An Open Letter to the Catholic Church on the Contraception Controversy
Contents:
Can Pope Francis clean up God’s bank?
Some cardinals and bishops distanced themselves from the pope, pointing out that the document was not infallible teaching and that people had to follow their conscience. And much of the laity worldwide did follow their own consciences. In , the Pew Research Center found 8 percent of American Catholics agree that using contraceptives is morally wrong.
Catholic couples felt that they understood the situation better than celibate males. It is uncertain how many Catholics left the church over this teaching, but it is clear that even more stayed, continued to go to Communion, and simply ignored it. This was a remarkable change for Catholics who had deferred to the clergy on moral and doctrinal teaching. Some in the hierarchy blamed dissenting theologians for leading the people astray. While it is true that the public debate eased the consciences of some Catholics, the vast majority of Catholic couples were making up their minds on their own.
In fact, studies found that increasing numbers of Catholics were already using contraceptives in the s. It quickly became a dispute over church authority. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, Poland, was a member of the papal commission studying the question of birth control. The man who would become St.
John Paul II missed the last meeting during which a majority of the commission voted in favor of changing church teaching. As a result, his position on birth control was not well known. If his opposition to birth control had been widely known, would he have been elected pope? Certainly, any cardinal who supported changing the church teaching and voted for him regretted it later. He was scandalized by the opposition of theologians and bishops to papal teaching. As a product of a persecuted church, he understood the importance of church unity.
Once elected pope, he launched an inquisition against moral theologians who had spoken out against the encyclical.
How the Catholic Church came to oppose birth control
One can comply with them and use them to advantage, but they cannot be "violated" by artificial interference. In , the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family stated:. The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable.
Christian views on birth control
Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life the procreative aspect of matrimony , and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses the unitive aspect of matrimony ; it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life. A summary of the Scriptural support used by Catholics against contraception can be found in Rome Sweet Home , an autobiography by the Catholic apologetics Scott and Kimberly Hahn , both of whom are converts to the Catholic Church from Protestantism.
Among the Scripture included in the book are the following lines from Psalm Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies at the gate. Catholic scholar Cormac Burke has written an anthropological non-religious evaluation of the effect of contraception on marital love, "Married Love and Contraception", to argue that "contraception does in fact denaturalize the conjugal act, to the extent that, far from uniting the spouses and expressing and confirming the love between them in a unique way, it tends to undermine their love by radically contradicting the full mutual self-giving that this most intimate act of the marital relationship should signify.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 's instruction Dignitas Personae reiterates church opposition to contraception, mentioning new methods of interception and contragestion , notably female condoms and morning-after pills , which are also "fall within the sin of abortion and are gravely immoral". However, Father Tad Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania stated in March that contraceptives are permissible if the sex is non-consensual, such as events of rape and sexual assault.
In , the BBC 's Panorama stated that church officials have taught that HIV can pass through the membrane of the latex rubber from which condoms were made. It was considered not true according to the World Health Organization. In an interview on Dutch television in , Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels argued that the use of condoms should be supported to prevent AIDS if sex with a person infected with HIV should take place, though it is to be avoided.
According to Danneels, "the person must use a condom in order not to disobey the commandment condemning murder, in addition to breaking the commandment which forbids adultery. Protecting oneself against sickness or death is an act of prevention. Morally, it cannot be judged on the same level as when a condom is used to reduce the number of births.
He proposed "spiritual and human awakening" and "friendship for those who suffer" as solutions. The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times , when asked whether the Catholic Church were not opposed in principle to the use of condoms, stated:. She [the Catholic Church] of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.
Benedict cited the example of the use of condoms by male prostitutes as "a first step towards moralisation", even though condoms are "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection". In a statement to explain his saying, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirmed that the church considered prostitution " gravely immoral ":. However, those involved in prostitution who are HIV positive and who seek to diminish the risk of contagion by the use of a condom may be taking the first step in respecting the life of another even if the evil of prostitution remains in all its gravity.
Roderick Hindery reported that a number of Western Catholics have voiced significant disagreement with the church's stance on contraception. They insisted that "a Catholic Christian is not free to form his conscience without consideration of the teaching of the magisterium , in the particular instance exercised by the Holy Father in an encyclical letter". Catholics believed that one could be a good Catholic without obeying the church's teaching on birth control. Catholics thought that the church should allow Catholics to use birth control.
An official document of the Russian Orthodox Church prohibits contraception except when it is specifically approved by a confessor , does not involve the possibility of aborting a conceived child, is for reasons of inability to raise a child, and is done with spousal consent.
Eastern Orthodox believers, on all sides of the issue, tend to believe that contraceptive acceptance is not adequately examined, and that any examination has too often become tied up in identity politics, the more accepting group accusing the categorically opposed group of Roman Catholic influence. Many Orthodox hierarchs and theologians from around the world lauded Humanae vitae when it was issued.
Pope Paul VI banned contraception for Catholics in the encyclical, “ Humanae Vitae. As a scholar specializing in both the history of the Catholic Church and . The Catholic Church had changed its stance on many controversial Write an article and join a growing community of more than 77, Fifty years ago a fierce debate erupted in the Catholic Church over However, it wasn't the first papal document to prohibit contraception use. Catholic Church, each and every conjugal act must be open to life. Even though Humanae Vitae largely affirmed an established teaching, it was still controversial.
Among these Orthodox leaders, some teach that marital intercourse should be for procreation only, while others do not go as far and hold a view similar to the Roman Catholic position, which allows Natural Family Planning on principle while at the same time opposing artificial contraception. Other Orthodox Church leaders maintain this interpretation is too narrowly focused on the procreative function of sex, not enough on its unitive function, and thus allow more freedom for contraceptive use among married couples.
Some Orthodox Christians, like Roman Catholics, consider using contraceptives not only a sin, but also a " mortal sin " [40] in the manner of "unnatural carnal sins", along with homosexuality, bestiality, masturbation, etc. As part of the Protestant Reformation, Reformers began to more strongly emphasize the unitive pleasures of marriage. For example, while also teaching and encouraging love and acceptance of children, the Conservative Mennonite Conference maintains, "The prevention of pregnancy when feasible by birth control with pre-fertilization methods is acceptable.
Not only are all types of artificial birth control forbidden in Old-Order Amish communities, but any varieties of natural family planning , such as calendar-based methods , are also condemned. This trend is more pronounced in communities where few of the men earn their living through farming.
The Hutterite Brethren use contraception only if it is recommended by a physician. The Cooperites do not permit the use of birth control. The Anglican Communion , including the Church of England , condemned artificial contraception at the and Lambeth Conferences. At the Lambeth Conference it was stated that the responsibility for deciding upon the number and frequency of children was laid by God upon the consciences of parents "in such ways as are acceptable to husband and wife". The Southern Baptist Convention , the largest Baptist denomination in the world and largest Protestant denomination in the United States, initially welcomed the invention of birth control and legalization of abortion, but religious morality among its faithful shifted beginning in the s with the Moral Majority and resulted in condemnation of legal abortion and religious freedom from government promotion of contraception in schools; subsequently, after the contraceptive mandate was passed, attitudes shifted further, and as of , there appears to have been a shift towards outright moral disapproval of contraception.
In a recent resolution endorsing insurance coverage for contraceptives, the church affirmed that "contraceptive services are part of basic health care" and cautioned that "unintended pregnancies lead to higher rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, and maternal morbidity, and threaten the economic viability of families". See for instance "The Christian Case against Contraception: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America allows for contraception in the event the potential parents do not intend to care for a child.
For example, in the Lutheran Churches of the Reformation passed a resolution titled "Procreation" stating that birth control, in all forms, is sin, although they "allow for exegetical differences and exceptional cases casuistry ", for example, when the woman's life is at risk.
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The United Methodist Church , holds that "each couple has the right and the duty prayerfully and responsibly to control conception according to their circumstances". Its Resolution on Responsible Parenthood states that in order to "support the sacred dimensions of personhood, all possible efforts should be made by parents and the community to ensure that each child enters the world with a healthy body, and is born into an environment conducive to realization of his or her potential".
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To this end, the United Methodist Church supports "adequate public funding and increased participation in family planning services by public and private agencies". Along with these general acceptances, many movements view contraception use outside of marriage as encouragement to promiscuity. For example, Focus on the Family states,. Sex is a powerful drive, and for most of human history it was firmly linked to marriage and childbearing. In the Soviet Union , Literaturnaja Gazeta , a publication of Soviet intellectuals, included an editorial and statement by Russian physicians against the encyclical.
Ecumenical reactions were mixed. Eugene Carson Blake criticised the concepts of nature and natural law , which, in his view, still dominated Catholic theology, as outdated. This concern dominated several articles in Catholic and non-Catholic journals at the time. In Latin America , much support developed for the Pope and his encyclical. As World Bank President Robert McNamara declared at the Annual Meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group that countries permitting birth control practices will get preferential access to resources, doctors in La Paz, Bolivia , called it insulting that money should be exchanged for the conscience of a Catholic nation.
In the book "Nighttime conversations in Jerusalem. On the risk of faith. With the encyclical, he wanted to express consideration for human life. He explained his intention to some of his friends by using a comparison: It is up to the moralists to explain where sin begins, especially in the cases in which there is a higher duty than the transmission of life.
Pope Paul VI was troubled by the encyclical's reception in the West. Paul heard him out and said merely, "Yes, pray for me; because of my weaknesses, the Church is badly governed. Although polls show that many [ quantify ] Catholics dissent from church teaching on contraception, [57] there has nevertheless been a resurgence of support for it in certain quarters, from Roman Catholic theologians such as, Germain Grisez , Janet E.
They along with numerous Catholic authors and speakers such as such as Christopher West , Matt Fradd , Jason Evert , and Leah Darrow are currently advancing a deeper appreciation and understanding of the Church's teaching regarding sex and marriage. According to John L. Some Catholic bishops have brought out documents of their own defending Humanae Vitae.
Albino Luciani 's views on Humanae vitae have been debated. Moreover, as Patriarch in Venice some had seen a hardening of his stance on social issues as the years went by. It would have remained a more 'open' question". The book states that " After he became pope in , John Paul II continued on the Catholic Theology of the Body of his predecessors with a series of lectures, entitled Theology of the Body , in which he talked about an original unity between man and women , [64] purity of heart on the Sermon on the Mount , marriage and celibacy and reflections on Humanae vitae , focusing largely on responsible parenthood and marital chastity.
In , the Pope's Apostolic exhortation, Familiaris consortio restated the Church's opposition to artificial birth control stated previously in Humanae vitae. John Paul II readdressed some of the same issues in his encyclical Veritatis splendor. He reaffirmed much of Humanae vitae , and specifically described the practice of artificial contraception as an act not permitted by Catholic teaching in any circumstances.
The same encyclical also clarifies the use of conscience in arriving at moral decisions, including in the use of contraception.
The authority which the magisterium enjoys by the will of Christ exists so that the moral conscience can attain the truth with security and remain in it. Pope John Paul's encyclical, Evangelium vitae "The Gospel of Life" , affirmed the Church's position on contraception and multiple topics related to Culture of life. He put the encyclical in the broader view of love in a global context, a topic he called "so controversial, yet so crucial for humanity's future.
What was true yesterday is true also today. Benedict states, that the fullness of a person is achieved by a unity of soul and body, but neither spirit nor body alone can love, only the two together. If this unity is broken, if only the body is satisfied, love becomes a commodity. On 16 January , Pope Francis said to a meeting with families in Manila, insisting on the need to protect the family: I think of Blessed Paul VI.
The war against Pope Francis
At a time when the problem of population growth was being raised, he had the courage to defend openness to life in families. He knew the difficulties that are there in every family, and so in his Encyclical he was very merciful towards particular cases, and he asked confessors to be very merciful and understanding in dealing with particular cases. But he also had a broader vision: Paul VI was courageous; he was a good pastor and he warned his flock of the wolves who were coming. A year before, on 1 May , Pope Francis , in an interview given to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera , expressed his opinion and praise for Humanae Vitae: Paul VI himself, in the end, urged confessors to be very merciful and pay attention to concrete situations.
But his genius was prophetic, he had the courage to take a stand against the majority, to defend moral discipline, to exercise a cultural restraint, to oppose present and future neo-Malthusianism.
The question is not of changing doctrine, but of digging deep and making sure that pastoral care takes into account situations and what it is possible for persons to do. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Catholic Church and abortion. The neutrality of this section is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.
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