Take a look at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_Health_Bill_%28Philippines%29
It shows many of the arguments pros and cons. It is neutral. It does not take a stand. It contains a lot of readings that can guide people to make the right choice.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Makati Business Club: The Reproductive Health Bill
The Reproductive Health Bill
17 October 2008 -- At the joint general membership meeting of the Makati Business Club and Management Association of the Philippines at the Peninsula Manila, three speakers—Prof. Felipe Medalla, Atty. Ricardo Romulo, and Dr. Roberto De Vera—shared their views on House Bill 5043, or the Reproductive Health and Population Development Act. The controversial measure, popularly known as the RH bill, was first filed in 2001, but it is only in the current 14th Congress that it reached second reading in the House.
Population Growth and Poverty
Although he acknowledged that it has its flaws, Prof. Medalla stated that he fully supports the passage of HB 5043 because of its impact on the lives of poor Filipinos. While poverty incidence is less than 10% among one-child families, it is 57% among families with nine or more children, he pointed out. If the population issue is not addressed, he warned that children from poor families will be more uneducated, unhealthy, and malnourished.
Prof. Medalla believes public subsidies for family planning services, such as those provided for by the bill, is good public policy simply because it is good for the poor. Moreover, while per capita income may not necessarily rise with lower birth rates, neither will high birth rates contribute to making the country richer in per capita terms.
On the other hand, Dr. De Vera, a firm opponent of the RH bill, cited findings that there is no clear association between population growth rates and per capita income. He conceded that poverty incidence is higher among bigger families, but this doesn’t mean that family size is the cause of their hardship. Instead, he pointed to the lack of, or limited, education as the primary cause of poverty. He added that growth will be achieved and inequality reduced through good governance and sound and well-implemented economic policies.
Dr. De Vera also highlighted the fact that countries that adopted two-child or population management policies are now actually offering incentives to couples to have babies. This, according to him, is because when the fertility rate drops to 1.3 children per woman, the population decline becomes irreversible, leading to “demographic suicide.”
Impact on the Family and Society
Prof. Medalla backed the main thrust of the bill to enable “couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to carry out their decisions.” He believes that HB 5043 will help empower the poor, especially women, to implement their choices, which is of great importance given the finding that 44% of pregnancies of the poorest 10% of women of reproductive age are unwanted. The bill is correct in making artificial methods of family planning more accessible, he said, because natural methods are simply “too difficult” to follow and the failure rate too high
One of the areas Prof. Medalla disagrees with in the RH bill is the issue of sex and reproductive health education. While he supports its inclusion in the intermediate and high school curricula, he thinks it should not be mandatory. He believes parents should have the right to demand that their children be exempted from sex education classes.
Dr. De Vera sees the bill as standing on shaky social and moral grounds, believing it will discourage the free exercise of responsible parenthood and will lead to an increase in abortions and certain cancers. He cited reports that intrauterine devices (IUDs) and birth control pills are really abortifacients and that oral contraceptives increase the risk of breast and cervical cancer.
On Legislating Family Planning
Atty. Romulo, for his part, recognizes the need to adopt measures that will effectively manage the country’s population in order to achieve sustainable development. However, he is against HB 5043’s criminalization of acts that involve sensitive issues of morality and conscience.
He maintained that the reproductive health program should be implemented by persuasion and not by conviction or threats. The objectives of the bill will be realized only if the people are convinced that family planning is good. He therefore proposed the deletion of the bill’s Sections 17 (Employer’s Responsibilities) and 21 (Prohibited Acts), saying it is unwise to criminalize the acts listed in these sections as it unnecessarily infringes on a person’s right to privacy and freedom of conscience.
Prof. Medalla also opposes the imposition of prison sentences on such offenses as a health care provider’s refusal to perform ligation or vasectomy. However, he maintained that the law is needed. “Although the poor’s access to family planning services can be improved even without the law,” he explained, “the absence of the law makes it easier to block the program, which is what the Arroyo administration has been doing.”
Meanwhile, for Dr. De Vera, the family came before the state and, therefore, the state does not have dominion over the family.
The Verdict
Towards the end of the meeting, MBC and MAP members and their guests were asked to participate in an informal survey as to whether they are in favor or not in favor of the passage of HB 5043. Of the 96 persons who attended the meeting, 20 said they were in favor of the passage of the bill, 27 said they were not in favor, while 25 did not answer. Another 24 said they were in favor but subject to the proposed amendments of Atty. Romulo to delete Sections 17 and 21. Medalla's speech | Romulo's speech | De Vera's speech
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Felipe M. Medalla
Prof. Medalla teaches at and was a former dean of the UP School of Economics. Armed with a PhD in economics from Northwestern University and an impressive background in economic research, he served as socioeconomic planning secretary and director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority from 1998 to 2001.
Ricardo j. Romulo
Atty. Romulo was chairman of the MBC from 1987 to 2006 and is still a member of the Club’s board. A Doctor of Laws degree holder from the Harvard Law School, he is a senior partner of the Romulo, Mabanta, Buenaventura, Sayoc & De Los Angeles law firm and was a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission.
Roberto E. De Vera
Dr. De Vera is the director of the Urban Strategies Group of the University of Asia and the Pacific’s School of Economics. He is also director of the MS Industrial Economics Program and an assistant professor of the UA&P. He earned his PhD in economics from the University of Pittsburgh.
17 October 2008 -- At the joint general membership meeting of the Makati Business Club and Management Association of the Philippines at the Peninsula Manila, three speakers—Prof. Felipe Medalla, Atty. Ricardo Romulo, and Dr. Roberto De Vera—shared their views on House Bill 5043, or the Reproductive Health and Population Development Act. The controversial measure, popularly known as the RH bill, was first filed in 2001, but it is only in the current 14th Congress that it reached second reading in the House.
Population Growth and Poverty
Although he acknowledged that it has its flaws, Prof. Medalla stated that he fully supports the passage of HB 5043 because of its impact on the lives of poor Filipinos. While poverty incidence is less than 10% among one-child families, it is 57% among families with nine or more children, he pointed out. If the population issue is not addressed, he warned that children from poor families will be more uneducated, unhealthy, and malnourished.
Prof. Medalla believes public subsidies for family planning services, such as those provided for by the bill, is good public policy simply because it is good for the poor. Moreover, while per capita income may not necessarily rise with lower birth rates, neither will high birth rates contribute to making the country richer in per capita terms.
On the other hand, Dr. De Vera, a firm opponent of the RH bill, cited findings that there is no clear association between population growth rates and per capita income. He conceded that poverty incidence is higher among bigger families, but this doesn’t mean that family size is the cause of their hardship. Instead, he pointed to the lack of, or limited, education as the primary cause of poverty. He added that growth will be achieved and inequality reduced through good governance and sound and well-implemented economic policies.
Dr. De Vera also highlighted the fact that countries that adopted two-child or population management policies are now actually offering incentives to couples to have babies. This, according to him, is because when the fertility rate drops to 1.3 children per woman, the population decline becomes irreversible, leading to “demographic suicide.”
Impact on the Family and Society
Prof. Medalla backed the main thrust of the bill to enable “couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to carry out their decisions.” He believes that HB 5043 will help empower the poor, especially women, to implement their choices, which is of great importance given the finding that 44% of pregnancies of the poorest 10% of women of reproductive age are unwanted. The bill is correct in making artificial methods of family planning more accessible, he said, because natural methods are simply “too difficult” to follow and the failure rate too high
One of the areas Prof. Medalla disagrees with in the RH bill is the issue of sex and reproductive health education. While he supports its inclusion in the intermediate and high school curricula, he thinks it should not be mandatory. He believes parents should have the right to demand that their children be exempted from sex education classes.
Dr. De Vera sees the bill as standing on shaky social and moral grounds, believing it will discourage the free exercise of responsible parenthood and will lead to an increase in abortions and certain cancers. He cited reports that intrauterine devices (IUDs) and birth control pills are really abortifacients and that oral contraceptives increase the risk of breast and cervical cancer.
On Legislating Family Planning
Atty. Romulo, for his part, recognizes the need to adopt measures that will effectively manage the country’s population in order to achieve sustainable development. However, he is against HB 5043’s criminalization of acts that involve sensitive issues of morality and conscience.
He maintained that the reproductive health program should be implemented by persuasion and not by conviction or threats. The objectives of the bill will be realized only if the people are convinced that family planning is good. He therefore proposed the deletion of the bill’s Sections 17 (Employer’s Responsibilities) and 21 (Prohibited Acts), saying it is unwise to criminalize the acts listed in these sections as it unnecessarily infringes on a person’s right to privacy and freedom of conscience.
Prof. Medalla also opposes the imposition of prison sentences on such offenses as a health care provider’s refusal to perform ligation or vasectomy. However, he maintained that the law is needed. “Although the poor’s access to family planning services can be improved even without the law,” he explained, “the absence of the law makes it easier to block the program, which is what the Arroyo administration has been doing.”
Meanwhile, for Dr. De Vera, the family came before the state and, therefore, the state does not have dominion over the family.
The Verdict
Towards the end of the meeting, MBC and MAP members and their guests were asked to participate in an informal survey as to whether they are in favor or not in favor of the passage of HB 5043. Of the 96 persons who attended the meeting, 20 said they were in favor of the passage of the bill, 27 said they were not in favor, while 25 did not answer. Another 24 said they were in favor but subject to the proposed amendments of Atty. Romulo to delete Sections 17 and 21. Medalla's speech | Romulo's speech | De Vera's speech
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Felipe M. Medalla
Prof. Medalla teaches at and was a former dean of the UP School of Economics. Armed with a PhD in economics from Northwestern University and an impressive background in economic research, he served as socioeconomic planning secretary and director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority from 1998 to 2001.
Ricardo j. Romulo
Atty. Romulo was chairman of the MBC from 1987 to 2006 and is still a member of the Club’s board. A Doctor of Laws degree holder from the Harvard Law School, he is a senior partner of the Romulo, Mabanta, Buenaventura, Sayoc & De Los Angeles law firm and was a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission.
Roberto E. De Vera
Dr. De Vera is the director of the Urban Strategies Group of the University of Asia and the Pacific’s School of Economics. He is also director of the MS Industrial Economics Program and an assistant professor of the UA&P. He earned his PhD in economics from the University of Pittsburgh.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Scholars: contraception played a key role in divorce revolution, social pathology and poverty
Scholars from Robert Michael at University of Chicago to George Akerlof at the University of California at Berkeley argue that contraception played a central role in launching the sexual and divorce revolutions of the late twentieth century.
Contraceptive Losers
Michael has argued that about half of the increase in divorce from 1965 to 1976 can be attributed to the “unexpected nature of the contraceptive revolution”—especially in the way that it made marriages less child-centered.1 Akerlof argues that the availability first of contraception and then of abortion in the 1960s and 1970s was one of the crucial factors fueling the sexual revolution and the collapse of marriage among the working class and the poor.
I will focus on Akerlof’s scholarship. George Akerlof is a Nobel prize-winning economist, a professor at Berkeley, and a former fellow at the Brookings Institution; he is not a conservative. In two articles in leading economic journals, Akerlof details findings and advances arguments that vindicate Paul VI’s prophetic warnings about the social consequences of contraception for morality and men.2
In his first article, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1996, Akerlof began by asking why the United States witnessed such a dramatic increase in illegitimacy from 1965 to 1990—from 24 percent to 64 percent among African-Americans, and from 3 percent to 18 percent among whites. He noted that public health advocates had predicted that the widespread availability of contraception and abortion would reduce illegitimacy, not increase it. So what happened?
Using the language of economics, Akerlof pointed out that “technological innovation creates both winners and losers.” In this case the introduction of widespread effective contraception—especially the pill—put traditional women with an interest in marriage and children at “competitive disadvantage” in the relationship “market” compared to modern women who took a more hedonistic approach to sex and relationships. The contraceptive revolution also reduced the costs of sex for women and men, insofar as the threat of childbearing was taken off the table, especially as abortion became widely available in the 1970s.
The consequence? Traditional women could no longer hold the threat of pregnancy over their male partners, either to avoid sex or to elicit a promise of marriage in the event their partner made them pregnant. And modern women no longer worried about getting pregnant. Accordingly, more and more women (traditional as well as modern) gave in to their boyfriends’ entreaties for sex.
In Akerlof’s words, “the norm of premarital sexual abstinence all but vanished in the wake of the technology shock.” Women felt free or obligated to have sex before marriage. For instance, Akerlof finds that the percentage of girls 16 and under reporting sexual activity surged in 1970 and 1971 as contraception and abortion became common in many states throughout the country.
Immiserating Sex
Thus, the sexual revolution left traditional or moderate women who wanted to avoid premarital sex or contraception “immiserated” because they could not compete with women who had no serious objection to premarital sex, and they could no longer elicit a promise of marriage from boyfriends in the event they got pregnant. Boyfriends, of course, could say that pregnancy was their girlfriends’ choice. So men were less likely to agree to a shotgun marriage in the event of a pregnancy than they would have been before the arrival of the pill and abortion.
Thus, many traditional women ended up having sex and having children out of wedlock, while many of the permissive women ended up having sex and contracepting or aborting so as to avoid childbearing. This explains in large part why the contraceptive revolution was associated with an increase in both abortion and illegitimacy.
In his second article, published in The Economic Journal in 1998, Akerlof argues that another key outworking of the contraceptive revolution was the disappearance of marriage—shotgun and otherwise—for men. Contraception and abortion allowed men to put off marriage, even in cases where they had fathered a child. Consequently, the fraction of young men who were married in the United States dropped precipitously. Between 1968 and 1993 the percentage of men 25 to 34 who were married with children fell from 66 percent to 40 percent. Accordingly, young men did not benefit from the domesticating influence of wives and children.
Instead, they could continue to hang out with their young male friends, and were thus more vulnerable to the drinking, partying, tomcatting, and worse that is associated with unsupervised groups of young men. Absent the domesticating influence of marriage and children, young men—especially men from working-class and poor families—were more likely to respond to the lure of the street. Akerlof noted, for instance, that substance abuse and incarceration more than doubled from 1968 to 1998. Moreover, his statistical models indicate that the growth in single men in this period was indeed linked to higher rates of substance abuse, arrests for violent crimes, and drinking.
From this research, Akerlof concluded by arguing that the contraceptive revolution played a key, albeit indirect, role in the dramatic increase in social pathology and poverty this country witnessed in the 1970s; it did so by fostering sexual license, poisoning the relations between men and women, and weakening the marital vow. In Akerlof’s words:
Just at the time, about 1970, that the permanent cure to poverty seemed to be on the horizon and just at the time that women had obtained the tools to control the number and the timing of their children, single motherhood and the feminization of poverty began their long and steady rise.
Furthermore, the decline in marriage caused in part by the contraceptive revolution “intensified . . . the crime shock and the substance abuse shock” that marked the 1970s and 1980s.
http://www.nfpoutreach.org/library/facts_life-marriage.htm
Contraceptive Losers
Michael has argued that about half of the increase in divorce from 1965 to 1976 can be attributed to the “unexpected nature of the contraceptive revolution”—especially in the way that it made marriages less child-centered.1 Akerlof argues that the availability first of contraception and then of abortion in the 1960s and 1970s was one of the crucial factors fueling the sexual revolution and the collapse of marriage among the working class and the poor.
I will focus on Akerlof’s scholarship. George Akerlof is a Nobel prize-winning economist, a professor at Berkeley, and a former fellow at the Brookings Institution; he is not a conservative. In two articles in leading economic journals, Akerlof details findings and advances arguments that vindicate Paul VI’s prophetic warnings about the social consequences of contraception for morality and men.2
In his first article, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1996, Akerlof began by asking why the United States witnessed such a dramatic increase in illegitimacy from 1965 to 1990—from 24 percent to 64 percent among African-Americans, and from 3 percent to 18 percent among whites. He noted that public health advocates had predicted that the widespread availability of contraception and abortion would reduce illegitimacy, not increase it. So what happened?
Using the language of economics, Akerlof pointed out that “technological innovation creates both winners and losers.” In this case the introduction of widespread effective contraception—especially the pill—put traditional women with an interest in marriage and children at “competitive disadvantage” in the relationship “market” compared to modern women who took a more hedonistic approach to sex and relationships. The contraceptive revolution also reduced the costs of sex for women and men, insofar as the threat of childbearing was taken off the table, especially as abortion became widely available in the 1970s.
The consequence? Traditional women could no longer hold the threat of pregnancy over their male partners, either to avoid sex or to elicit a promise of marriage in the event their partner made them pregnant. And modern women no longer worried about getting pregnant. Accordingly, more and more women (traditional as well as modern) gave in to their boyfriends’ entreaties for sex.
In Akerlof’s words, “the norm of premarital sexual abstinence all but vanished in the wake of the technology shock.” Women felt free or obligated to have sex before marriage. For instance, Akerlof finds that the percentage of girls 16 and under reporting sexual activity surged in 1970 and 1971 as contraception and abortion became common in many states throughout the country.
Immiserating Sex
Thus, the sexual revolution left traditional or moderate women who wanted to avoid premarital sex or contraception “immiserated” because they could not compete with women who had no serious objection to premarital sex, and they could no longer elicit a promise of marriage from boyfriends in the event they got pregnant. Boyfriends, of course, could say that pregnancy was their girlfriends’ choice. So men were less likely to agree to a shotgun marriage in the event of a pregnancy than they would have been before the arrival of the pill and abortion.
Thus, many traditional women ended up having sex and having children out of wedlock, while many of the permissive women ended up having sex and contracepting or aborting so as to avoid childbearing. This explains in large part why the contraceptive revolution was associated with an increase in both abortion and illegitimacy.
In his second article, published in The Economic Journal in 1998, Akerlof argues that another key outworking of the contraceptive revolution was the disappearance of marriage—shotgun and otherwise—for men. Contraception and abortion allowed men to put off marriage, even in cases where they had fathered a child. Consequently, the fraction of young men who were married in the United States dropped precipitously. Between 1968 and 1993 the percentage of men 25 to 34 who were married with children fell from 66 percent to 40 percent. Accordingly, young men did not benefit from the domesticating influence of wives and children.
Instead, they could continue to hang out with their young male friends, and were thus more vulnerable to the drinking, partying, tomcatting, and worse that is associated with unsupervised groups of young men. Absent the domesticating influence of marriage and children, young men—especially men from working-class and poor families—were more likely to respond to the lure of the street. Akerlof noted, for instance, that substance abuse and incarceration more than doubled from 1968 to 1998. Moreover, his statistical models indicate that the growth in single men in this period was indeed linked to higher rates of substance abuse, arrests for violent crimes, and drinking.
From this research, Akerlof concluded by arguing that the contraceptive revolution played a key, albeit indirect, role in the dramatic increase in social pathology and poverty this country witnessed in the 1970s; it did so by fostering sexual license, poisoning the relations between men and women, and weakening the marital vow. In Akerlof’s words:
Just at the time, about 1970, that the permanent cure to poverty seemed to be on the horizon and just at the time that women had obtained the tools to control the number and the timing of their children, single motherhood and the feminization of poverty began their long and steady rise.
Furthermore, the decline in marriage caused in part by the contraceptive revolution “intensified . . . the crime shock and the substance abuse shock” that marked the 1970s and 1980s.
http://www.nfpoutreach.org/library/facts_life-marriage.htm
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
John Paul II on Contraception
Contraception leads to falsification
November 1981
In the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris consortio, on the role of the family in the modern world, Pope John Paul II taught:
"When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as 'arbiters' of the Divine plan and they 'manipulate' and degrade human sexuality - and with it themselves and their married partner - by altering its value of 'total' self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality" (n.32).
Pastoral action must not contradict doctrine
May 1983
On May 30, 1983, Pope John Paul II addressed the participants in the first Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Among other things he discussed the need for pastoral action to be faithful to Humanae vitae and Familiaris consortio:
"It is absolutely necessary that the pastoral action of Christian communities be totally faithful to the teachings of the Encyclical Humanae vitae and the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris consortio. It would be a grave error to set up pastoral requirements in opposition to doctrinal teaching, since the very first service that the Church must perform for people is to tell them the truth of which she is neither the author nor the master." (Osservatore Romano, June 6, 1983).
Church is guide to conscience
August 1983
On August 17, 1983, the Holy Father addressed 35,000 people in a general audience in Rome:
"It is not enough to say that we must always follow our conscience," the Pope said, "Each one of us must 'form' a right conscience, one that seeks to know the truth as revealed to us by God, according to his wise and loving plan."
The believer, he said, has the assistance of the Church in forming a "right conscience." For "it is the duty of the Church to give expression to that truth which is Christ himself, and to declare and confirm those principles of the moral order which have their origin in human nature itself." (Western Catholic Reporter, Sept. 5, 1983)
Responsible parenthood
October 1983
Emphasizing that artificial contraception is intrinsically evil the Pope taught in 1983:
"At the origin of every human person there is a creative act of God. No man comes into existence by chance; he is always the object of God's creative love. From this fundamental truth of faith and reason it follows that the procreative capacity, inscribed in human sexuality is - in its deepest truth - a cooperation with God's creative power. And it also follows that man and woman are not arbiters, are not the masters of this same capacity, called as they are, in it and through it, to be participants in God's creative decision. When, therefore, through contraception, married couples remove from the exercise of their conjugal sexuality its potential procreative capacity, they claim a power which belongs solely to God: the power to decide in a final analysis the coming into existence of a human person. They assume the qualification of not being cooperators in God's creative power, but the ultimate depositaries of the source of human life. In this perspective, contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful, as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God." (L'Osservatore Romano, Oct. 10, 1983)
State should stay out of family planning
June 1984
"Demographic policies must not consider people as mere numbers or only in economic terms ... they must respect and promote the dignity and the fundamental rights of the human person and of the family." He called it "a grave offence against human dignity and justice" for authorities to engage in any activities "which attempt to limit in any way the freedom of couples in deciding about children." Likewise "gravely unjust," he said, is any attempt to condition international aid for development "on programs of contraception, sterilization, and procured abortion." (Catholic Register, Toronto, June 23, 1984)
Dissent not acceptable
January 1985
After the Pope completed a five-month series of lectures on human sexuality, marriage, and the regulation of births, on November 28, 1984, the Osservatore Romano printed a front page editorial by Archbishop (later Cardinal) Edouard Gagnon, propresident of the Pontifical Commission for the Family. It stated:
"Today ... it is no longer possible to have doubts about the authoritative doctrine of the Church [of Humanae vitae] and about the unacceptability of dissent." Some theologians were "happy to find in a certain popular resistance to the encyclical a good opportunity to propagandize their own ideas on the autonomy of the individual conscience." But the Pope's campaign to end doctrinal confusion is "the only way out" of society's crises, and sustain "with a solid doctrine" the efforts of people fighting "in defence of life and the institution of matrimony." (London Free Press, Jan. 19, 1985)
Not debatable
June 1987
Two years later the Holy Father himself reiterated the above sentiments. Addressing a Conference on Natural Family Planning, he said:
"What is taught by the Church on contraception does not belong to material freely debatable among theologians."
Those who argue otherwise "in open contrast with the law of God, authentically taught by the Church, guide couples down a wrong path." (Prairie Messenger, June 15, 1987; Osservatore Romano, June 6, 1987)
Live it, don't question it
March 1988
On March 14, 1988, Pope John Paul addressed a Congress on the Family. It being close to the 20th anniversary of Humanae vitae, he remarked that its doctrine "belongs to the permanent patrimony of the Church's moral doctrine."
"The doctrine expounded in the encyclical Humanae vitae thus constitutes the necessary defence of the dignity and truth of conjugal love."
"I cannot pass over in silence the fact that many today do not aid married couples in this grave responsibility of theirs, but rather place significant obstacles in their place ... Married couples can be seriously impeded by a certain hedonistic mentality widespread today, by the mass media, by ideologies and practices contrary to the gospel. This can also come about, with truly grave and destructive consequences, when the doctrine taught by the Encyclical is called into open question...
"Pope Paul VI expressed the certainty that the document constituted a contribution ... to the establishment of a truly human civilization. Twenty years after its publication, the foundation of that conviction is truly borne out in many ways; in ways which can be verified not only by believers, but by every man or woman who is thoughtful about the lot of mankind, since anyone can view the consequences of man's disobedience to God's holy law."
Freedom of conscience
December 1990
In the summer of 1988 the Pope told theologians
"You can't say that a member of the faithful has carried out a diligent investigation of the truth if he doesn't take into account what the magisterium teaches ..."
In a World Day of Peace message for January 1, 1991, released in December 1990, he reiterated the complexities of conscience.
"Yes, the conscience is supreme - but not as a source of truth. And yes, a person has to follow his conscience, but a person does not manufacture truth. A person must learn from revelation and other sources." (B.C. Catholic, January 20, 1991 )
Contraception is an intrinsic evil
August 1993
In the encyclical The Splendor of Truth (Aug. 6, 1993) the Pope reaffirms the intrinsic evil of contraception as taught by Pope Paul VI:
"With regard to intrinsically evil acts, and in reference to contraceptive practices whereby the conjugal act is intentionally rendered infertile, Pope Paul VI teaches:
'Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (cf.Rom.3:8) - in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general.'" (n.80).
The two dimensions of marriage
February 1994
In his Letter to Families, signed on Feb. 2, 1994, the Holy Father says:
"In particular, responsible fatherhood and motherhood directly concern the moment in which a man and a woman, uniting 'in one flesh', can become parents. This is a moment of special value to both of them for their interpersonal relationship and for their service to life: they can become parents - father and mother - by communicating life to a new human being. The two dimensions of conjugal union, the unitive and the procreative, cannot be artificially separated without damaging the deepest truth of the conjugal act itself.
"This is the constant teaching of the Church, and the 'signs of the times' which we see today are providing new reasons for forcefully reaffirming that teaching. Saint Paul, himself so attentive to the pastoral demands of his day, clearly and firmly indicated the need to be 'urgent in season and out of season' (cf. 2 Tim. 4:2), and not to be daunted by the fact that 'sound teaching is no longer endured' (cf. 2 Tim.4:3). His words are well known to those who with deep insight into the events of the present time, expect that the Church will not only not abandon 'sound doctrine' but will proclaim it with renewed vigour, seeking in today's 'signs of the times' the incentive and insights which can lead to a deeper understanding of her teaching." (n.12).
Harmful demographic policies
November 1996
The Holy Father wrote a Message to Bishop Elio Sgreccia on the occasion of an international congress on the theme "At the Sources of Life," sponsored by the Centre for Studies and Research on the Natural Regulation of Fertility of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.
The crisis of values and ideals, which has taken hold of contemporary society, challenges believers to undertake widespread and persevering formational activity: this is the frontier advanced by the new evangelization, to which they must be committed on the threshold of the third Christian millennium.
The family, the heart of human society and the nucleus of the ecclesial community itself, is one of the subjects that demands the greatest attention from the Church and from those responsible for the destinies of peoples. Unbridled hedonism and disregard for human life, which is weak and unproductive at its mysterious and delicate beginnings, require the proclamation of the "Gospel of life" to be supported bya constant commitment to teaching spouses to be aware of their own vocation as servants of life, in responsible collaboration with the Creator's provident wisdom.
This convention marks an important stage in the silent and painstaking work which the centre has been doing for more than 20 years, in the delicate area of responsible procreation by the promotion of natural methods. The courageous effort to promote these methods in obedience to the teaching of Humanae vitae, Familiaris consortio and Evangelium vitae, after a difficult start surrounded by the misunderstanding of public opinion, today enjoys growing scientific recognition and is confirmed in the serenity and peace of married couples who are committed to living periodic continence and understand its value and spirit.
These results can instil new courage in the face of the worrying consequences of a false sexual freedom for which contraception provides the incentive and means, increasing the dulling of consciences and the eclipse of values.
The harmful campaigns of certain demographic policies, which attempt to pass off contraception as licit and right, and which spread and impose on individuals and peoples an instrumental and utilitarian view of life, must be answered with every initiative that can support scientifically and with correct information the validity of natural methods, in accordance with the Church's constant teaching.
Source: Msgr. Vincent Foy
November 1981
In the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris consortio, on the role of the family in the modern world, Pope John Paul II taught:
"When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as 'arbiters' of the Divine plan and they 'manipulate' and degrade human sexuality - and with it themselves and their married partner - by altering its value of 'total' self-giving. Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality" (n.32).
Pastoral action must not contradict doctrine
May 1983
On May 30, 1983, Pope John Paul II addressed the participants in the first Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Among other things he discussed the need for pastoral action to be faithful to Humanae vitae and Familiaris consortio:
"It is absolutely necessary that the pastoral action of Christian communities be totally faithful to the teachings of the Encyclical Humanae vitae and the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris consortio. It would be a grave error to set up pastoral requirements in opposition to doctrinal teaching, since the very first service that the Church must perform for people is to tell them the truth of which she is neither the author nor the master." (Osservatore Romano, June 6, 1983).
Church is guide to conscience
August 1983
On August 17, 1983, the Holy Father addressed 35,000 people in a general audience in Rome:
"It is not enough to say that we must always follow our conscience," the Pope said, "Each one of us must 'form' a right conscience, one that seeks to know the truth as revealed to us by God, according to his wise and loving plan."
The believer, he said, has the assistance of the Church in forming a "right conscience." For "it is the duty of the Church to give expression to that truth which is Christ himself, and to declare and confirm those principles of the moral order which have their origin in human nature itself." (Western Catholic Reporter, Sept. 5, 1983)
Responsible parenthood
October 1983
Emphasizing that artificial contraception is intrinsically evil the Pope taught in 1983:
"At the origin of every human person there is a creative act of God. No man comes into existence by chance; he is always the object of God's creative love. From this fundamental truth of faith and reason it follows that the procreative capacity, inscribed in human sexuality is - in its deepest truth - a cooperation with God's creative power. And it also follows that man and woman are not arbiters, are not the masters of this same capacity, called as they are, in it and through it, to be participants in God's creative decision. When, therefore, through contraception, married couples remove from the exercise of their conjugal sexuality its potential procreative capacity, they claim a power which belongs solely to God: the power to decide in a final analysis the coming into existence of a human person. They assume the qualification of not being cooperators in God's creative power, but the ultimate depositaries of the source of human life. In this perspective, contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful, as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God." (L'Osservatore Romano, Oct. 10, 1983)
State should stay out of family planning
June 1984
"Demographic policies must not consider people as mere numbers or only in economic terms ... they must respect and promote the dignity and the fundamental rights of the human person and of the family." He called it "a grave offence against human dignity and justice" for authorities to engage in any activities "which attempt to limit in any way the freedom of couples in deciding about children." Likewise "gravely unjust," he said, is any attempt to condition international aid for development "on programs of contraception, sterilization, and procured abortion." (Catholic Register, Toronto, June 23, 1984)
Dissent not acceptable
January 1985
After the Pope completed a five-month series of lectures on human sexuality, marriage, and the regulation of births, on November 28, 1984, the Osservatore Romano printed a front page editorial by Archbishop (later Cardinal) Edouard Gagnon, propresident of the Pontifical Commission for the Family. It stated:
"Today ... it is no longer possible to have doubts about the authoritative doctrine of the Church [of Humanae vitae] and about the unacceptability of dissent." Some theologians were "happy to find in a certain popular resistance to the encyclical a good opportunity to propagandize their own ideas on the autonomy of the individual conscience." But the Pope's campaign to end doctrinal confusion is "the only way out" of society's crises, and sustain "with a solid doctrine" the efforts of people fighting "in defence of life and the institution of matrimony." (London Free Press, Jan. 19, 1985)
Not debatable
June 1987
Two years later the Holy Father himself reiterated the above sentiments. Addressing a Conference on Natural Family Planning, he said:
"What is taught by the Church on contraception does not belong to material freely debatable among theologians."
Those who argue otherwise "in open contrast with the law of God, authentically taught by the Church, guide couples down a wrong path." (Prairie Messenger, June 15, 1987; Osservatore Romano, June 6, 1987)
Live it, don't question it
March 1988
On March 14, 1988, Pope John Paul addressed a Congress on the Family. It being close to the 20th anniversary of Humanae vitae, he remarked that its doctrine "belongs to the permanent patrimony of the Church's moral doctrine."
"The doctrine expounded in the encyclical Humanae vitae thus constitutes the necessary defence of the dignity and truth of conjugal love."
"I cannot pass over in silence the fact that many today do not aid married couples in this grave responsibility of theirs, but rather place significant obstacles in their place ... Married couples can be seriously impeded by a certain hedonistic mentality widespread today, by the mass media, by ideologies and practices contrary to the gospel. This can also come about, with truly grave and destructive consequences, when the doctrine taught by the Encyclical is called into open question...
"Pope Paul VI expressed the certainty that the document constituted a contribution ... to the establishment of a truly human civilization. Twenty years after its publication, the foundation of that conviction is truly borne out in many ways; in ways which can be verified not only by believers, but by every man or woman who is thoughtful about the lot of mankind, since anyone can view the consequences of man's disobedience to God's holy law."
Freedom of conscience
December 1990
In the summer of 1988 the Pope told theologians
"You can't say that a member of the faithful has carried out a diligent investigation of the truth if he doesn't take into account what the magisterium teaches ..."
In a World Day of Peace message for January 1, 1991, released in December 1990, he reiterated the complexities of conscience.
"Yes, the conscience is supreme - but not as a source of truth. And yes, a person has to follow his conscience, but a person does not manufacture truth. A person must learn from revelation and other sources." (B.C. Catholic, January 20, 1991 )
Contraception is an intrinsic evil
August 1993
In the encyclical The Splendor of Truth (Aug. 6, 1993) the Pope reaffirms the intrinsic evil of contraception as taught by Pope Paul VI:
"With regard to intrinsically evil acts, and in reference to contraceptive practices whereby the conjugal act is intentionally rendered infertile, Pope Paul VI teaches:
'Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (cf.Rom.3:8) - in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general.'" (n.80).
The two dimensions of marriage
February 1994
In his Letter to Families, signed on Feb. 2, 1994, the Holy Father says:
"In particular, responsible fatherhood and motherhood directly concern the moment in which a man and a woman, uniting 'in one flesh', can become parents. This is a moment of special value to both of them for their interpersonal relationship and for their service to life: they can become parents - father and mother - by communicating life to a new human being. The two dimensions of conjugal union, the unitive and the procreative, cannot be artificially separated without damaging the deepest truth of the conjugal act itself.
"This is the constant teaching of the Church, and the 'signs of the times' which we see today are providing new reasons for forcefully reaffirming that teaching. Saint Paul, himself so attentive to the pastoral demands of his day, clearly and firmly indicated the need to be 'urgent in season and out of season' (cf. 2 Tim. 4:2), and not to be daunted by the fact that 'sound teaching is no longer endured' (cf. 2 Tim.4:3). His words are well known to those who with deep insight into the events of the present time, expect that the Church will not only not abandon 'sound doctrine' but will proclaim it with renewed vigour, seeking in today's 'signs of the times' the incentive and insights which can lead to a deeper understanding of her teaching." (n.12).
Harmful demographic policies
November 1996
The Holy Father wrote a Message to Bishop Elio Sgreccia on the occasion of an international congress on the theme "At the Sources of Life," sponsored by the Centre for Studies and Research on the Natural Regulation of Fertility of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.
The crisis of values and ideals, which has taken hold of contemporary society, challenges believers to undertake widespread and persevering formational activity: this is the frontier advanced by the new evangelization, to which they must be committed on the threshold of the third Christian millennium.
The family, the heart of human society and the nucleus of the ecclesial community itself, is one of the subjects that demands the greatest attention from the Church and from those responsible for the destinies of peoples. Unbridled hedonism and disregard for human life, which is weak and unproductive at its mysterious and delicate beginnings, require the proclamation of the "Gospel of life" to be supported bya constant commitment to teaching spouses to be aware of their own vocation as servants of life, in responsible collaboration with the Creator's provident wisdom.
This convention marks an important stage in the silent and painstaking work which the centre has been doing for more than 20 years, in the delicate area of responsible procreation by the promotion of natural methods. The courageous effort to promote these methods in obedience to the teaching of Humanae vitae, Familiaris consortio and Evangelium vitae, after a difficult start surrounded by the misunderstanding of public opinion, today enjoys growing scientific recognition and is confirmed in the serenity and peace of married couples who are committed to living periodic continence and understand its value and spirit.
These results can instil new courage in the face of the worrying consequences of a false sexual freedom for which contraception provides the incentive and means, increasing the dulling of consciences and the eclipse of values.
The harmful campaigns of certain demographic policies, which attempt to pass off contraception as licit and right, and which spread and impose on individuals and peoples an instrumental and utilitarian view of life, must be answered with every initiative that can support scientifically and with correct information the validity of natural methods, in accordance with the Church's constant teaching.
Source: Msgr. Vincent Foy
Benedict XVI and contraception
by Nick Bagileo in Lifeissues.net
Human Life International e-Newsletter.
The overwhelming affection for Pope Benedict XVI during his recent visit to the U.S. surprised many people. The positive reaction to the Holy Father was a result of his unmistakable spiritual depth and humility. It is hoped this initial attraction leads many people to discover the Holy Father's beautiful vision of the moral life, which is, equally penetrating and genuine.
Benedict XVI's comprehensive pastoral approach to so-called hard issues like contraception and related topics might astound many people. As a teacher and apostle he is second to none in his ability to proclaim the truth in a holistic fashion. Despite spending the majority of his adult life as an academic and Vatican official, the Holy Father is a master of evangelization not only to intellectuals but to the common man as well.
In a 1996 interview with Peter Seewald, then Cardinal Ratzinger was asked about the issue of contraception. Seewald asked him if he understood why most people today do not understand the Church's teaching on contraception. Cardinal Ratzinger replied he did understand people not understanding the issue since it is complicated and that we "ought to look less at the casuistry of individual cases and more at the major objectives that the church has in mind."
Benedict's genius is to view an issue like contraception through these fundamental objectives with the mind of the Church, which allows us to see the totality of the problem and not just an isolated aspect of it. This way the relationship between contraception and the good and happiness of the human person is revealed. The major objectives are: First, children are a great blessing not a threat or burden. Secondly, once you separate sexual expression from procreation the action harms not only the male-female relationship but also the individuals. Finally, our age tries to solve moral problems through technology rather than realizing that moral flourishing rests upon pursuing an integral way of life reached through life decisions based on true freedom. Authentic freedom "is linked to a yardstick, the yardstick of reality - to truth." Christ proclaimed, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." (Jn 14:6) What is true and what is good cannot be separated. As Benedict reminds us "truth and love are identical."
More recently the Holy Father was interviewed in preparation for his Papal trip to Bavaria. The reporter noted that while the Pope was in Valencia, Spain for the World Meeting of Families, the Holy Father never mentioned the words "homosexual marriage" nor did he speak about abortion or contraception. The reporter then asked Benedict XVI if "clearly your idea is to go around the world preaching the faith rather than as an 'apostle of morality'."
The Holy Father's response is a remarkable blueprint for parents, teachers and all who work in diocesan and parish apostolates. Benedict responded:
"obviously, yes. Actually, I should say I had only two opportunities to speak for 20 minutes. And when you have so little time you cannot immediately begin with 'no'. Firstly, you have to know what we really want, right? Christianity, Catholicism, is not a collection of prohibitions: it is a positive option. It is very important that we look at it again because this idea has almost completely disappeared today. We have heard so much about what is not allowed that now it is time to say: we have a positive idea to offer, that man and woman are made for each other, that the scale of sexuality, eros, agape, indicates the level of love and it is in this way that marriage develops, first of all as a joyful and blessing-filled encounter between a man and a woman, and then, the family, which guarantees continuity among generations and through which generations are reconciled to each other and even cultures can meet."
One of Pope Benedict XVI's most interesting talks dealing with the problem of couples not having children came during an address to the Curia in December, 2006. In his remarks he said an astounding thing about his trip to Valencia, Spain for the Fifth World meeting on Families. He said, "The visit to Valencia became for me a quest for the meaning of the human being." How does the search for the meaning of the human being relate to married couples not wanting children? Answering this question will get to the root evil of contraception and related issues.
In this talk, Benedict pointed out that, in the West and Europe in particular, many married couples no longer want to have children. Couples are afraid to have children because becoming a parent seems too great a risk, and sometimes even a burden.
Benedict noted that children need loving attention, which requires parents give their children time, the time of our life. "The time we have available barely suffices for our own lives; how could we surrender it, give it to someone else? To have time and to give time - this is for us a very concrete way to learn to give oneself, to lose oneself in order to find oneself."
Benedict observed that another aspect of the fear of parenthood centers on the awesome questions involved in raising children, such as, how do we ensure our child follows the right path, how do we respect his or her freedom, what is the correct way to live? These questions arise because the modern spirit has lost it bearings, leading to insecurity about the future.
Benedict asks, "Why are things like this?" The Holy Father realizes that issues like contraception and same sex marriage are signs or symptoms of a much more fundamental problem. This larger problem is a theme Benedict XVI has lectured and written on since the Second Vatican Council. The Holy Father reminded the members of the Curia that "the great problem of the West is forgetfulness of God. This forgetfulness is spreading. In short, all the individual problems can be traced back to this question. I am sure of it."
Relativism is the philosophic view that there is no absolute truth or certitude and results when Man disregards God, ensuring the impossibility of establishing common moral and religious standards. The Pope's teaching has been so profound and clear that President Bush recently quoted the Holy Father's, now famous, "dictatorship of relativism", line at the White House welcoming ceremony.
As a true man of the Council, Benedict is applying the teaching of Gaudium et Spes to our time. "Once God is forgotten, however, the creature itself grows unintelligible." (#36) Benedict notes that forgetfulness of God leads to the dictatorship of relativism, "which does not recognize anything as certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desire."
As noted above, Benedict XVI sees issues like contraception, cohabitation and same sex marriage as signs of a deeper problem. Once God is forgotten, Man and the institutions God created to fulfill and nourish his soul become meaningless. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the area of marriage and family life. Note how the primary relationship between man and woman - marriage - has been adversely affected the past half century. One of the great blessings of marriage, having children, is now viewed as a threat or burden, by a large sector of the population. Then, the institution itself was attacked further by the epidemic of cohabitation. Marriage itself is no longer viewed as a blessing to be cherished. Now, we have the absurd notion that there is something called same sex marriage. As St. Paul taught us, "...God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen." (Rom.1: 24-25)
Human Life International e-Newsletter.
The overwhelming affection for Pope Benedict XVI during his recent visit to the U.S. surprised many people. The positive reaction to the Holy Father was a result of his unmistakable spiritual depth and humility. It is hoped this initial attraction leads many people to discover the Holy Father's beautiful vision of the moral life, which is, equally penetrating and genuine.
Benedict XVI's comprehensive pastoral approach to so-called hard issues like contraception and related topics might astound many people. As a teacher and apostle he is second to none in his ability to proclaim the truth in a holistic fashion. Despite spending the majority of his adult life as an academic and Vatican official, the Holy Father is a master of evangelization not only to intellectuals but to the common man as well.
In a 1996 interview with Peter Seewald, then Cardinal Ratzinger was asked about the issue of contraception. Seewald asked him if he understood why most people today do not understand the Church's teaching on contraception. Cardinal Ratzinger replied he did understand people not understanding the issue since it is complicated and that we "ought to look less at the casuistry of individual cases and more at the major objectives that the church has in mind."
Benedict's genius is to view an issue like contraception through these fundamental objectives with the mind of the Church, which allows us to see the totality of the problem and not just an isolated aspect of it. This way the relationship between contraception and the good and happiness of the human person is revealed. The major objectives are: First, children are a great blessing not a threat or burden. Secondly, once you separate sexual expression from procreation the action harms not only the male-female relationship but also the individuals. Finally, our age tries to solve moral problems through technology rather than realizing that moral flourishing rests upon pursuing an integral way of life reached through life decisions based on true freedom. Authentic freedom "is linked to a yardstick, the yardstick of reality - to truth." Christ proclaimed, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." (Jn 14:6) What is true and what is good cannot be separated. As Benedict reminds us "truth and love are identical."
More recently the Holy Father was interviewed in preparation for his Papal trip to Bavaria. The reporter noted that while the Pope was in Valencia, Spain for the World Meeting of Families, the Holy Father never mentioned the words "homosexual marriage" nor did he speak about abortion or contraception. The reporter then asked Benedict XVI if "clearly your idea is to go around the world preaching the faith rather than as an 'apostle of morality'."
The Holy Father's response is a remarkable blueprint for parents, teachers and all who work in diocesan and parish apostolates. Benedict responded:
"obviously, yes. Actually, I should say I had only two opportunities to speak for 20 minutes. And when you have so little time you cannot immediately begin with 'no'. Firstly, you have to know what we really want, right? Christianity, Catholicism, is not a collection of prohibitions: it is a positive option. It is very important that we look at it again because this idea has almost completely disappeared today. We have heard so much about what is not allowed that now it is time to say: we have a positive idea to offer, that man and woman are made for each other, that the scale of sexuality, eros, agape, indicates the level of love and it is in this way that marriage develops, first of all as a joyful and blessing-filled encounter between a man and a woman, and then, the family, which guarantees continuity among generations and through which generations are reconciled to each other and even cultures can meet."
One of Pope Benedict XVI's most interesting talks dealing with the problem of couples not having children came during an address to the Curia in December, 2006. In his remarks he said an astounding thing about his trip to Valencia, Spain for the Fifth World meeting on Families. He said, "The visit to Valencia became for me a quest for the meaning of the human being." How does the search for the meaning of the human being relate to married couples not wanting children? Answering this question will get to the root evil of contraception and related issues.
In this talk, Benedict pointed out that, in the West and Europe in particular, many married couples no longer want to have children. Couples are afraid to have children because becoming a parent seems too great a risk, and sometimes even a burden.
Benedict noted that children need loving attention, which requires parents give their children time, the time of our life. "The time we have available barely suffices for our own lives; how could we surrender it, give it to someone else? To have time and to give time - this is for us a very concrete way to learn to give oneself, to lose oneself in order to find oneself."
Benedict observed that another aspect of the fear of parenthood centers on the awesome questions involved in raising children, such as, how do we ensure our child follows the right path, how do we respect his or her freedom, what is the correct way to live? These questions arise because the modern spirit has lost it bearings, leading to insecurity about the future.
Benedict asks, "Why are things like this?" The Holy Father realizes that issues like contraception and same sex marriage are signs or symptoms of a much more fundamental problem. This larger problem is a theme Benedict XVI has lectured and written on since the Second Vatican Council. The Holy Father reminded the members of the Curia that "the great problem of the West is forgetfulness of God. This forgetfulness is spreading. In short, all the individual problems can be traced back to this question. I am sure of it."
Relativism is the philosophic view that there is no absolute truth or certitude and results when Man disregards God, ensuring the impossibility of establishing common moral and religious standards. The Pope's teaching has been so profound and clear that President Bush recently quoted the Holy Father's, now famous, "dictatorship of relativism", line at the White House welcoming ceremony.
As a true man of the Council, Benedict is applying the teaching of Gaudium et Spes to our time. "Once God is forgotten, however, the creature itself grows unintelligible." (#36) Benedict notes that forgetfulness of God leads to the dictatorship of relativism, "which does not recognize anything as certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desire."
As noted above, Benedict XVI sees issues like contraception, cohabitation and same sex marriage as signs of a deeper problem. Once God is forgotten, Man and the institutions God created to fulfill and nourish his soul become meaningless. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the area of marriage and family life. Note how the primary relationship between man and woman - marriage - has been adversely affected the past half century. One of the great blessings of marriage, having children, is now viewed as a threat or burden, by a large sector of the population. Then, the institution itself was attacked further by the epidemic of cohabitation. Marriage itself is no longer viewed as a blessing to be cherished. Now, we have the absurd notion that there is something called same sex marriage. As St. Paul taught us, "...God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen." (Rom.1: 24-25)
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Fighting abortion: not religious opinion, but defending babies' human rights
The Reproductive Health Bill defines reproductive rights as the right of a couple "to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children."
And so a baby who is not well timed, spaced and numbered can be terminated. This is to give free license to mothers to abort "reproduction." This is a diabolical euphemism for the murder of babies.
Reproductive right is the right to infanticide. And any claim for such a right to kill should be stopped. Much less should a law enshrine and protect such an arrogant claim.
Below is a letter from a great pastor, containing an excellent short summary clarifying typical mistakes re abortion: (1) merely private faith-based opinion on when human life begins, (2) not right to impose religious views on others
It says: (1) modern biology knows exactly when human life begins: at the moment of conception. Religion has nothing to do with it., (2) abortion always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong. Resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion. ... all law involves the imposition of some people's convictions on everyone else. .... American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year. Other people have imposed their "pro-choice" beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades.
-------------------------------------------------
When Catholics serve on the national stage, their actions and words impact the faith of Catholics around the country. As a result, they open themselves to legitimate scrutiny by local Catholics and local bishops on matters of Catholic belief. In 2008, although NBC probably didn't intend it, Meet the Press has become a national window on the flawed moral reasoning of some Catholic public servants.
On August 24, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, describing herself as an ardent, practicing Catholic, misrepresented the overwhelming body of Catholic teaching against abortion to the show's nationwide audience, while defending her "pro-choice" abortion views. On September 7, Sen. Joseph Biden compounded the problem to the same Meet the Press audience.
Sen. Biden is a man of distinguished public service. That doesn't excuse poor logic or bad facts. Asked when life begins, Sen. Biden said that, "it's a personal and private issue." But in reality, modern biology knows exactly when human life begins: at the moment of conception. Religion has nothing to do with it. People might argue when human "personhood" begins – though that leads public policy in very dangerous directions – but no one can any longer claim that the beginning of life is a matter of religious opinion.
Sen. Biden also confused the nature of pluralism. Real pluralism thrives on healthy, non-violent disagreement; it requires an environment where people of conviction will struggle respectfully but vigorously to advance their beliefs. In his interview, the senator observed that other people with strong religious views disagree with the Catholic approach to abortion. It's certainly true that we need to acknowledge the views of other people and compromise whenever possible – but not at the expense of a developing child's right to life. Abortion is a foundational issue; it is not an issue like housing policy or the price of foreign oil. It always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong. If, as Sen. Biden said, "I'm prepared as a matter of faith [emphasis added] to accept that life begins at the moment of conception," then he is not merely wrong about the science of new life; he also fails to defend the innocent life he already knows is there.
As the senator said in his interview, he has opposed public funding for abortions. To his great credit, he also backed a successful ban on partial-birth abortions. But his strong support for the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade and the false "right" to abortion it enshrines, can't be excused by any serious Catholic. Support for Roe and the "right to choose" an abortion simply masks what abortion is, and what abortion does. Roe is bad law. As long as it stands, it prevents returning the abortion issue to the states where it belongs, so that the American people can decide its future through fair debate and legislation.
In his Meet the Press interview, Sen. Biden used a morally exhausted argument that American Catholics have been hearing for 40 years: i.e., that Catholics can't "impose" their religiously based views on the rest of the country. But resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion. And the senator knows very well as a lawmaker that all law involves the imposition of some people's convictions on everyone else. That is the nature of the law. American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year. Other people have imposed their "pro-choice" beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades.
If we claim to be Catholic, then American Catholics, including public officials who describe themselves as Catholic, need to act accordingly. We need to put an end to Roe and the industry of permissive abortion it enables. Otherwise all of us – from senators and members of Congress, to Catholic laypeople in the pews – fail not only as believers and disciples, but also as citizens.
+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver
+James D. Conley
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver
And so a baby who is not well timed, spaced and numbered can be terminated. This is to give free license to mothers to abort "reproduction." This is a diabolical euphemism for the murder of babies.
Reproductive right is the right to infanticide. And any claim for such a right to kill should be stopped. Much less should a law enshrine and protect such an arrogant claim.
Below is a letter from a great pastor, containing an excellent short summary clarifying typical mistakes re abortion: (1) merely private faith-based opinion on when human life begins, (2) not right to impose religious views on others
It says: (1) modern biology knows exactly when human life begins: at the moment of conception. Religion has nothing to do with it., (2) abortion always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong. Resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion. ... all law involves the imposition of some people's convictions on everyone else. .... American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year. Other people have imposed their "pro-choice" beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades.
-------------------------------------------------
When Catholics serve on the national stage, their actions and words impact the faith of Catholics around the country. As a result, they open themselves to legitimate scrutiny by local Catholics and local bishops on matters of Catholic belief. In 2008, although NBC probably didn't intend it, Meet the Press has become a national window on the flawed moral reasoning of some Catholic public servants.
On August 24, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, describing herself as an ardent, practicing Catholic, misrepresented the overwhelming body of Catholic teaching against abortion to the show's nationwide audience, while defending her "pro-choice" abortion views. On September 7, Sen. Joseph Biden compounded the problem to the same Meet the Press audience.
Sen. Biden is a man of distinguished public service. That doesn't excuse poor logic or bad facts. Asked when life begins, Sen. Biden said that, "it's a personal and private issue." But in reality, modern biology knows exactly when human life begins: at the moment of conception. Religion has nothing to do with it. People might argue when human "personhood" begins – though that leads public policy in very dangerous directions – but no one can any longer claim that the beginning of life is a matter of religious opinion.
Sen. Biden also confused the nature of pluralism. Real pluralism thrives on healthy, non-violent disagreement; it requires an environment where people of conviction will struggle respectfully but vigorously to advance their beliefs. In his interview, the senator observed that other people with strong religious views disagree with the Catholic approach to abortion. It's certainly true that we need to acknowledge the views of other people and compromise whenever possible – but not at the expense of a developing child's right to life. Abortion is a foundational issue; it is not an issue like housing policy or the price of foreign oil. It always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong. If, as Sen. Biden said, "I'm prepared as a matter of faith [emphasis added] to accept that life begins at the moment of conception," then he is not merely wrong about the science of new life; he also fails to defend the innocent life he already knows is there.
As the senator said in his interview, he has opposed public funding for abortions. To his great credit, he also backed a successful ban on partial-birth abortions. But his strong support for the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade and the false "right" to abortion it enshrines, can't be excused by any serious Catholic. Support for Roe and the "right to choose" an abortion simply masks what abortion is, and what abortion does. Roe is bad law. As long as it stands, it prevents returning the abortion issue to the states where it belongs, so that the American people can decide its future through fair debate and legislation.
In his Meet the Press interview, Sen. Biden used a morally exhausted argument that American Catholics have been hearing for 40 years: i.e., that Catholics can't "impose" their religiously based views on the rest of the country. But resistance to abortion is a matter of human rights, not religious opinion. And the senator knows very well as a lawmaker that all law involves the imposition of some people's convictions on everyone else. That is the nature of the law. American Catholics have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the destruction of more than a million developing unborn children a year. Other people have imposed their "pro-choice" beliefs on American society without any remorse for decades.
If we claim to be Catholic, then American Catholics, including public officials who describe themselves as Catholic, need to act accordingly. We need to put an end to Roe and the industry of permissive abortion it enables. Otherwise all of us – from senators and members of Congress, to Catholic laypeople in the pews – fail not only as believers and disciples, but also as citizens.
+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver
+James D. Conley
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver
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