Posted on 10/03/2008 8:05:10 AM PDT by Publius804
Pope reaffirms Church opposition to contraception
VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI on Friday reaffirmed the Catholic Church's condemnation of artificial birth control, a position that has driven millions of people away from the faith.
Contraception "means negating the intimate truth of conjugal love, with which the divine gift (of life) is communicated," the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics wrote on the 40th anniversary of a papal encyclical on the controversial topic.
The message came two months after an appeal for a retraction by some 60 Catholic groups who said the Church's stance had been "catastrophic" for the world's poorest and weakest.
The open letter in July by dissident Catholic bodies from countries including Britain, Brazil, Canada, France and the United States said the Church's opposition to birth control endangered women's lives and exposed millions of people to the risk of contracting AIDS.
It said the impact of the 1968 encyclical had been "disastrous in the southern hemisphere, where the Catholic leadership exercises considerable influence on the politics of family planning."
An encyclical is a letter usually treating some aspect of Catholic doctrine and issued occasionally by the pope.
The landmark document, whose title in English is "On the Regulation of Birth," was published at a time when the development of the Pill was giving new sexual freedom to women across the world.
Millions of Catholics distanced themselves from Rome as a result, while the clergy were divided on how to deal with such a document, covered as it was by the doctrine of papal infallibility.
The 81-year-old pope's message Friday to a seminar on the encyclical also reaffirmed that the rhythm method is an acceptable form of contraception for couples in "dire circumstances" who need to space their children.
(Excerpt) Read more at afp.google.com ...
Dire circumstances. I'd like to point that out for those who are so gushing about NFP that they practically treat it as an eighth sacrament.
I'm sure he didn't say "rhythm method," since that's been surpassed by NFP.
I am very happy to have the pope voice the Church’s opposition to contraception. Benedict should repeat this loudly and often.
“The open letter in July by dissident Catholic bodies from countries including Britain, Brazil, Canada, France and the United States said the Church’s opposition to birth control endangered women’s lives and exposed millions of people to the risk of contracting AIDS.”
I’d would LOVE to hear the “logic” behind that assinine contention.
Snort.
Freeper Lesson #421 on How to Read an Article:
If an article uses the term “Rhythm Method” in reference to acceptable forms of Catholic natural family planning, it either speaks out of ignorance or does so as a means of mocking Catholic practices. As a minimum, the article should be regarded as highly unreliable.
The rhythm method has been considered obsolete for at least 20 years and such calendar-based methods are not even classified as natural family planning by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Catholic church currenly promotes natural family planning methods that are based on fertility awareness, such as tracking of basal body temperature.
What is NFP?
At the First Things blog, Amanda Shaw writes about Contraception and the Churches and concludes there is a marriage vocation shortage:
....Before 1930, no Christian Church permitted the use of contraception, but that year’s Lambeth Conference, with its approval of contraceptive intercourse, was the beginning of the end. “If a church cannot tell its flock ‘what to do with my body,’ as the saying goes, with regard to contraception,” writes Eberstadt, “then other uses of that body will quickly prove to be similarly off-limits to ecclesiastical authority.” In short, homosexuality and sexual promiscuity will—and did—quickly follow.
It is worth noting that the link between contraception and the decay of sexual ethics was not first noticed by Eberstadt, nor by Pope Paul VI. With firm conviction, Pope Pius XI wrote Casti Connubi in December 1930, but the Catholic Church was hardly alone in it criticism. There was, for example, this editorial written in the Washington Post on March 22, 1931, immediately following the approval of the Lambeth resolution by the Federal Council of Churches in America. Anglican bishop Charles Gore does not falter, and, though few today would approve, his arguments have proven far too prophetic:
It is impossible to reconcile the doctrine of the divine Institution of marriage with any modernistic plan for the mechanical regulation or suppression of human birth. The church must either reject the plain teachings of the Bible or reject schemes for the “scientific” production of human souls. Carried to it’s logical conclusion, the committee’s report if carried into effect would sound the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be “careful and restrained” is preposterous.We often hear about the vocations crisis for ordained ministry and consecrated life. As a friend recently pointed out to me, we have today a major vocations crisis for marriage, too....It is the misfortune of the churches that they are too often misused by visionaries for the promotion of the “reforms” in fields foreign to religion. The departures from Christian teachings are astounding in many cases, leaving the beholder aghast at the willingness of some churches to discard the ancient injunction to teach “Christ and Him crucified.” If the churches are to become organizations for political and “scientific” propaganda they should be honest and reject the Bible, scoff at Christ as an obsolete and unscientific teacher, and strike out boldly as champions of politics and science as modern substitutes for the old-time religion.
More anti-Catholic conspiracy theoring.
Sort of depends on how you look at it, doesn’t it? I would argue that large families have lots of hands to help and hold each other, to help support the family. The only way modern society gets by without lots of children is by relying on the state instead of the family. The road to socializm is paved with contraception, FRiend.
Very astute point!
Agreed! Contraception & abortion both vigorously endorsed by leftists.
How did you get your arms out of that straight jacket?
Thanks. What’s the difference between that and rythym method?
Cite?
Okay, I've DARED to think about it.
My conclusion is that your arguments are stupid, and you've never bothered to actually educate yourself about the issue but just repeat the drivel you learned from anti-Catholic bigots.
DARE to think about that, and DARE to read what the other side has to say with an open mind. Start with Paul VI's prophecies in Humanae Vitae, and tell us which of those hasn't come true.
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