Posted on 07/04/2004 9:29:46 AM PDT by Polycarp IV
Ping. (As usual, if you would like to be added to or removed from my "conservative Catholics" ping list, please send me a FReepmail. Please note that this is occasionally a high volume ping list and some of my ping posts are long.)
You might be interested...
Well, maybe a little (grin... I was actually reading the article by the time you posted Response #2, only then seeing your #3 Ping to my attention after refreshing the page)
Very interesting. I appreciate the language used in describing why contraception is contrary to God's supremacy in the matters of life and death.
If only more people understood this. It's another way - and a very important way - of letting God "be God", of giving up trying to usurp His position of Lordship.
The culture in general has accepted that the use of contraceptives is standard normalcy, and all this does is degrade womanhood, manhood, motherhood, fatherhood, and the value of children. It has caused broken families, illegitimacy, turned girls into sluts and boys into exploiters. Sex without the touch of the divine is merely mutual masturbation techniques, and since by its very nature cannot satisfy the longing of the soul, has to be continually "spiced up" with every degradation and perversion people can think up. And that's called "freedom". Very sad.
That is one reason why I have a great deal of respect for sincere Catholics and the fact that the Catholic Church hasn't (and I pray it won't) budge on this important moral absolute.
An interesting article with some relevant sources that useful for future reference. However, the article is undermined by the fact that Fr. Harrison is so clearly trying to prove one side of the argument. His polemical approach causes the reader to assume that he is not presenting the arguments fairly and objectively.
With regard to the interpretation of Casti Connubii, he is clearly failing to present it in a balanced manner. He throws around a lot of verbiage to obscure the clear words of the document.
What Fr. Harrison really has here are 3 statements from the Sacred Penitentiary which support the use of periodic continence. These 3 statements are of great interest, and they create a history so that Pope Pius XII's statement in "Allocution to Italian Midwives" does not seem to come out of nowhere. All the rest of the article could be dispensed with, and he would have been more convincing if he had presented that evidence dispassionately.
Blah, Blah, Blah. NFP, and this article is just mans way of justifying seeking their own pleasure, and the Church assisting them.
IF using birth control is genuinely a sin, then so is NFP.
Its safe to assume you are a sedevacantist, then? Because NFP has been taught as morally licit in grave circumstances by quite a few recent Popes now.
...plan, plan, plan...it is not for US to plan.
Precisely!
The culture in general has accepted that the use of contraceptives is standard normalcy, and all this does is degrade womanhood, manhood, motherhood, fatherhood, and the value of children. It has caused broken families, illegitimacy, turned girls into sluts and boys into exploiters. Sex without the touch of the divine is merely mutual masturbation techniques, and since by its very nature cannot satisfy the longing of the soul, has to be continually "spiced up" with every degradation and perversion people can think up. And that's called "freedom". Very sad.
Well said.
As background, Fr. Cekada was one of "the nine" Anerican priests expelled from the SSPX in 1983 by Abp. Lefebvre for continuing to offer the unadulerated rite of the traditional Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, i.e. pre-Bugnini. Fr. Cekada is curate to Bp. Dolan at Saint Gertrude the Great Church in the Cincinnati suburbs. They either hold that the see is impeded or the see is vacant due to pre-existing heresy by the one elected.
Saint Gertrude the Great Church
Natural Family Planning: On Recent Condemnations of NFP
by Rev. Anthony Cekada
NOTE: In Fall, 1998 the “Voice Crying in the Wilderness” newsletter, a widely-circulated traditionalist periodical, published an article condemning Natural Family Planning (NFP).The following is a letter to the Editor, written by Father Anthony Cekada. In addition to offering the traditional Latin Mass in Cincinnati and Columbus, Father Cekada is professor of canon law and pastoral theology at Most Holy Trinity Seminary, Warren, Michigan.
To the Editor:
This afternoon I spoke with a parishioner who was very upset over your article on Natural Family Planning (NFP).
I had to assure her (as I will probably have to assure others) that your comments were —and there is no diplomatic way to put this — presumptuous, ignorant and dangerous.
First, you have no business even offering an opinion on the morality of NFP, still less condemning it as sinful in a publication that you send out to tens of thousands of people.
One may indeed (as you do in other articles) catalogue, dissect and condemn the Modernists’ doctrinal errors, since so many of them are obvious and have already been condemned. But the morality of NFP is an issue for moral theology — the branch of theology which analyzes right and wrong, virtue and sin.
The subject matter of moral theology is vast and enormously complex, covering all the general principles of morality and all their particular applications. In the seminary moral theology is one of the major courses. It requires three or four years’ worth of classes conducted several times a week to cover all the material.
Despite the length of this course, it can only impart to the priest-to-be the mere “basics” for the confessional and counselling. Priests who wrote on moral issues before Vatican II — and it was only priests who were permitted to become moral theologians — always had advanced degrees.
Their books were carefully checked by their religious superiors and diocesan censors.
If moral theologians did any speculative writing, it never appeared in popular publications such as yours.
You have no training in, and no experience dealing with, a complex moral question like NFP. We traditional Catholic priests have studied moral theology and we apply it in the confessional and in counselling. Leave such matters to us — and leave our people alone.
Second, although moral theology manuals emphasize that NFP is not a topic one should discuss in sermons or mass-circulation publications, The Angelus, The Remnant, and your own publication have spread some dangerous errors on the issue, and it is necessary that someone correct them, lest Catholics wrongly conclude they are committing mortal sin.
The moral aspect of NFP and periodic continence may be summed up as follows:
1. General Principles.
Spouses are free to choose whatever time they want to exercise their marriage right or abstain from exercising their marriage right by mutual consent.
Conversely, they are not obliged to exercise their right during fertile periods, or abstain during sterile periods.
Deliberately to limit marital relations to sterile periods to avoid conception is morally lawful in actual practice, provided the requisite conditions are met.
Family limitation without good and sufficient reason involves a degree of moral fault.
Periodic continence is morally permissible because it fulfills the other ends of marriage (mutual love and fidelity, alleviation of concupiscence) and because it does not physically hinder the natural processes of conception.
2. Requisite Conditions.
Mutual consent or willingness of the spouses.
Ability properly to observe periodic continence without danger of sin.
Sufficient justification or cause, just and grave, either medical, eugenic, economic, or social, which justifications are outlined by various theologians.
3. Gravity of the Various Obligations.
The issues involved with NFP were not fully discussed by pre-Vatican II theologians.
The gravity of an obligation (if any) to exercise the marriage right during fertile periods was not clearly established.
Neither was the gravity of the unjustifiable use of periodic abstinence.
Do not presume that the defection of the post-Vatican II hierarchy gives you the right to settle all this, and then tell Catholic couples they are committing sin. Your article was ill-advised and very harmful. I suggest you issue a retraction and an apology to your readers.
— The Rev. Anthony Cekada
(September 1998)
Scenario:
A Woman is undergoing a intensive pharmaceutical regimen (say, of Anti-Cancer drugs) which render her womb a chemically-hostile environment for any developing unborn baby.
Which is the most Morally-Licit course of action?
If I am correct in my understanding of Roman Catholic teaching, I believe that this type of scenario would describe the sort of "grave circumstance" in which the Pope has claimed the usage of NFP may be temporarily permissible and appropriate.
Well? What say you all??
Always Learning (or trying to, day-by-day), OP
I don't understand the title of this article. NFP can't be a "heresy" since heresy involves denying a dogma of the deposit of faith. This is a moral issue only.
So...saying that homosexuality is normal would not be heresy for a Catholic? Or saying adultery is not sinful would not be heresy for a Catholic?
Or...saying that CONTRACEPTION is morally licit is not heresy?
Remember, the deposit of Faith includes doctrines and dogmas concerning Faith and Morals. We are NOT discussing a mere matter of Church discipline here.
So, one may commit heresy in matters of Morals, if the opinion is contrary to a defined teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium.
Therefore, one may indeed commit heresy by maintaining that NFP is always sinful.
The silence is deafening. Thank you for commenting, OP.
Mr. Ibranyi claims that Pius XII lost his office for contradicting a supposed Catholic dogma against periodic continence proclaimed by Pius XI. Obviously moral issues can be raised to the dogmatic level - Cardinal Journet commented after "Humanae Vitae" that the doctrine was so well established that a dogmatic definition of the matter was possible.
My understanding of the doctrine is that the use of NFP in itself is never sinful - what is sinful is the failure to provide for the social justice duty of having enough children to replace the current population and create some growth. In the situation you posit, there would therefore be no moral problem with using NFP. Hermann has posted some interesting stuff about this here before: here's one of the texts:
MORAL THEOLOGY: A Complete Course * Based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities * By JOHN A. McHUGH, O.P. And CHARLES J. CALLAN, O.P. REVISED AND ENLARGED BY EDWARD P. FARRELL, O.P., Vol. 2"PART II SPECIAL MORAL THEOLOGY (Continued)
THE DUTIES OF MEMBERS OF SOCIETY
Art. 2: THE DUTIES OF MEMBERS of DOMESTIC AND CIVIL SOCIETY ...2622. Is Birth-Control Ever Lawful? -- (a) If this refers to an * end * (viz., the limitation of the number of children or the spacing of their arrival), it is not unlawful in itself (see 2617) ; and it is sometimes a duty, as when the wife is in very poor health or the family is unable to take care of more.
But in view of the decline and deterioration in populations today, it seems that couples who are able to bring up children well should consider it a duty to the common welfare to have at least four children, and it should be easy for many to have at least a dozen children. The example of those married persons of means who are unable to have a number of children of their own, but who adopt or raise orphaned little ones, is very commendable. ...
Since the * Allocution *, the more common opinion in this country asserts that the Holy Father taught: 1) that married people who use their marital right have a duty to procreate; 2) that this duty is binding under pain of sin; 3) there are, however, reasons that excuse the couples from this obligation and, should they exist for the whole of married life, the obligation does not bind them at all; 4) the sin does not consist in the exercise of marital rights during the sterile periods; but in abstention from intercourse during the fertile periods precisely to avoid conception, when the couple could have and should have made its positive contribution to society. Sin is present when the practice is unjustifiedly undertaken; 5) the formal malice of illicit periodic continence is not against the sixth commandment; i.e., against the procreation of children or the use of the generative faculty, but against the seventh commandment, i.e., against social justice. The couple is not making its contribution to the common good of society; 6) from 4 and 5 above, it follows that the individual acts of intercourse during a period of unjust practice of rhythm do not constitute numerically distinct sins. Rather, granting the continuance of a single will act to practice rhythm, there is one sin for the whole period of illicit abstention during the fertile periods.
Since the Pope abstained from an explicit statement on the gravity of the sin, the controversy of whether the practice intrinsically is a mortal sin or not continued. The opinion in this country which holds the greatest authority states that mortal sin is involved in the ease of continued practice with a total exclusion of children and frequent use of marital rights during the sterile period.
Diversity of opinion has arisen as to the means of estimating when a serious sin has been committed. Some have used a temporal norm, e.g., unjustified use of rhythm for five or six years would constitute a serious matter. Undoubtedly most of the proponents of this norm would not accuse a couple of certain mortal sin if they already have one or more children; after that, indefinite use of the practice without excusing causes would not be a mortal sin. (This is admitted by most theologians.) Others have proposed a numerical norm as a basis to determine whether or not a couple has made its contribution to the conservation of the race. Concretely the proponents of this theory regard four or five children as sufficient to satisfy the obligation in such a way;
a) that the use of rhythm to limit the family to this number is licit provided the couple is willing and morally able to practice it;
b) that the limitation through rhythm to less than four requires a serious justifying cause. The intention involved to prevent conception would be seriously sinful in itself, since it causes great harm to the common good and involves in practice subordination of the primary to the secondary end or ends of matrimony. At the present time this opinion seems to be more favored in America than the first which places the gravity of the sin in the unjustified practice of rhythm for five years. (For a survey of recent opinion, see * The Conference Bulletin of the Archdiocese of New York *. Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, pp. 36 ff.)
On the other hand, some European theologians have denied that the practice constitutes a mortal sin in itself, independently of circumstances such as injustice and danger of incontinence.
To my knowledge, the Pope, or at least the Church in general has NOT claimed that NFP is only to be used in extraordinary circumstances. It is to be used until you want anoter child.
I fully understand the hardships involved in following the precepts of the Church, and I personally am not casting judgement. Here is truly a case for ones own conscience.
I'm just stating what I believe the orthodox rules are.
The Church recently bestowed Sainthood to a woman who gave up her own life so that her unborn baby might live.
Extremely poor form my man. What has the Popes apostacy have to do with sedevacantism? I thought you were a knowledgeable person, I guess I had you confused with someone else.
"Because NFP has been taught as morally licit in grave circumstances by quite a few recent Popes now."
Which Popes would that be? specifically
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.