[thefrankbaum]

A question for clarification: the test outlined, 2 and 3 are certainly taught definitively and infallibly, but 1 isn't necessarily infallible...is it? Humanae Vitae was not ex cathedra, nor has contraception been defined by a Council. That leaves the whole of the bishops teaching in unison as the source of infallibility, and I'm not sure that is the case.

If I'm correct, doesn't that make the statement "A faithful Catholic cannot reject those teachings" incorrect? It requires religious submission if it is a definitive teaching that is fallible. Thus, although the standard is high (very, very, very high), you can reject that teaching.

Not trying to stir the pot (I think I've proven my bona fides on this forum already), but, in an article about Catholic Orthodoxy, we should try and be as correct as possible, without letting our own perspective in. And maybe I'm nuts and it is an infallible teaching - very possible ;-)

[Salvation]

I believe the little 1,2,3, test is all correct.

[Salvation]

More from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

                From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (click on the book for the link.)    

2399 The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).

2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.

[Mad Dawg]

In an answer guaranteed to frustrate, I say that (IMHO, of course, and this is NOT my area of expertise -- in fact I don't HAVE an area of expertise) H.V. is not obviously infallible. It's infallibility is debatable. (And of course, that part of an encyclical is infallible does not imply that the entire thing is).

But very good arguments have been made that the prohibition of ABC is infallible and I'[m inclined in that direction myself.