So the Church had reached those levels of power by the year 305?
Given that the Church considers sex to be an inherent component of marriage, and also prohibits the use of birth control, they really couldn’t forbid married priests from having children.
It does not prohibit the use of birth control; it prohibits the use of some methods thereof. But the gist of the response is correct.
Yes, given that the forms of birth control that are allowed are allowed precisely because they’re less reliable. I know, I know, they publish all sorts of statistics about how reliable NFP is, but the reasons given for allowing it really do boil down to “it’s not reliable”.
Great story, here’s another in the same catagory: Several centuries ago the Vatican owned, among other things, a fishing fleet. For whatever reason it wasn’t doing too well financially. So the Pope had a vision and declared that RC’s were to eat fish on Fridays. Viola! Fleet in the black. Sounds too simple. Could something like this have actually happened?
It could have actually happened, but there’s no evidence that it ever did.
That’s absolutely inaccurate.
They would allow it even if it were 100% reliable, just as they allow abstinence, which is also 100% reliable.
The issue has to do with the placement of an artificial barrier, physical or chemical, to what they view as the body’s natural function.
This is GQ, supposedly a forum in which factual answers alone are permitted.
It’s not clear to me if you are offering this up as fact, or as a contrived story “in the same category” as Mr. Rik’s inheritance story.
NFP places just as much of an artificial barrier as condoms or birth control pills; it’s just a barrier in time, rather than space. In fact, there’s very little distinction between the way NFP works and the way in which the pill works, as it’s generally used: Both methods are based on arranging knowledge of when the woman is fertile, and avoiding sex at that time, while allowing sex at times when hormones prevent the woman from being fertile. The only difference is how, in the two methods, knowledge of fertility is achieved.
Question: (tangent, but since it’s come up, I’ll ask) If a doctor says that a pregnancy would be dangerous to a woman’s health-- say, she has kidney disease or brittle diabetes, can the couple get permission for the woman to use birth control, or can she get her tubes tied? or suppose she has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy? Pregnancy is a really bad idea for a chemo patient. Does she just have to abstain, or can she get permission from a bishop to use birth control? I know people get special permission for things all the time-- like the time Kennedy had special permission to eat beef on a Friday, because that was what was one the menu (he didn’t get to, because he was assassinated on his way to the dinner, but that’s not the point-- he could have been told just to fill up on the side dishes, and have a glass of milk beforehand, or something).
I’m just asking, because in Judaism, if pregnancy could threaten a woman’s life, it’s actually incumbent upon her to use birth control, and that’s true even among the Orthodox (and I used to hang out with some pretty serious Haredi). Just wondering if Catholicism is the same.
Some more up-to-date Catholics can contradict, but from my heavy-duty 1950s Catholic upbringing:
No, they/she cannot use BC. They are supposed to abstain.
Also, it’s my understanding that if one person of a couple has AIDS or is HIV+, they still aren’t permitted to use a condom. They must abstain.
Sex in marriage is not considered a necessity. In fact, sex is not considered a necessity. Which is why people can be gay, but not sexually active. And why celibacy is considered a higher calling than marriage. (Thank you, St. Paul.)
Nuts, right?
That kind of thinking is one of the reasons I’m no longer Catholic.
The nutso principle is that every male ejaculation MUST have the potential to create a pregnancy. Hence masturbation for males is forbidden. (It was probably assumed that women don’t masturbate. God, I hated confessing that as a little girl to the priest on the other side of the curtain!) And any barrier method is forbidden. Any method in which an egg and sperm are prevented from meeting during a sex act is forbidden. I had friends, devout Catholics, where the wife would suck her husband’s dick, but not to orgasm, because those sperm were not deposited in the place God intended.
I don’t know about that specific reason, but there have been exemptions given to the ban on birth control before.
EDIT: ThelmaLou, almost none of what you write there is an accurate reflection of church teachings.
hi Men are selected to be Catholic priests based on who they swear allegiance to . Many of them swear allegiance to God; the rest of the men swear it to the pope; who lives safely; even happily in Rome, Italy .
I doubt very much that any exemptions have been given for artificial birth control *as *birth control. And what I mean by that is that intentionally preventing pregnancy by artificial means is what is forbidden, not taking a particular pill or having a particular operation or using a particular device and the principle of double effect will allow me to use that pill or device even though it will also prevent pregnancy. So I can treat my endometriosis by taking the same pills used for birth control - as long as the birth control is an unintended side effect. I can have a hysterectomy or my ovaries removed as medical treatment, again as long as the the fact that I will be infertile afterwards is an unintended side effect. I can have my fallopian tube removed in the case of an ectopic pregnancy although it will have the side effect of terminating the pregnancy. I am certain I could use a condom to prevent transmitting disease , again if the birth control is an unintended side effect.
Now by"unintended side effect", I obviously don’t mean that it’s a surprise. I didn’t say “unexpected side effect” after all. But it is entirely possible that I could do anything I mentioned above and yet would welcome a pregnancy if the pill or condom did not prevent me from conceiving. And of course, women who must have their ovaries/uterus removed may grieve the loss of the ability to become pregnant.
What is the most recent Pope that we know slept with a woman at one point in his life? Francis? Benedict XVI?
I don’t know enough of papal history to have any idea.
I’m glad to hear things have changed since I jumped ship. So now couples can use condoms if they have a good reason (as in RivkaChaya’s question)? Do explain. I don’t know where to research this. Seriously, please tell me where I’m wrong–I’d like to be wrong on this.
No, they don’t. (Some of the more ignorant defenders of Catholic doctrine may supply those arguments, but they aren’t the ones that Paul VI gave, nor as far as I can tell the ones that John Paul II gave).
The really impressive studies about the efficancy of NFP aren’t published by “the Catholic Church”, they’re published by actual scientists. The one I’ve heard most chatter about was from Germany in, I think, 2007 or so. I have no idea about the religious affiliation of the authors, but it was published in a legitimate medical journal.
If you’re referring to the well known situation of people taking birth control to protect against pregnancy in the event of rape, that doesn’t really count as an exception, since those women aren’t taking the pill with the intent of engaging in contracepted intercourse.
Using a condom for any reason is a sin under Catholic doctrine: if you have an STD and don’t want to pass it on, the only acceptable choice (in the eyes of the Catholic Church) is to abstain. I don’t think that’s changing anytime in the near or medium term. Any sex under such circumstances is considered a sin. (A great many things are sins in the eyes of the Catholic Church, including missing a day of obligation without a legitimate reason).
The question under debate is whether under such circumstances, “having sex with a condom” is less bad than “having sex with a condom”. That’s been debated for awhile in Catholic theological circles, and while I don’t think there’s any official pronouncement on the matter, I suspect that the majority of Catholic priests and bishops would say yes, and I’m almost certain Pope Emeritus Benedict and Pope Francis would all say yes, in such cases it’s less of a sin to use a condom than not.
Hector, if a woman is cautioned against pregnancy due to, say, a heart or kidney condition, could she get dispensation to use birth control or have her tubes tied? If she affirmed that it was fear of rape, and not to continue to have sex with her husband, would it make a difference?
I guess Judaism has a very different view of sex in general and marital sex than Catholicism does. It’s considered very important for couples to have this bond-- so much so, that the single reason a woman can sue for divorce (a man doesn’t need a reason to divorce his wife*) is that he is not satisfying her sexually. But there is an overriding principle in Judaism that any commandment, other than the one to forsake G-d, can be broken to save a life. This is why people in hiding during the Holocaust ate what they could find, and didn’t worry about kashrut.
*This evens out a little if the community sticks to an old Talmudic ruling that in the case of a brokered marriage, the woman can refuse the man chosen for her, but the man cannot refuse the women chosen for him.