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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (100237)	4/3/2005 2:17:43 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

< no birth control is such a basic part of their faith.> Ooooh, I disagree with that. Abortion is not birth control and I think this is where the problem lies. But for the moment, let's exclude abortion from the discussion, because I think it is a theological "red herring". Birth control should pose no more of a problem for Catholicism than their previous errors on matters of faith and morality, such as their silence regarding the actions of Nazis, for instance. Prevention of ovulation by hormonal means, sterilization and the use of barrier methods all would fit within the general Catholic theology on the definition and preservation of life. Just because a woman uses birth control for preventing fertilization of the egg, doesn't mean that she endorses sex out of marriage or abortion on demand. Barrier methods prevent life and contraceptions. Catholics are not doctrinally similar to Christian Scientists so there is no basis (other than the preservation of Papal Infalibility doctrine on the matter) that would mandate an obsolete view on birth control, IMO. This whole problem originates with a relatively modern doctrine : Papal Infalibility (introduced in c. 1870!) This was so recent that the history of the church could logiclaly reverse itself with a modified position. But, there are a set of problems that this doctrinal invention of Infalibility set up that caused the church to hunker down on birth control. Still, it came very close in 1964: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/mumford_21_1.htm In 1964, Pope Paul VI created the Papal Commission on Population and Birth Control. It was a two-part commission and met from 1964 to 1966. One part consisted of 64 lay persons, the other, of 15 clerics, including the future Pope John Paul II, then a Polish cardinal. Pope Paul gave the Commission only one mission—to determine how the Church could change its position on birth control without undermining papal authority. After two years of study, the Commission concluded that it was not possible to make this change without undermining papal authority, but that the Church should make the change anyway because it was the right thing to do! The lay members voted 60 to 4 for change, and the clerics, 9 to 6 for change.2 Pope Paul did not act immediately. A minority report was prepared, co-authored by the man who is now Pope John Paul II. In this report he stated: If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 (when the encyclical Casti Connubii was promulgated), in 1951 (Pius XlI’s address to the midwives), and in 1958 (the address delivered before the Society of Hematologists in the year the pope died). It should likewise have to be admitted that for a half century the Spirit failed to protect Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error. This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved.3 In this and other texts, the pope took the position that a change on the birth control issue would destroy the principle of papal infallibility, and that infallibility was the fundamental principle of the Church upon which all else rests. A change on birth control would immediately raise questions about other possible errors popes have made in matters of divorce, homosexuality, confession, parochial schooling, etc. that are fundamental to Roman Catholicism. The security and survival of the papacy itself is on the line. The Church insists on being the sole arbiter of what is moral. Civil law legalizes contraception and abortion. Governments are thereby challenging the prerogative of the pope to be the ultimate authority on matters of morality. Most Americans look to democratic process to determine morality. In the simplest analysis, the Church cannot coexist with such an arrangement, which in its view, threatens its very survival as a world political power.