Posted on 02/26/2012 1:22:06 PM PST by NYer
In this picture made available by the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI greets the faithful of the Pontifical Academy for Life during a private audience at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano, Handout)
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday urged infertile couples to shun artificial procreation, decrying such methods as a form of arrogance.
Speaking at the end of a three-day Vatican conference on diagnosing and treating infertility, Benedict also reiterated church teaching that marriage is the only permissible place to conceive children. Matrimony "constitutes the only 'place' worthy of the call to existence of a new human being," he said.
The pope pressed the church ban against artificial procreation, saying infertile couples should refrain from any method to try to conceive other than sex between husband and wife.
"The human and Christian dignity of procreation, in fact, doesn't consist in a 'product,' but in its link to the conjugal act, an expression of the love of the spouses of their union, not only biological but also spiritual," Benedict said.
He told the science and fertility experts in his audience to resist "the fascination of the technology of artificial fertility. Benedict cautioned the experts against "easy income, or even worse, the arrogance of taking the place of the Creator," an attitude he indicated underlies the field of artificial procreation.
Sperm or egg donation and methods such as in vitro fertilization are banned by the church for its faithful.
The emphasis on science "and the logic of profit seem today to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation," the pope said.
But he added that the Church encourages medical research into infertility.
One can depend on the press to show their ignorance of the English language. Our concern about Obama is not his pride but his willingness to arrogate to himself the legislative power that the Constitution has vested in Congress. He is a tyrant.
She is like the woman with a brutal husband who hires someone to shoot him to death. We put aside the injustice that has been done to her, and while we understand, we cannot ignore the horror she has let loose.
Given that she only has two kids, maybe she hasn't yet figured out how children are made?! ;-)
Four questions then:
1) If it's as corrupt as you claim, why stay?
2) When did you receive Anointing of the Sick?
3) Why is there no record of a single woman being ordained a Priest in Scripture?
4) Explain specifically what you disagree with in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis?
Whackypedia?! You've got the world's largest library at your fingertips and you select Whackypedia as your source.
im pro-life.. I have been pro-life since I learned what abortion was..this is a HUGE stretch
this is NOT biblically wrong or unethical
There are also many older children that are bypassed for adoption because many couples only want babies today. But these children have the same needs for loving homes and could be a blessing to families. Perhaps this may be God's will for you and your husband?
I agree, that was a dumb thing for her to say! Your children are very blessed to have you as their mother.
Someday, I’m going to flip out and reply, “Why don’t you have more children? Erectile dysfunction? That must be a real trial for you ...”
Excellent example! That would get you an A++ and a bouquet of flowers on the "Word of the Day" thread.
The cultural consensus that children are very frightening, so *of course* we all want to limit their numbers, is overwhelming. People don’t even realize they’re being rude, because they’re just expressing what “everyone” knows.
The Pope, I believe, has hit on a key point: “arrogating” the power and authority to control life. It’s more socially acceptable to have a large multiple birth through IVF or ovulation stimulation that it is to have a large number of children, over many years, through the natural processes of marriage. The former shows that you’ve taken control, and the latter is frightening because you haven’t planned and deliberately caused it.
oh well....lucky for you, you didn’t have to stand next to an arrogant jerk, because that might have rubbed off somehow. ;)
LOL - good point.
If Christ chose only men despite his willingness to break many social norms where women are concerned, then it is because he wished to institute the ministerial role for men alone. Ordination does not simply give a man permission to perform the functions of a priest; it imparts to him an indelible (permanent) spiritual character that makes him a priest, and since Christ and His Apostles chose only men to be priests, only men can validly become priests.
The New Testament priesthood is the priesthood of Christ Himself. All men who, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, have become priests (or bishops) participate in Christ's priesthood. And they participate in it in a very special way: They act in persona Christi Capitis, in the person of Christ, the Head of His Body, the Church. Christ was a man.
The movement for women's ordination in the Catholic Church, therefore, will never get anywhere. Other Christian denominations, to justify ordaining women, have had to change their understanding of the nature of the priesthood from one which conveys an indelible spiritual character on the man who is ordained to one in which the priesthood is treated as a mere function. But to abandon the 2,000-year-old understanding of the nature of the priesthood would be a doctrinal change. The Catholic Church could not do so and remain the Catholic Church.
In your opinion.
No, of course not. The Pope (and the Catholic Church, and the Christian faith in general) don’t give a flying freep about fornication or the harm to children of unmarried parenthood. Why, St. Paul didn’t say a word about sexual immorality ... it was all, “Whatever feels good to you ... as long as you’re not judgmental ...”
(/s)
“If you know someone who has or you have experienced infertility, comments like yours will wound them.”
Maybe. But it didn't wound me.
Presented with the choice of having no children or going the IVF-and-other-technology-route, we chose no children. Or so we thought.
Realizing we wouldn't need all the money to raise children, we were all set to buy his-and-hers Mercedes-Benz roadsters when something unexpected happened...
... I still don't have the roadster, but I have - not one, but two - wonderful and excellent sons. I figure college tuition for both of them would have paid for two roadsters for each of us, my wife and me.
Having been there, I'm very sympathetic toward couples experiencing infertility. But the truth is the truth. There was nothing wounding about Campion's remark.
sitetest
Five hundred years from now ---- if the human race has not erased itself line by line and gene by gene, has not replaced itself with some race of Orcs, half-chimp and half-machine --- people will way that the turning point in our preservation as a species was the publication of Humanae Vitae in 1968.
Paul VI was thought a weak, Hamlet-like, vacillating pope. But he was a prophet: for those who have ears to hear.
Look up thread. There are many people hurt by it, and have attacked.
I was set to get a nice cabin, when we got pregnant. Wouldn’t trade my daughter for the world. But the pain many experience is very sharp.
We never considered IVF, because we didn’t want to kill the “extra” babies.
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