“Guys like Jerome, Augustine and Cyprian were instrumental in the development of the doctrine of Mary’s ever-virgin status.”
So then you ought to believe them since you are saying they were *right* about the body. Are they wrong or right? Or wrong about certain teachings and correct about others?
“I find it rather contradictory in principal that Rome considers entering marriage with the intention of never having children to be a “grave wrong and more than likely grounds for an annulment.” while praying to a women who went thru with a marriage apparently intending to do just that, according to Rome. And which is contrary to the “leave and cleave” description of marriage in Gn. 2:24 and personally confirmed by the Lord Jesus. (Mt. 19:5)”
Couple things here.
Mary was betrothed to Joseph. She did not ‘enter into the marriage agreement with the intention of never having children’.
She had no expectation of being chosen by Christ. When it did happen - she submitted to the Lord and became pregnant and gave birth through Christ.
Joseph has every right to end their marriage agreement at this point. He is not the father of her child. He can go and walk away, and the Law would not prevent him from doing so. However, Joseph makes a different decision.
Joseph decides to stay and marry Mary, to care for her and her child, even though her child is not his. He also chooses that in light of the exceptional circumstances, that she is consecrated to God, and respects that in his marriage.
Mary is a special case, due to the annunciation and the Virgin birth. How many women are virgins when they give birth? None. That’s the point. All but Mary conceive through sex and are not Virgins when they give birth, that status is reserved for Mary.
So that being said. Leave and cleave, apparently isn’t the doctrine of anyone but the Catholic church. The Catholic church preaches that cleave - means that the two become one and not two. Barrier methods of contraception are just that, a barrier - rather than 2 becoming one, you have 2 remaining 2. You are not really cleaving - you are holding back. Out of fear perhaps? I do not know.
Marriage is very special. It means that you are no longer belonging to you, but have an obligation to your husband and he to you. Contraception impairs this bond because it is an expression of bodily autonomy, that you can have me, but not all of me.
So really, there’s no contradiction here. Mary was consecrated to God through the annunciation and Joseph was not willing to break this.
“And He specified opposite genders as being what God joined, not as homosexual revisionists would have it.”
Which is why the bond is important here. As you said leave and cleave. Not leave, and make sure you’re protected.
“Guys like Jerome, Augustine and Cyprian were instrumental in the development of the doctrine of Mary’s ever-virgin status.”
So then you ought to believe them since you are saying they were *right* about the body. Are they wrong or right? Or wrong about certain teachings and correct about others?
Sorry, that was from MM and i forgot to put in italics, but she was not saying, nor do I, that the CFs were right about the body. They were not always right, and “they” can seldom be referred to as being in unity. But Rome infers that in requiring “unanimous consent of the fathers” in interpreting holy Scripture, (V 1, Ses. 3) and i think many Roman Catholics sometimes carelessly invoke them for support.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.: When one hears today the call for a return to a patristic interpretation of Scripture, there is often latent in it a recollection of Church documents that spoke at times of the ‘unanimous consent of the Fathers’ as the guide for biblical interpretation. But just what this would entail is far from clear. For, as already mentioned, there were Church Fathers who did use a form of the historical-critical method, suited to their own day, and advocated a literal interpretation of Scripture, not the allegorical. But not all did so. Yet there was no uniform or monolithic patristic interpretation, either in the Greek Church of the East, Alexandrian or Antiochene, or in the Latin Church of the West. No one can ever tell us where such a “unanimous consent of the fathers” is to be found, and Pius XII finally thought it pertinent to call attention to the fact that there are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, “nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous.” (fn. 24) Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Scripture, The Soul of Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), p. 70.
...it does sometimes happen that some Fathers understood a passage in a way which does not agree with later Church teaching. One example: the interpretation of Peter’s confession in Matthew 16.16-19. Except at Rome, this passage was not applied by the Fathers to the papal primacy; they worked out exegesis at the level of their own ecclesiasiological thought, more anthropological and spiritual than juridical. . . . Historical documentation is at the factual level; it must leave room for a judgement made not in the light of the documentary evidence alone, but of the Church's faith.” Yves M.-J. Congar, Tradition and Traditions: An Historical and a Theological Essay (London: Burns & Oats, 1966), pp. 398-399.
“I find it rather contradictory in principal that Rome considers entering marriage with the intention of never having children to be a “grave wrong and more than likely grounds for an annulment.” while praying to a women who went thru with a marriage apparently intending to do just that, according to Rome. And which is contrary to the “leave and cleave” description of marriage in Gn. 2:24 and personally confirmed by the Lord Jesus. (Mt. 19:5)”
Couple things here...
What i said about the exceptional status of this proposition still holds, even if it does not necessarily exclude exceptions.
So that being said. Leave and cleave, apparently isn’t the doctrine of anyone but the Catholic church. The Catholic church preaches that cleave - means that the two become one and not two. Barrier methods of contraception are just that, a barrier - rather than 2 becoming one, you have 2 remaining 2. You are not really cleaving - you are holding back. Out of fear perhaps? I do not know.
I actually agree, faith with temperance is to govern, and as said, such is the more historical Protestant position.
So really, there’s no contradiction here. Mary was consecrated to God through the annunciation and Joseph was not willing to break this.
“And He specified opposite genders as being what God joined, not as homosexual revisionists would have it.”
Which is why the bond is important here. As you said leave and cleave. Not leave, and make sure you’re protected.
Still, to leave and never cleave is unknown in Scripture between able souls, and though it is not impossible, the lack of mention is contrary to the manner of the Holy Spirit in making important exceptions manifest, from the number of fingers to being sinless. But believing in PV does not exclude one from salvation, much less ensure it, and so the real issue is the authority behind it, as expressed before.
Are you joking?!?!?!
From the church that hands out *annulments* even to those who've had children???
I don't know of any other denomination that offers church sanctioned divorce in disguise.
Besides, the two becoming one flesh was never predicated in Scripture on having children. Even without children, when the marriage is consummated, the two have become one flesh. It's more than just a physical union.
Otherwise you're saying that a marriage that doesn't produce children means the husband and wife are not *one flesh*.