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CATHOLICISM AND BIRTH-CONTROL

SITES PROVING CATHOLIC DOCTRINE FORBIDS NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING

 

http://www.geocities.com/truechurch/sexuality.html

 

http://www.trosch.org/nfp/nfp-fohne.html

 

http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/Natural_Family_Planning.html

 

Rhythm - the Unhappy Compromise!

 

THIS SITE

SUMMARY

THEOLOGY AND BIRTH CONTROL

THE_BIBLE_AND_CONTRACEPTION_

THE NATURAL METHOD

REASON AND BIRTH CONTROL

 

SUMMARY  

Contraception is using pills and devices to prevent conception.  The Roman Catholic cult regards it as seriously sinful and has done its best to stop the use of condoms in Africa even though this has resulted in millions dying of AIDS.  It is clear that the Church has no right to be so dogmatic on such an issue for dogma can stifle the truth.  The Church does not want to see if condoms will help which is clear from the fact that a man having once-off sex is expected to do it without a condom and put himself and his partner at risk.  It does not care!  Some Catholics teach their ban doesn’t do any harm but still the fact remains that even if it does they still believe the ban should be.

 

Even if birth control were a sin, there is no justification or reason in the insistence of the Church that it is as bad as murder and you will go to Hell forever if you die unrepentant of the sin of birth control just like you would for murder.  The stance of the Church is extremism and bigotry.  The Church could teach that it is venial sin - this is sin that you have to pay for by suffering in Purgatory not a sin so serious that you would suffer punishment for it that never ends and which can never end.

 

The Church says that sex must be open to life at all times and yet it allows you to marry somebody you know is barren.  The hypocrisy is astounding.  It says you must let God plan your family.  This makes sense if there is a God which shows how dangerous the concept of God is but it means you are not to blame if pregnancy results and great misery happens because of it for it was God’s decision to send the baby.  This means if it is up to God it doesn’t matter if you use the safe period in which conception is less likely or not.  The Church says fertility is a blessing and is natural and not a disease so contraception is wrong and yet it allows you to wear contact lenses instead of getting laser surgery on your eyes even though the laser would be less unnatural.  It even lets you have a nose job though there is nothing wrong with irregular features!

 

Pius XI made in infallible statement in part 54,56 condemning birth control in his encyclical Casti Connubi: “No reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may be conformable to nature and morally good.  Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.  Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition, some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew, any use whatsoever of matrimony used in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offence against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of grave sin”.  

 

Catholic teaching is that uninterrupted tradition is infallible and any change is heresy.  The pope says that he is speaking with the Church and nobody can contradict him so he is speaking infallibly.  He says God has guided him and the Church to this decision. 

 

It is one of the heresies of the modern Church that natural family planning is fine for any reason but the actual teaching of the Church is that it is only allowed in grave and extreme cases!  The permitting of the natural method of the Catholic Church was introduced by Pius XII.  Tradition was wholly against him.  This modification of the teaching was heresy too. 

 

The natural method was only permitted because the encyclical of the previous pope, Pius XI, Casti Connubi was misunderstood.   That pope permitted sex if the couple was sterile or too old to reproduce.  This permission was misinterpreted without warrant to refer to the natural method in its Rhythm Method form or the use of the safe period.  The pope is thought to have written the following about those married couples who had sex during the infertile time of the month.  His encyclical says: “Nor are these considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner, although on account of natural reasons either of time or certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth” Pope Pius XI.  Time had to mean old age.  Certain defects refers to sterility.  It is stretching the meaning to think he meant the safe period with the intent to avoid children.   It contradicts what he said that nothing whatsoever must be done to prevent conception.  He did not mean the safe period because it is not fully safe.  He speaks of a condition in which new life cannot be brought forth so he is not thinking of it at all.

 

He says nothing of having sex while knowing a baby cannot come.   Back then there was no real way to be very sure.  All he is saying is that if a couple have sex when it may be the infertile time, they do not sin.  The reason they do not sin is because they don’t know the chances of conception and don't intend to avoid conception.  They are not sinning as long as they don't mean to prevent conception.  The pope gave no impunity from sin to those who had sex while believing a baby couldn’t result.  If you have sex with your wife and don’t know her chances of conceiving when it may be her infertile time there is no sin.  That is all he is saying.   

 

Pius XI had no problem with Catholics having sex during the safe period.  He just had a problem with them using this period as a form of birth control.  He never mentions in the encyclical that that is allowed.  The natural method was well known in his day.  For him, the birth control he meant included natural and artificial methods.

 

In 1951, Pope Pius XII, 29th October, said that natural family planning was allowed only when a doctor had decided the wife should have no more babies for it would destroy her health or when the family is afflicted by severe poverty.  So the circumstances are very abnormal. 

 

Natural family planning can lead to the same contraceptive mentality that the Church condemns contraception for: the feeling that a baby is a burden and not a gift from God and its conception is to be avoided.  With the doctrine that natural family planning is forbidden except in extreme circumstances, at least, you can hold that you really want a baby but can’t have one perhaps because another pregnancy could kill the mother. 

 

The Catholic Church and many other Churches claim to care about the family. 

 

If so why do they have no problem providing marriage for immature people, sixteen year olds, and people who may be unsuitable for raising children?  They are the people that claim that marriage is for procreation.  Where are the courses to prepare couples for children?

 

The Catholic Church condemns single mothers but nothing was said about Pope Pius IX taking a Jewish boy from his parents and raising him himself.   If single parents are so bad then why is the surviving member of a married couple one of whom died prematurely leaving children allowed and encouraged to keep the children?

 

It is up to each individual couple to decide for themselves if contraception is a bad thing or not in their marriage.  The Church tells them to believe it is bad.  But belief colours your perception.  No marriage is perfect.  The Church is encouraging couples to blame contraception for these normal imperfections and problems.  And they have to lay loads of blame on it for contraception is supposed to be a very very serious sin.  This is psychological manipulation.

 

If contraception causes problems in marriage, one answer would be for the husband and wife to maybe have plenty of affectionate sessions with no sex or no penetration, or to engage in masturbation sessions in which they watch one another masturbate (the Church says masturbation is a sin) so that they use it less. 

 

But if a husband and wife are intimate friends and intimate parents and not just intimate sexually the problems should not arise.  If contraception causes problems they must only be minor. 

 

The Church wants the use of contraception to stop.  It wants to stop a couple having the option.  If nobody uses condoms, they will disappear from our pharmacies and those who seek them will not find them.

 

Research shows that young people who are below 17 and who have sex are less likely to use contraception.  Church teaching is a dangerous influence on them at their impressionable age.  Research shows that young people who are informed by their parents about contraception are more likely to use it.  The Church would seek to block their right to know these things.  It is so unfair because most young people have sex from 17 to 19. 

 

The Natural Family Planning Method is no use to many teenagers and young women for their menstrual cycles are irregular.  There is no way to tell for sure when they are most likely to become pregnant.  And teenage stress and exam angst, heavy drinking, sickness, drugs, medication and travel can make periods so irregular that there is no point in trying to figure out when the woman is in danger of pregnancy.

 

 

Top of the Document

 

THEOLOGY AND BIRTH CONTROL

 

Everybody knows what the Catholic Church thinks about the pill, condoms, intrauterine devices and sterilisation.  It says they are all seriously wrong and never ever justified.  The Church however allows NPF, natural family planning based on the time during a woman's menstrual cycle when she is unlikely to conceive.  The Church says there is a huge moral difference between contraception and natural family planning.  It says contraception is suppressing fertility while natural family planning is working with it. 

 

Working with it?  Working around it more like!  It is still treating fertility as something to be avoided.  If that is okay, then contraception can't be wrong . If sex must be open to life, then why not allow condoms for they don't always give 100% protection anyway?  Even the Church says that contraception is not a sin if it practiced by people who seriously think that it is acceptable before God.  This tells us that it cannot be a sin unless it means people knowingly and evilly treat their fertility as a curse at least for a time.  But using NPF doesn't mean you don't have that kind of attitude.  Many users will have the attitude.  It is the attitude that causes the moral problem for the Church.  It is lunacy to say that contraception is wrong for it must always express a bad undesirable attitude. 

 

The Catholic Church teaches that artificial birth control is always immoral even when it is to prevent a husband infecting his wife with the AIDS virus.  The idea that contraception is bad has more to do with hatred of sexuality and the desire to see it punished by having unwanted babies than with any real concern for the people who use it or need it.  Contraception must be the worst sin possible when it is better if you are having sex to risk your life and bringing sick babies into the world to suffer by neglecting contraception.  Nothing is that bad that it can be banned under all circumstances.  The Church allows killing in self-defence for heaven’s sake!

 

The Catholic Church holds that all forms of birth control except using the safe period are always seriously wrong and deserve hellfire.  Pius XI said all family planning is sinful in 1930.  Pius XII said it was all sinful but the natural method in 1951, and on July 25th, 1968, Paul VI said the same in the infamous encyclical, Humanae Vitae.  In 1987, Pope John Paul II taught that theologians must never believe that the Church changing her stance on birth control is possible – in other words, standing by the teaching is more important than it being right or wrong.  The Church admits that it teaches that birth control is always wrong even when the large family cannot be sufficiently or adequately provided for (Question 1331, Radio Replies, Volume 1).  The Church even forbids the sterilisation of mentally retarded disabled people who could be forced to commit suicide by pregnancy or who will die if they carry a child (Question 1585 says this by implication, Radio Replies, Vol 1).  This is one reason for wishing there was no Roman Catholic God. 

 

The Church says that we eat not primarily for pleasure but to live so sex is primarily for making babies and not for pleasure (Question 1304, Radio Replies, Volume 1).  Then why is making babies harder for some than others?  I would say that we have no choice but to eat but we do have a choice with sex so having to eat to live does not mean that you have to have sex for babies.  The two are different.  Living being the main purpose of eating does not mean that the main purpose of sex has to always be having babies.  We eat for pleasure.  We do not eat curries and crisps to live.  We don’t need them just healthy foods.  Life and strength are by-products of this enjoyment.  We eat these "bad" foods principally for enjoyment.  Also we have birthday parties and wedding dinners not just for eating but to celebrate an occasion and promote fellowship among one another.   If eating food for enjoyment is not wrong then sex just for recreation cannot be wrong either.  What good is life without pleasure?  We eat for pleasure and to live so that we will have more pleasure.  The person who will be dead in a few hours is not eating to live and are we to say that he should not be allowed to eat?  Are we to condemn the child who eats a candy bar though the candy is nutritionally useless?  Eating for pleasure is good and so sex for pleasure is good.

 

If God put testicles on your dog, are you not defying God if you get the dog neutered?  Is that not denying that the testicles were a gift from God?  Many deaf people and many blind people say their problem is a blessing.  It must be a sin then for them to get a hearing aid and surgery to restore eyesight if that is the case. The Church says that fertility is a gift not an ailment so contraception is wrong and implies ingratitude towards God.  Since being deaf or blind is an ailment it is okay to do something to remedy it.  But maybe fertility is an ailment.  Maybe those who find it hard to conceive are what was intended by nature.  Just because most people are very fertile does not mean that this fertility is what we should call normal.  If you feel your good hearing is an ailment then that is what it is.  It depends on how you feel about it.  But here we have the Catholic Church ignoring this fact to decree a blanket condemnation of treating fertility as an ailment. 

 

And using contraception is not declaring fertility to be an ailment.  That is like saying that if you have sturdy legs and don't do much walking that you are declaring that your strength in your legs is an ailment!!!!

 

Eating is more important than procreating because if we didn’t eat nobody would procreate.  It follows then that eating for pleasure must be a far more graver and unnatural sin than contraception! I wish the pope would be consistent and teach this but he knows he doesn’t want to look like a fool.  The inconsistency shows that the Church is just paying lip service when it speaks about sex being a wonderful gift from God.

 

The Church says that using the condom violates the integrity of the sex act.  In other words, it distorts it.  If it is wrong and unnatural to use a condom during sex then it is wrong to be fed intravenously.  Such feeding then would be a violation of the act of eating. 

 

The Catholic Church claims to have the gift of infallibility which means that when the Church intends to, it gives a doctrine without error due to the protection of the Holy Spirit which must be believed in by the faithful on pain of excommunication and eternal damnation. The only rule is that infallible doctrines must not contradict the past doctrines and doctrines always adhered to by the Church are regarded as being without error.  The wickedness of contraception is one of the few doctrines that the Church has always adhered to.  Since Catholics only use infallibility to defend tradition and define it as divinely revealed when it is questioned this teaching must be infallible for the absence of a definition in this case is only to do with neglect not with doubt about the doctrine. 

 

It is disturbing how the Church claims to speak with authority on birth-control and to know that it is bad for us even without being able to foresee the exact statistics about how good or bad it will be in the long run and it is not able to speak with authority on other things.  It was never able to tell us if thalidomide, television and many other things would be better or worse in the long run.  The Church is just being inhuman.   

 

The Church was against birth control probably because it was supposed that each sperm was a person and to waste semen was mass murder.  The allegedly divinely inspired tradition is unreliable when it mistook birth control for murder.  Sex would be wrong except for children though it is impossible to see how it could ever be right when it results in more murders than lives.  But the murder theory was not the only reason.  Tradition always said that sex for love and pleasure and not for procreation was evil and was slightly sinful even for procreation.  Logically, when sex is always bad it must be badder than bad when it is just for love or fun.  St Augustine was horrified by anybody having sex during pregnancy!  Also, it could be that even if the Church was against contraception for the wrong reason before, it can be against it even after realising this for a different reason and that new reason could become authoritative tradition because it was the first opinion held and closest to the time of the apostles.  The present-day Church is tradition too.

 

Believing the murder theory did not stop the Church from allowing sex without precautions being taken to ensure that as many pregnancies as possible were made with the sperm and as little as possible was used.  She did not command that anyone who wasted sperm be put to death. 

 

The more reasons the Church gives in opposition to contraception, the more ridiculous and insane and irresponsible the Church sounds.

 

Top of the Document

 

THE BIBLE AND CONTRACEPTION

 

Catholics attempt to excavate arguments against contraception from the Bible, the purported word of God.

 

Adam and Eve were told by Jehovah to have children and fill the world but they were the originators of the human race and are different from other couples.

 

It is argued that Onan in Genesis 38 was condemned and punished by God not for birth control but for breaking his promise to father children for his dead brother as was the custom in those days.  But in Genesis this custom is not mentioned or is it said that it is our duty to follow it so it is probably the method of birth control.  The law mentions the custom later but that is irrelevant for Genesis was written before this bit.

 

The Bible says that God cursed Eve with the punishment that she would bring forth children in pain.  This evidently means that having babies today under anaesthetic to avoid pain is sinful.  The Church avoids saying that which shows how little faith it has in its Bible.  But it felt free to forbid attempts to avoid pain in the past.  Queen Victoria roused the wrath of the Church when she had a child under anaesthetic.  The Bible also implies that having a baby by Caesarean Section is immoral.  When the Bible is so strict about nature this unnatural method of birth must be sinful.  If it is sinful to have a birth with less pain thanks to modern drugs it must be even more sinful to use contraception.  This would be clear to a person who believes that contraception is immoral even when it is meant to prevent the conception of a child that will die of some dreadful genetic disease or when the woman cannot have another baby due to a heart defect for it will kill her.

 

The Law of Moses was harsh with married couples who had sex during menstruation.  It was made equal to adultery and sodomy for the penalty was being cut off meaning death for that was the punishment for these (Leviticus 18).  Sex with a woman who is menstruating was considered evil for it is unnatural as in being unable to produce children because there were ways to make it clean and still it was forbidden.

 

Malachi 3 tells us that God made husbands and wives one in wedlock so that they might bear him children.  If marriage is for babies then birth control is wrong.

 

The New Testament is against magic potions which it calls pharmakeia which would include potions for birth-prevention (Galatians 5:20; Revelation 18:23).  But the Bible forbade magic anyway and maybe they were forbidden because they didn’t work!  It is dishonest to argue that when the Bible condemns magic potions that it condemns birth control for that involved magic potions because it is the use of magic that the Bible has the problem with.

It is thought that when the Bible forbids homosexuality that it must be against contraception as well for it isn’t natural either.  But homosexuality might be too unnatural to be allowable so it could be different.  That is the dangerous implication of the thought. 

 

The Church teaches that even if her teaching is wrong, God still uses the Church to represent him and to guide the world and won't discredit it.  So if she wrongly forbids contraception, God will ensure that that this ban will not do harm, will be good and certainly no worse than it would be if the Church allowed contraception.  Obedience is a duty for the Catholic even if the Church is wrong.  Disobeying is a mark of disobedience to God.  Needless to say, the Church holds that it is impossible for her to be wrong about the immorality of birth control.

 

If you believe in birth control, if you believe a wife who is subject helplessly to rape by her husband every night should not protect herself by taking the pill, then dump the Catholic Church.  You are only kidding yourself if you think you can condone it and call yourself a Catholic.

 

Top of the Document

THE NATURAL METHOD

 

The Church holds that the primary purpose of sex is to create new life.  Against those who say the main reason for sex is that the husband and wife love each other the Church argues that creating a new life is the supreme act of love so it is the primary reason.  If the husband and wife really love each other they will want to let God give them this supreme gift, a child, if he so wills.  If God wishes to cement them closer, he will send them a child.

 

The Catholic Church allows the natural method of birth control, having sex only during the time of the month when a woman cannot often conceive, but only when the parents cannot absolutely afford to have another child.  But the Church says you will always manage for God sends babies and can look after them and if anything bad happens it is his will.  So the only justification would be to prevent the mother having a pregnancy that could destroy her health.  The Church is more flexible than that however.  It is impossible to see how anything other than abstinence could be enjoined in the case of a couple in which the woman becoming pregnant could kill her.

 

Strictly speaking the natural method is not birth control at all for it is still open to life – but life is less likely to happen when it is used.  This is why the Church affirms that contraception and the natural method are different for they have different purposes.  The first is to prevent life and the latter is just to delay it.

 

Some Catholics use the method without intending to have a child.  If they were godly, they would have their sex open to life and intend God to make a baby for them if he so wills.  But if they intend it then why do they have sex in such a way as to reduce the chances?  The answer is that they say that they intend it if God does.  God can do the unlikely.  It must be a sin for Catholic couples to ever have sex while intending that no baby will come. 

 

Many users of the natural method have sex that is open to life and intend not to have a baby.  For the Church, their action is good but their intention is bad.  The Church says that doing good with the wrong intention is wrong.  It defiles and mocks the good.

 

The Church says that actions are good or evil even if you always mean well by them.  That is to say, your maths homework could be bad though you did it with the best of intentions.  That is to say, the homework is objectively wrong and bad but you are just a good person who has done bad things without meaning to. But you would still be a bad person - it would just be your heart that is good.  A doctor who thinks vitamin pills cure all ills is a bad person for he is doing harm even if he doesn't realise it.

 

What is more important then being good and meaning to be or merely meaning/intending to be good while misguidedly doing great harm?  It is easy to intend to be good no matter what you do.  Hitler certainly believed he was doing the world a favour by destroying the Jews.  So being good would be more important.  If Hitler thought he was doing God's will and was sincere then he would have gone to Heaven.

 

The Church allows the use of the contraceptive pill by women to regulate the menstrual cycle so that the safe period would be found easier but not to prevent conception and thermometers and other devices are allowed to help work it out too. 

 

The natural method is not really natural when it cannot work without calendars and thermometers and machines and so on.  The contraceptive pill may even be needed to regulate the safe time.  That the Catholic Church allows it then, bears witness to its inconsistency.  And when human beings are not subject to mating seasons like animals it shows that sex in us is about love and pleasure and not just making babies.

 

The Church doctrine is that God created the safe time for people who had no choice but to have sex but also limit their family.  In Humanae Vitae, Paul VI wrote that God in his wisdom had created a safe time in the menstrual cycle in which a woman could have sex and not have children so that she has some control over her fertility (page 424-425, Vicars of Christ).  The safe time was meant to leave it open to God if he decided the husband and wife were wrong and a baby should be caused by his power through them.  Using contraceptive pills and other contraptions to make the method work denies this doctrine.  To be consistent the Church should forbid all helps in the method. 

 

There is no doubt the doctrine that God has prepared a time in the menstrual cycle which alone is to be used to regulate births is behind the whole Roman opposition to contraception.  Using pills and thermometers to work out the safe period would be denying this doctrine for it implies that God did not do enough to make this period safe.  It would be seeking more protection than the method is meant to allow.  It would be trying to blasphemously do better than God.  The Catholic to be consistent should be using the safe period under exactly the same conditions as women in pre-scientific times, say the 1200s, would have used it.  When God wanted women then to use the period without thermometers and pills to regulate the cycle then it is good enough for women today.   Catholics who proclaim the accuracy of the safe-period method give up any right to do so when they use modern helps.

 

No matter what Rome says, a man who has his wife using the popes method of family limitation is putting religious theory before his wife and should not have a wife.

 

The Church says that artificial birth control is bad for sex is primarily for making babies.  If that is true then hoping to avoid contraception in the natural method is sinful.  The Church is deceiving because the Church lets people who are barren or past the age for having children have sex in marriage.  She says that these are open to life as far as the will goes for they would have babies if they could and that justifies the sex.  But it doesn’t for they did not need to get married and the Church should check that only fertile couples can marry.  And who would intend his seventy-year-old wife to get pregnant?  You have to intend it under the existing circumstances for it is no use if you intend it only if your wife turns into a thirty year old for that means you don’t will the pregnancy under the present situation. 

 

It is like claiming to be open to murdering when you shoot at a car there is nobody in.  Still the Church says that male homosexuality is no less a sin if you wish your partner was female. 

 

In Roman Catholicism, tradition that allegedly goes back all the way to the apostles is what has authority as a revelation from God.  The modern popes’ claim that the doctrine that only the safe period is to be used for spacing out births and that the Church has always taught this is not true and the Church knows it.  There was no proof that the safe period existed until modern times.  Many thought it did in the past and few had any success with it but that is all.  But how could a tradition based on something only found out recently have always been the tradition of the Church?  To hide the truth about something so important and what has many tragic consequences is unspeakably cruel.

 

The permitting of the natural method of the Catholic Church was introduced by Pius XII.  Tradition was wholly against him so modification of the contraception ban was heresy. 

 

It was only permitted because the encyclical of the previous pope, Pius XI, Casti Connubi was misunderstood.   The pope permitted sex if the couple was sterile or too old to reproduce.  This permission was misinterpreted without warrant to refer to the Rhythm Method or the use of the safe period.  The encyclical says: “Nor are these considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner, although on account of natural reasons either of time or certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth” Pope Pius XI.  It is stretching the meaning to think he meant the safe period.  It contradicts what he said that nothing whatsoever must be done to prevent conception.  He did not mean the safe period because it is not fully safe.  He speaks of a condition in which new life cannot be brought forth so he is not thinking of it at all.

 

The natural method denies that sex is for forming a bond between man and wife.  It makes them go to bed when they may not be feeling very loving.  It is cold and clinical.  The fear of it going wrong would be enough to turn sex into a chore.  The woman especially would have more fear than the man for she will suffer the worst if she gets pregnant and has a baby.  Feminists often see it as a scheme to turn sexual love into sexual abuse of the female.

 

The Church decrees that sex must always be open to life which is why this “natural” method is allowed.  There is still a small but very significant chance that pregnancy will result.

 

Nearly all methods of birth control can be said to be open to life for they might fail.

 

If the Church knew the meaning of the word truth it would order you to have sex during the most fertile times only.  Yet it has been known to boast that its methods are even better than artificial means.

 

The Catholic Church has done grave and unforgivable injury to the world, especially to its poor, by forbidding birth control and sterilisation.  There are too many people in this world as it is.  The Church says we should be feeding the poor instead of giving them birth control.  But why can’t it tell us to do both?  There would be fewer people to starve if contraception were available.  We will all starve and die if the birth rate soars on up. 

 

If a man needs to have his sperm analysed to see why he cannot father children the Church decreed he could use a perforated condom during sex with his wife so that there would be a little sperm in the condom for medical tests (page 433, Vicars of Christ).  This makes no sense for if sperm belongs in the vagina to create life as the Church says then it is evil to take sperm that might make the woman pregnant instead of the sperm inside her.  The rule that sperm belongs in the vagina which is natural if sex is mainly for creating life forbids testing sperm.

 

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REASON AND BIRTH CONTROL

 

Rational arguments against contraception do not work.  But that does not stop the learned philosophers and theologians from employing them.

 

It is said that it is better to let God plan your family for he is so wise instead of trying to prevent conception. (Those who say this then deny that God has planned it when a girl gets pregnant out of marriage!  Oh the hypocrisy!)  But you could tell a sick man on this logic that it is wiser for him to keep away from doctors and hospitals and to trust in God than to get medical attention.  If we should trust in God alone concerning family planning then we should do it in everything else.  It is no use to object that God would not let a baby be conceived unless he had a purpose for it and that that makes a difference for he is supposed to have a purpose for everybody who has life in them.  If Catholics trust God to plan their families then what are they using the natural method of birth prevention for?  They don’t believe their argument at all!  Some might reply that they are using a period in the month when God has no desire to produce a child and he lets them have sex so they don’t trust God any less.  But if that is true, then why can’t somebody using condoms say that condoms are gifts from God for he has no desire to produce a child?  If using condoms is mistrust then so is the natural method.

 

The Church says that contraception contradicts the whole body language of the sex act and turns it into a lie.  The man gives his body to the woman expressing that he gives himself selflessly to her and she does the same when she gives him her body.  To use contraception implies holding back.  But there has to be limitations.  Even the rule of love your neighbour as yourself says that.  The man and woman therefore would be doing wrong if they give all and keep nothing for themselves.  The man loves the woman as himself and the woman loves the man as herself.  Because everybody has different lives, different needs and tastes you can’t serve everybody the same way.  Because of differing circumstances sometimes the couple will only be loving one another as themselves if they use contraception.  The body language of sex is that the man and woman seek pleasure through one another and in a way that will enhance their lives and do no harm.  It is ridiculous to say that a man and woman having sex who do not want a child should have sex that is open to life, that is not self-giving but abuse.  The body language of sex requires contraception in such cases.  The body language implies the people should want to be together and to find joy in the sex.  There won’t be much joy if the sex is open to an unwanted child or a child that will be destined to inherit some awful genetic disease!

 

The Catholic doctrine that sex that is open to bringing children into the world when it is known the children will not live or die of AIDS or the birth will kill the mother is holy is horrendous.  That is not self-giving or love but hatred and evil and irresponsible. 

 

If sex is the body language of eternal self-giving then why didn’t God program animals to tend towards monogamy?

 

A lot of things could be interpreted as the language of self-giving not just sex.  When you give your time and your body and yourself to work for an employer you are giving yourself.  If sex means you are giving yourself this means it even more for work can be worse than marriage and you can’t have  a marriage without work and money.

 

The Church allows you to remarry if your spouse dies.  If sex implies the legitimacy of the extreme and puritanical self-giving misery that the Church wants for those who have sex then it is clear that if a man has sex with his wife and she dies he should never marry again because in the body-language of sex he gave his entire self to his dead wife.   “But she is dead”, you might say.  But that is not the point.  She could be nearly completely brain dead and the man wouldn’t be allowed another chance for there is still life in her.  But the point is, he gave her himself absolutely to the exclusion of all others.  He gave her the most valuable thing he had: himself indicating complete sacrifice.  This implicitly means that he cannot legitimately remarry if she dies!

 

It is tragic that even some people who disagree with the Church on contraception still praise the ideals behind the Church’s thinking.  This is worrying because such neurotic and unnatural self-sacrifice could never be praiseworthy.

 

To claim as the Church does, that contracepting sex is a lie is to accuse all who use it of bad faith.  But Catholics may object that they do not judge.  When they say that, they mean they judge the act not the person who commits it.  So they are accusing them of lying for only persons can lie.  Nobody could possibly agree that people have a right to lie to one another through sex so logically it is quite right for the Catholic Church to manipulate the law of the land to outlaw contraception just like it did in Ireland until recently.  It would imply that a wife has a duty to separate from her husband on the grounds that he can’t be trusted if he has a stronger belief in contraception than she has or if he wants contraception to be used.  Then to say we must be tolerant about contraception is to say we must be tolerant and accepting of people who lie to us which makes a laughing stock of belief in right and wrong.

 

The Church says that artificial birth control is evil for it is unnatural.  But so are glasses and clothes.  She says that Jesus was born unnaturally from a virgin.  The Church then responds that birth control is an unnatural sin and is not like wearing glasses for you wear glasses for there is something wrong with you but birth control is for preventing things from working as they should.  But when nature makes your body want sex when it is not the time to have a child there is something wrong with you and you need the contraception.  Why isn’t it an unnatural sin to wear glasses when you don’t need to, say when you are just pottering round the house?  We come before nature so we have to go against it all the time to live.

 

It is against natural law to cut your finger nails.  It is against nature to cut your throat.  The Church says that the first is neither immoral or moral.  It says the second is immoral.  It may be forced to admit that something cannot be condemned as morally wrong just because it is against physical nature.  So if it wants to condemn birth control it has to argue that it is an unnatural sin on the basis that it is natural law to exercise some self-control.  This idea denies that sexual love in marriage is good.  It can't be that loving when it needs to be controlled.  If the sex is loving then the more sex the better.

 

The failing to cut your finger nails and keep them tidy can indicate disrespect for yourself and those who see them.  The Church lies in making it neither immoral or moral.

 

Even if birth control were a sin, there is no justification or reason in the insistence of the Church that it is as bad as murder and you will go to Hell forever if you die unrepentant of the sin of birth control just like you would for murder.  The stance of the Church is extremism and bigotry.  The Church could teach that it is venial sin - this is sin that you have to pay for by suffering in Purgatory not a sin so serious that you would suffer punishment for it that never ends and which can never end.

 

Natural family planning treats your fertility as if it were something bad or dangerous which is why it lets the couple have sex when the fertility is out of the way.  It has that in common with contraception.  The Church again is condemning contraception though natural family planning should be condemned too.

 

You cannot condemn birth control for being unnatural for we have to go against nature all the time to live.  Potatoes are for growing.  Stones are for lying about and not for making into houses.  Those who say that birth control is evil because it is unnatural are stating that natural law is more important than human welfare.  We come first. 

 

The Church says that birth control makes men use women for their own pleasure and presumably it makes women use men for pleasure too.  So, she wants men to use women to have unwanted children instead.  It is worse to treat a woman as a baby-making machine than as a sex object.  Nothing makes men use women – they don’t have to have this manipulative attitude.  So the Church is partly forbidding birth control because it is abused that that is unfair.  When the Church allows barren couples some of whom wouldn’t want children anyway to have sex it is impossible to see how it can argue that sterilised couples are abusing one another when they are having sex.

 

The Church says that artificial birth control leads to abortion and that makes birth control and even indirectly murderous.  The pope, who has to know from his philosophy and training in logic and from his critics that he is wrong, sees the fight against abortion and birth control as one and the same battle.  They obviously are not.  Birth-control using barrier methods does not mean abortion will be more likely if they fail for you are trying to prevent conception and that does not mean you would want to get rid of a baby if you get pregnant.  Birth-control using pills which prevent the embryo implanting should not lead to abortion either if they fail.  Why?  Because there is a difference between killing some cells by a birth control pill and killing an embryo that is more advanced.  Many people who would not have an abortion use the pill.  At this point the Church will use statistics to back up her allegations.  But no matter what the statistics say it is not the fault of belief in birth-control if people using it will be more inclined to abortion.  There would have to be another explanation for the figures.  And there are many statistics from research organisations that give a totally different picture from the one the Church wants to give.  If people were more careful abortion would not be necessary.  People are going to have sex anyway and not allowing them to use contraception is forcing them to use abortion for they will panic if conception results.  There would be more abortions and regrets without it.  Even if there isn’t there shouldn’t be and it is still right to encourage contraception for you can’t ban things just because people misuse them.  The rates of misuse fall and climb all the time anyway so you can’t determine morality by looking at the rates.

 

Using the safe period will lead to abortion the woman does not want but which she will have out of desperation for it is only permitted to be used for grave reasons meaning that if it fails the woman will panic.  It should lead to abortion and it does.  The fear the woman will feel while using it can only be alleviated by intending to use abortion to rectify the situation.  She must secretly intend to abort for there is no other way she can cope.

 

Some Catholics assert that birth control makes people see the children they have a result of its failure as unfortunate accidents.  But seeing children that way would be the fault of the parents and not of contraception.  The children would be accidents but once the pregnancies are discovered the parents would start to love and accept the children.  They should think that the child is a fortunate accident who was born at the wrong time but who is still welcome.  If people really believe that birth control degrades children then they should never allow it and should make the pope oppose the natural method.  The natural method is allowed to fail a bit.  After all, it is supposed to be open to life should God so will to create life.   Anybody trying to avoid children even by contraception could resolve to welcome any baby that comes as a result of the contraception failing.

 

It is feared by opponents of artificial birth control that it will lead to people losing restraint in sexual matters.  God is supposed to help you fight temptation so don’t blame birth control.  It is true that a person might use contraception to have sex whenever and with whoever he or she wants but that would be abusing contraception.  You cannot condemn anything because it is abused.  Why don’t they complain to God that some people who are not suited to partners have huge sex drives?

 

The Church says that birth control loosens the marriage bond – it makes partners less afraid of going to bed with someone else.  But what about the fact that the Church says that Jesus is there to keep marriage together so he can handle that possibility?  And when people can do lots of things in bed besides intercourse we see the silliness of the allegation.  If there were no contraception there might be loads of married people having oral sex with their extra-marital lovers.  If that became the norm and it could, there would be more cheating than there would be with contraception being common.  The Church does not condemn oral sex and masturbation and anal sex with the vehemence and vigour that it uses against contraception.  They pick on the one sexual sin, contraception.  Nobody dies from oral sex or anal sex or masturbation.  But people do die from there been no contraception or not using it properly.  How warped is this Church?

 

So the Church wants people to be scared of pregnancy and disease to put them off having forbidden sex.  The Church wants people to be afraid to break God’s law, nice.  People should do right because they want to and not because pregnancy or something else scares them.  What if women use the natural method to have more lovers?  They could. 

 

If contraception were used properly and enhanced marriage and prevented disease the Church would still forbid it.  Yet it has the nerve to try and cite the failure of contraception at times to prevent pregnancy and to prevent disease to scare people off using it or allowing it or advising it!

 

It is said that contraception makes illicit sex more likely but the fact is that the fear of pregnancy does not always stop sex happening.  The Church believes that sex should be genital to genital and that oral sex and other things are perversions.  It prefers unprotected vaginal sex to oral sex for the latter is “unnatural”.  If the Church does not want such “perversion” then why does it force it to happen by banning birth control?

 

The Church says that pregnancy should be avoided out of the love of God and not out of the fear of pregnancy or what comes after so it cannot forbid birth control on the grounds of deterring people.  God only wants what is done for his own sake. 

Religious morality only leads to lies and unfairness.  Catholicism tries to turn people against the pill with arguments such as what follows.  "The pill causes havoc with a woman's body.  It could damage her fertility forever.  It kills any baby she conceives by preventing implantation.  It increases the risk of breast cancer."   This conniving cult purposely ignores the fact that there are risks with everything we do.  If Catholicism was not trying to manipulate women and society to turn against the pill it would condemn driving a car with a petrol engine and would certainly condemn smoking which does far more harm than the pill ever could.  In reality the reasons given have nothing to do with Catholicism banning birth control at all.  It is because they won't admit that their faith is wrong.  They are trying to make it seem that they prohibit because they care.  They are insecure about the reasons for their prohibiting and so they have to use subterfuge.

Is the fact that if you can control people’s sexuality you can control them in all things, the real reason why the Church bans birth control?  The fact that Roman Catholicism allows people who cannot have children to wed says the answer is yes.  It does not tell barren or old couples to refrain from sex except when the urge is uncontrollable and may result in adultery as St Augustine would have done.

The Church doesn't mind sex within and babies resulting in a marriage which may not last or one that WILL not last even when the husband and wife know it.  It pretends to care.  

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CONCLUSION

 

The doctrine that contraception is wrong may be dressed up in the robes of charity.  But it is actually a woman-hating and dangerous doctrine that gives men the right to procreate through rape.  It plainly gives husbands carrying killer sex diseases the right to pass on the disease to their wives and future children by forbidding condoms even then.  Contraception like all things human has had some bad results. But the results would be totally horrendous if the Catholic doctrine were followed consistently and in bigger numbers.  Catholicism should believe that birth control is evil - its part of its identity as a religion.  Catholicism can't be the true religion if it is wrong about how sinful birth control is.  But people should separate from it so that there will be no Catholicism left to believe it.  If you belong to or claim to belong to a religion that should believe evil things, then even if it doesn't, you are being evil and supporting evil.   A religion that doesn't understand or admit or see how evil it is meant to be is a religion that is being praised for going against itself.  It is no compliment to praise it for you are praising ignorance and disobedience.  Separate from it.

 

The pope knows fine well that if you believe in morality there are only two options: This being so, he has no right to order people and must leave them to decide.  Instead, without compromise he orders all to believe on God's authority that birth control and using spermicides is always wrong.  Though it leads to contradiction, he accepts one when it suits him and when it doesn't he accepts two.  He has no right to expect people to believe he condemns in good faith.

 

The options in any case are:

 

One, the legalistic idea that actions are wrong in all circumstances, eg changing religion or using contraception.

 

Two, the idea that it all depends on the situation and the consequences so a woman can use spermicide if she is about to be raped even if contraception is generally wrong etc. 

 

Inhumanly, he chooses one.  His true followers do the same.  Their duplicity is proven and they must be exposed.

 

WORKS CONSULTED

 

A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Catholic Truth Society, Westminster, 1985

A Teenager’s Answer to “Shall I Go to the Prom?”  Sherry Burgess, Guardian of Truth Publications, Kentucky 

A Work of the Flesh: Sexualism, Weldon E Warnock, Guardian of Truth Publications, Kentucky

Believing in God, PJ McGrath, Wolfhound Press, Dublin, 1995

Biblical Dictionary and Concordance of the New American Bible, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington DC, 1971

Contraception and Chastity, Elizabeth Anscombe, Catholic Truth Society, London

Contraception, John T Noonan, Jr., A Mentor-Omega Book, New American Library, New York, 1965 

Courtship and the Dangers of Petting, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1943

Divorce, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1946

Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, Uta Ranke Heinmann, Penguin, London, 1991

God Is Not Great, The Case Against Religion, Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic Books, London, 2007

Moral Questions, Bishops Conference, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1971

New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Catholic University of America and the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., Washington, District of Columbia, 1967

Papal Sin, Structures of Deceit, Garry Wills, Darton Longman and Todd, London, 2000

Pornography – A Psychiatrist’s Verdict, Melvin Anchell MD, Liguori Publications, Missouri 

Preparing for a Mixed Marriage, Irish Episcopal Conference, Veritas, Dublin, 1984

Questions and Answers on Sex and Marriage, Natural Fertility and Responsible Parenthood, Luton Good Counsel, Catholic Truth Society, London, 2007

Rediscovering Gay History, John Boswell, Gay Christian Movement, UK, 1982

Rome has Spoken, A Guide to Forgotten Papal Statements and How They Have Changed Through the Centuries, Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben (Editors), Crossroad Publishing, New York, 1998

Scattered Vows, Exodus From the Priesthood, David Rice, Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 1990

Sex & Marriage A Catholic Perspective, John M Hamrogue C SS R, Liguori, Illinois, 1987

Shall We Dance?  Dick Blackford, Guardian of Truth Publications, Kentucky

Son of Joseph, The Parentage of Jesus, Geoffrey Parrinder, T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1992

The Emancipation of a Freethinker, Herbert Ellsworth Cory, The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1947

“The Lord Hateth Putting Away!” and Reflections on Marriage and Divorce The Committee of the Christadelphian, Birmingham, 1985

The Pope and Contraception, Brenda Maddox, Counterblasts 18, Chatto & Windus, London 1991

The Puzzle of Ethics, Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch, Fount, London, 1994
Vicars of Christ, Peter de Rosa, Corgi, London, 1993

 

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2 Aug 08