won the electoral votes of Texas, the last Democrat to have done so. In the 1980s, he supported Republican presidential nominees Ronald W. Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush.

Questioned in 1973 about the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade Criswell replied, "I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed." Criswell later changed his position on abortion and became a staunch opponent of the procedure.[14]

And then the Southern Baptist Convention

Resolution On Abortion 1971 - St. Louis, Missouri

That we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother

[ebb tide]

I see you continue to labor in false practices.

54 prayers to Mary verses 7 to the Father.

I see once again you are wrong about that which you attack with such vitriol.

It's 53 Hail Marys and 6 Our Fathers, plus 5 Glory Be to Father prayers and the Five Fatima prayers, plus the Apostles' Creed.

I'll pray a full rosary for you today.

[ealgeone]

Do you not say the "Hail, Holy Queen" after the rosary?

In either case, no matter how you slice it....you are praying more to Mary than the Father.

[ealgeone]

What examples have you provided of RC leaders accepting abortion going back hundreds of years?

See my post #5.

[af_vet_1981]

The OP is wrong in this assessment. The church I attend believes in life from the moment of fertilization to the end of life.

He is also incorrect on his statement regarding the RCC as "always" being against abortion.

From your wiki reference it seems to me your statement is incorrect. I see no evidence that the Catholic Church ever taught other than abortion is a grievous sin, from the Didache to this day. Does your faith community accept the authority of the Didache, or reject that too? You also provided no reference that the faith community to which you belong believes in life and does not allow artificial means of contraception with drugs and devices.

Christianity and abortion has a long and complex history. There is scholarly disagreement on how early Christians felt about abortion. Some scholars have concluded that early Christians took a nuanced stance on what is now called abortion, and that at different and in separate places early Christians have taken different stances.[1][2][3] Other scholars have concluded that early Christians considered abortion a sin at all stages; though there is disagreement over their thoughts on what type of sin it was[4][5][6][7] and how grave a sin it was held to be.[4][6] Some early Christians believed that the embryo did not have a soul from conception,[1][8][9][10] and consequently opinion was divided as to whether early abortion was murder or ethically equivalent to murder.[3][7] Some early Christian texts nonetheless condemned abortion without distinction: Luker mentions the Didache, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Saint Basil.[3] Early church councils punished women for abortions that were combined with other sexual crimes, as well as makers of abortifacient drugs,[3] but, like some early Church Fathers such as Basil of Caesarea, did not make distinction between "formed" and "unformed" fetuses.[11][12]

[ealgeone]

From your wiki reference it seems to me your statement is incorrect. I see no evidence that the Catholic Church ever taught other than abortion is a grievous sin, from the Didache to this day.

Thomas Aquinas, Pope Innocent III, and Pope Gregory XIV also believed that a fetus does not have a soul until "quickening," or when the fetus begins to kick and move, and therefore early abortion was not murder, though later abortion was.

That's roughly the same argument that has been made to justify abortion...that life doesn't begin at conception.

Does your faith community accept the authority of the Didache, or reject that too?

Yes...the "authority" of the Didache is rejected as it contradicts Scripture.

If it was inspired Rome should have incorporated it into their canon at Trent when they formalized their canon. That they didn't is telling.

You also provided no reference that the faith community to which you belong believes in life and does not allow artificial means of contraception with drugs and devices.

You're trying to separate artificial from the NFP advocated by Roman Catholicism. Really, what is the difference?

And, yes...my church is opposed to the murder of the unborn child.

[ebb tide]

And, yes...my church is opposed to the murder of the unborn child.

That wasn't the question, the question you and Mom MD have refused to answer numerous times.

[ealgeone]

Your church is allowing the same thing to happen...just by a different means.

[ealgeone]

Still waiting on your answers to some questions on different threads that pertain to salvation through Christ and Christ alone. I notice you always tend to avoid answering those.

[boatbums]

Does your faith community accept the authority of the Didache, or reject that too? You also provided no reference that the faith community to which you belong believes in life and does not allow artificial means of contraception with drugs and devices.

Don't you think we SHOULD BE talking about what each Christian believes concerning abortion and birth control measures which are also abortifacient rather than what is "officially" held in a denomination's rule of faith? We know that millions of Roman Catholics use birth control and procure abortions in spite of what may currently be declared in the rules just like others whether Christian or not. What good does it do to have the words written down somewhere if they are disobeyed anyway?

The Roman Catholic Church may have historically taught abortion is a grievous sin - though there is documented proof that this was not something that was held everywhere, always and by all - but this doesn't automatically mean just because they are right on this topic they are right about everything else they teach today. I tend to think the real motivation behind challenges getting thrown out on threads such as this is to presume some superior authority to all other "ecclesial communities (churches)" rather than judging by a single issue.

The honest truth is that Scripture doesn't specifically call out abortion and contraception as sins - though we certainly can deduce that the deliberate killing of an unborn child is murder whether through abortion or BC devices or drugs that cause the death. Each person must decide what he/she believes and practices based on obedience to God. This is far more effective than belonging to a church that formally agrees with them.

[ebb tide]

The article posted is about a remorseful Catholic mother, who had her tubal ligation reversed, who has questioned Pope Francis about his supposed statement:

“Pope Francis, speaking on this subject, said three words to me: condom, transitory, irreversible.” Said Sister Pelloni, apparently in reference to three types of contraception he would consider permissible under certain circumstances. The first is a condom. The second, which she said he described as “transitory”, would be “a diaphragm.” “And as a last resort,” she said, “which is what we advise rural women that we serve because I have a foundation for the peasantry, tubal ligation” – the latter being (more or less) “irreversible.”(all of which are artificial contraception, and in the case of diaphrams, possibe abortifacients)

Yet as usual you try to hijack another thread with NFP and abortion while refusing to answer your "church's" stance on artificial birth control.