Let’s see, the church won’t even condone a woman with an eptopic pregnancy an abortion-even though it will not be brought to term, it will end in miscarriage and hemorhage, the church will not condone the use of the Pill to help with severe menstruation, and it insists that while homosexuality is something people are born with, the homosexual must remain celibate…
etc etc…
I’d say I’m not in the least surprised.
Look up Catholics for a Free Choice.
Where’d you get this? I just searched the Catholics for a Free Choice website and didn’t find this. 'Course you are dead right about thr RCC’s stupidity concerning homosexuality.
Sua
It amazes me how casually the Catholic Church is bashed - if other religions or ethnic groups were subject to similar attacks, defense would be loud and swift.
Guinastasia, please provide a cite for the above argument, or withdraw it.
As a matter of fact, one acquaintence of mine consulted a priest about her irregular and severe menstruation, and he told her that the use of the Pill, with the intent of stabilizing her cycle, was acceptable. This is is the principle of unintended secondary effect - the intent is not to defeat the possibility of conception, but to stablize the cycle. The fact that conception is also made less likely is an unintended secondary effect, and not imputed to the actor.
A similar situation is described in G. Gordon Liddy’s autobiography Will, when he tells of what he and his wife (both then devout Catholics) did following the birth of their fifth child despite their efforts to use the rhythm method. Again, the Church, in the person of their priest, recommended the use of the Pill with the intent of controlling her cycle.
Anyone posting here is, of course, free to condemn the Church’s teaching on birth control, homosexuality, or any other subject as foolish, evil, wrong, or contrary to what God’s law really is. But let’s limit the accusations to accurate ones, please. And let’s also recall that the Church is perfectly within its rights to propound whatever regulations it pleases, just as the faithful (and others) are perfectly free to accept or reject them.
Admittedly, I will withdraw it for the time being, as it was in an article I read a long while back…unfortunately, I no longer can find it. So, for now, I will withdraw it.
I believe it was in McCall’s or Redbook, or some other woman’s magazine, and I sincerely appologize that I do not have the source on hand.
Catholics for a Free Choice is an organization made up of Catholics for freedom in reproductive health, including, but not limited to a woman’s right to choose.
Lest you think I’m Catholic bashing, buddy, I was a Catholic for 20 years, before I finally stopped going to church. I attended Catholic school K-8. I listened to their diatribe about abortion and reproduction and sex. I think that all those years as a Catholic, listening and pondering over the teachings of the church and coming away with my own conclusions qualifies as “Catholic bashing” :rolleyes:
It is common knowledge among many pro-choicers that Catholic hospital mergers are a concern. Many women who were able to obtain reproductive services were no longer able to do so after their insurance approved hospitals were taken over by Catholic organizations.
I may be wrong about the Pill and menstruation, but it IS a fact that the church condemns an abortion no matter what-even if the MOTHER WILL DIE. It is no secret that the church decrees that homosexuals must remain celibate.
http://www.cath4choice.org/
Go to publications and articles. Look for the section under Hospital Mergers:
I appologize if I made false statements. It was a stupid thing to do, and I shouldn’t have jumped the gun. But the CAtholic hospital mergers thing scares the bejesus out of me.
Actually, the RCC allows abortion if the alternative is the death of the mother. It’s the principle of dual effect. For example, if a pregnant woman has cancer and the only way to save her life is chemotherapy, even though that chemotherapy will kill the fetus, it’s allowed.
The RCC does say that homosexuals should remain celibate…in fact, it says that everyone who’s not married should remain celibate.
It also must be pointed out that the RCC has succeeded in influencing a number of governments, including that of Ireland and many in Latin America, to ban contraceptives. Therefore they have indeed taken away the right of people–even non-Catholics–to use them.
The other problem is that AIDS and high rates of mis-timed births are very serious problems threatening the World, and the meddlig of the RCC has made them much worse than they would be otherwise.
Sure, sex may be “sacred and beautiful”, but how does using contraceptives automatically make it sinful and evil? It’s an important part of marital relations quite apart from efforts at procreation.
Like I always say, common sense comes first.
Yes. They do. But the impact of that teaching is disparate.
Heterosexuals can get married to someone that they have a physical desire for, and therefore have the hope of someday not having to be celibate.
Homosexuals cannot get married to someone that they have a physical desire for, and therefore have no hope whatsoever of someday not having to be celibate.
You can give the standard “sex is not the most important thing in life” speech if you like, but until straight married couples start vowing in-marriage celibacy as a common show of piety, I don’t think requiring homosexuals to give up all hope of a loving physical union with another human being is very just.
jayjay
Dad, is that you? Admittedly, I had the same question as your first in mind when opening the thread… Is any religion more about what’s moral than making people follow their rules, though? If they were solely about doing the moral thing, there would only be one religion per major diety…
The Ryan:
I’m sure the Church is willing to concede that its members are occasionally going to take the Lord’s name in vain, or something similar, but I’m also pretty sure that the Catholic Church’s policies on sex are not just suggestions. I’ve never heard of a Catholic priest telling his parish that there is any leeway in the matters of premarital sex and birth control. So again, I don’t think its fair that one of your reasons for blaming Catholic doctrine is that its followers choose what parts of it they want to adhere to. And it doesn’t make the Church itself immoral.
My point was that telling its followers to follow a pattern of behavior that will reduce their exposure to AIDS in every aspect except infected blood transfusions is hardly the promotion of a “death penalty for fornicators.” The only way I feel you could actually make that claim is if they were taking an active role in infecting people.
Yes, but the problem is that you are taking their views on birth control out of context. Their anti-birth control position goes hand-in-hand with their promotion of abstinence. So I still don’t see how it promotes the spread of AIDS.
Why is that not going to happen? Are you saying that its only theoretical that there are going to be people who are virgins when they marry?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by jayjay *
**
Well, yeah, it sucks, and Catholic clergy will probably be the first people to say it sucks, but then they’ll go on and say that the main reason to have sex is to have children, and that homosexual relationships can’t do that. The Catholic priest would probably also say to you that that doesn’t make homosexuals bad people, and that it’s unfortunate that they’re forced to a stricter sexual discipline than heterosexuals, but that that also means that they deserve that much more praise and honor for attempting to live lives of celibacy.
This will probably win me lots of friends…
ALL organized religions are nothing more than con games. The declarations of the people at the top of those religions are lies.
Look at the history of organized religions of any kind. Let’s use Christianity, the Aztec heart-rippings and the Roman pantheon as examples. What the heck, let’s throw in the Scientologists as well. What are the objectives of all these religions? What do they all have in common?
Their goals are the accumulation of wealth and maintaining control over their adherants. They do this by exploiting the natural human fear of death. No one wants to believe that we just vanish like a blown out candle flame when we die, so they feed us a warm fuzzy and tell us that we"ll go to heaven/Valhalla/Elysian Fields/wherever as long as we toe the line and kowtow to their rules. And give them our money. And give them our kids to be brainwashed so the religion can propagate itself into another generation.
The religious proclamation against condoms is idiocy uttered by a con man. Follow it at your own risk.
Ya see, The Mick? This is why I didn’t realize you were joking earlier.
Sua
Hmmm…um…anything else you want to enlighten us on?
I am not a Catholic, but I don’t think the Catholics consider that they have the right to “change the rules”.
So I want to reduce the incidence of lung cancer. So I tell people to stop smoking.
In the real world, stopping smoking is hard, and lots of people fail to do it. So instead of telling people to stop smoking, they want me to recommend low-tar cigarettes, or smokeless tobacco. I refuse to do so, because this will not reduce lung cancer as much as not smoking does.
So then someone comes to me. He followed some of the rules of good health, exercising and eating right. But he smokes, and he has lung cancer.
Is this the same thing as saying I support the death penalty for smoking?
The Catholics are presenting what they call a ‘seamless garment’. Their teachings, if followed, will greatly reduce the transmission of AIDS. The teachings are highly unpopular, and there is lots of pressure on the Catholics to change some of the rules. They don’t think they can do that, so they stick to their guns.
I, for one, don’t agree with their teachings on birth control, but I do understand their position here.
Regards,
Shodan
Your analogy doesn’t match. You are not trying to cut off the supply of low-tar cigarettes. In contrast, the RCC tries to cut off the supply of condoms (by fighting against government programs that supply condoms, etc.)
Sua
SuaSponte:
Hmm. Looked like you were defeding it.
It’s not one of my reasons for blaming Catholics.
But it doesn’t reduce exposure to AIDS in every aspect other than blood transfusions, and even if it did, why do the lives of people married to people who have thusly contracted HIV not matter?
I don’t see why an active role is necessary. I’m making statements about the RCC’s position, not their [b/]actions**, so taking an active role isn’t necessary.
Not unless you mean that figuratively.
Condoms prevent AIDS.
The RCC opposes condoms.
The RCC is therefore promoting the spread of AIDS.
What do you not understand about this?
No. I’m saying that it is only theoretical that everyone will be virgins when they marry. I’m getting rather annoyed at your inability to understand simple statements like this.
Shodan
Well, refusing to endorse something is different than proclaiming it to be evil. If you were to declare than no one should use low tar cigarettes because it makes smoking safer, then I would say that you support the death penalty for smoking.
It has been mentioned several times in this thread that birth control devices may be used if the purpose is for legitimate health reasons, and the birth control aspect is simply a side effect, e.g. the Pill may be taken to regulate menstruation. The fact that the RCC opposes condoms, even when their purpose is disease prevention, not birth control establishes that they do not believe that the prevention of AIDS is a legitimate health concern. In other words, it is sinful to try to avoid the dangers of sex. If something is sinful because it prevents someone’s death, then it must be that their death is morally good. It therefore follows that the RCC’s position is that the death of fornicators is morally good.
Um, The Ryan, those quotes are not from my posts. I checked a few, and they were written by Starbury.
Sua
I’ll preface this by saying that I think the RCC’s position on condoms and other forms of birth control is wrongheaded, and many of my Catholic friends routinely ignore it. That said…
Perhaps the same thing that you don’t understand about:
Condoms only help prevent the transfer of HIV by sexual contact.
The RCC opposes sexual contact except between a man and his wife, neither one of whom has AIDS to begin with. It also opposes IV drug use.
The RCC therefore opposes the spread of AIDS.
You see? We can construct syllogisms all day long, but the entire thing is just a little bit too complicated to be boiled down to that, isn’t it?
Oh poppycock. The RCC would say that if you have AIDS, you avoid sex all together. They don’t say that AIDS isn’t a legitimate health concert; they say that if you have it, you shouldn’t risk passing it to someone else at all.
Well that’s a new understanding of the church’s position! Use of condoms isn’t sinful because it might keep someone from getting HIV, it’s sinful because it makes sex non-procreative. I don’t want even to begin to imagine where you came up with the idea that the RCC opposes condoms on the grounds that those evil nasty fornicators might not snuff it if they use them. :rolleyes:
Yeah, sorry about that. The first one is from you, and I forgot to put that the following ones were from Starbury.
g8rguy
What makes you think that I don’t understand that? It is not contradictory to say that some of the RCC’s policies increase the spread of AIDS, while others decrease them, and the latter is hardly a counter to the former.
Yes, but given that someone is having sex, they say to not use a condom.
I already addressed this. If they allow birth control measures for legitimate health concerns, and they do not allow condoms to stop the spread of HIV, then it follows that they do not consider HIV a legitimate health concern.
…but if you do decide to risk it, you shouldn’t do anything to reduce the risk.
Again, I have already addressed this position. The church allows people to make sex non-procreative for legitimate health concerns, so clearly the mere fact that something makes sex non-procreative is not enough for the Church to declare it sinful.
There is no other logical basis for their position, not that I expect the RCC to be logical.
Okay, I’ll sort of buy that, but why, then, does it follow that other posters don’t understand your point? I also don’t think that one should take a part of a policy out of context and draw conclusions about the whole. I would argue that the RCC opposes the spread of AIDS but that, due to a (IMO) misguided policy about condoms, doesn’t oppose it as effectively as it could. There’s an important distinction between not opposing something as effectively as possible and actually promoting it, is there not?
Right, but what are they supposed to do? Saying “if you have AIDS, don’t have sex, but if you do, use a condom” is a lot weaker an exhortation to abstinence that just saying “if you have AIDS, don’t have sex.” And of course they do have their reasons, however groundless, to oppose condoms in the first place. If they think that using condoms is a sin, they can’t very well tell you to do it. They wouldn’t preach something along the lines of “don’t steal from other people, but if you do, only take things of little value” either, even though given that you are stealing, they’d probably be happier if you didn’t grab the Matisse collection.
No it doesn’t. They allow people to use birth control for legitimate health concerns, not to make sex safe. What legitimate health concern does using a condom address that ISN’T related to enabling safe sex? Again, they’d tell you that if you have an STD, you should be abstinent. The purpose of a condom is to enable you to do something they think you shouldn’t be doing; the intended effect is to make it possible to do something they think is wrong.
No, but when the intended effect it to enable something they would call wrong, it IS enough to declare that a sin as well.
Oh please. There’s a big difference between saying that you don’t see a logical basis for their teachings and saying that they don’t see that they have reasons for their doctrine. I think the doctrine on birth control &c is foolish, but I also readily concede that they have their (theological) reasons for it. The fact that they do, even if you think these reasons are illogical, should be enough to tell you that they don’t oppose condoms on the grounds that those evil nasty fornicators might not snuff it if they use them.