So what’s the Catholic advice to Salve?

Passion For Reason

So what’s the Catholic advice to Salve?

By: Raul C. Pangalangan
Philippine Daily Inquirer

1:14 am | Friday, May 27th, 2011

WHEN THE anti-RH Catholic lobby insists that the poor buy their condoms with their 

own money, they act like a modern-day Marie Antoinette to whom we now miss

attribute the infamous quote: “Let them eat cake.”

Yesterday’s Inquirer (“Salve’s life: A strong case for RH bill,” by Kristine Felisse 

Mangunay)  featured Salve Paa, a 37-year-old Filipina who lives in a resettlement

 area in Valenzuela City, in a 32-square-meter space with an earthen floor that gets

 wet when it rains and a latrine consisting of a hole in the ground.

She and her husband support their eight surviving children on a combined

 monthly wage of P5,200. During their 27 years together, she has actually 

given birth to 12 children but four have died, including Christian who died at 4, 

Trisha who died at 7, and Sarah Fe who died at 10, all of infection by “pathogenic

 microorganisms.” Angelito, age 3, is sickly and relies on blood transfusions at

the National Children’s Hospital. None of the kids finished

 grade school. Ana Liza, who dropped out at Grade 6, has the highest educational 

attainment.  Aries and Albert, reached Grade 1 and Prep, respectively. Salve has

 repeatedly asked the  two older boys, Alvin and Albert, to live on their own but 

—as a mother—has always taken  them in each time they came back.

Had she known about family planning sooner, she would have chosen not to have

 so many babies. And here’s the shocker. Salve is pregnant, her 13th pregnancy 

and the 11th mouth  to be fed on their measly budget.

And Salve is even lucky. It is a feat that her starved body has been sturdy 

enough to withstand her 13th pregnancy.

I wonder: What would the anti-RH Catholic say to Salve? Would they preach

 the dignity of life to someone who sleeps a few feet away from the stench of 

an open latrine? Would they preach the sanctity of life to a mother, three of whose

 kids died young  and whose lives could have been saved by decent sanitation? 

Would they preach family values to a loving mother who miraculously manages 

to stretch her meager budget?

The RH bill need not solve poverty. All it must do is help mothers like Salve 

plan the number and spacing of their children as a way to cope with poverty. 

Anti-RH activists  prescribe all those wonderful solutions to poverty - anti-corruption, 

more foreign direct investments, more education, more spiritual blessings. I ask them: 

In the meantime  that your solutions haven’t worked, and surely it hasn’t been 

for lack of trying, should we just leave the millions of Salves unprotected from 

unwanted pregnancies —when there are cheap and simple alternatives?

Surely, the anti-RH advocates reply, there is an even cheaper, church-approved 

option: the rhythm method that enables couples to have sex in such a way that they 

deliberately avoid pregnancy. But I wonder: If sex without procreation using 

rhythm is alright, why would Catholics object to sex without procreation 

using condoms? Same thing really: coital pleasure without babies.

The only difference is that rhythm requires sacrifice during the fertile period.

 But isn’t that attitude rather too medieval, like walking on one’s knees all the

 way to the altar, or praying the Rosary with arms outstretched, or flagellating 

oneself during Semana Santa? Why should the modern Catholic approach

 sex as if it were a privilege to be earned through self-mortification and paid

 for with pregnancy? Isn’t it enough that it be an expression of love within

 the confines of the marital bedroom?

The clergy’s “Let them eat cake!” approach is strange, coming from a Church 

founded on compassion for the poor. I am no Bible-thumping Catholic, but I 

recall some biblical passages about those who were punished because they

 had “pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor 

and needy,” who “harden[ed their] heart [and] shut their hand from the poor,”

 and of “the righteous who [were] concerned for the rights of the poor [and]

 the wicked [who were] not.” Whatever happened to the 

“preferential option for the poor”?

Why then all the Catholic passion against sexual passion? Because for the Filipino 

clergy, the showdown over the RH bill is no less than a battle for the soul of 

Filipino Catholicism. The battle is not against the infidels at the gate. It is against the

 infidels within the gates, those modern Catholics who would not obey blindly, who 

would think for themselves, who would step outside the temples to live the faith

 in their daily lives and not just in holy rituals.

That should explain the hard-line, scorched earth strategy now waged by the 

traditional clergy. One church official called RH champions “no better than 

terrorists” and supporting the RH bill  as “almost like becoming Judas.” One bishop 

has issued a “Clarificatory Note” warning his flock:  “Any Catholic who freely 

identifies himself or herself [with Catholics for Reproductive Health]

 gravely errs” and “endangers his own spiritual well-being.”

Someone should tell them that those who support the RH bill actually aim to

 lessen the half  a million abortions in the country each year, foster family

 unity and enable parents to raise their kids in dignity and with love, and ensure

 the moral upbringing and physical well-being of vulnerable children.

Deep-down, the serious traditional Catholic actually shares more dreams in 

common with RH advocates. Conversely, if one looks at the array of anti-RH 

politicians, I wonder if these guys have genuinely shunned contraceptives

 in their private lives as piously as they now publicly proclaim. Politics indeed 

makes strange bedfellows, and politics, and not faith, is what the anti-RH crusade is. 

Surely there must be something in the Bible that condemns hypocrisy.

(Email: passionforreason@gmail.com)

Re-posted

In 1965 Bishops Voted 9 to 3 that Artificial Contraception a Not a Sin (Part4)

In 1965 Bishops Voted 9 to 3 that Artificial Contraception a Not a Sin

Posted on March 22, 2011 by RHBill.org

continuation... Part 4

Current Pope’s Statement on Conscience

The current Pope, Benedict XVI, wrote in 1976 (as Josef Cardinal Ratzinger) that one’s own conscience is primary, even over the Church, when considering matters of morality:

“Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else. If necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and now which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism.”[15]

Sources

1. Robert McClory, Turning Point: The Inside Story of the Papal Birth Control Commission, Crossroad Publishing, 1995.
2. National Catholic Reporter, “Reveal Papal Birth Control Texts,” April 19, 1967.
3. National Catholic Reporter, “Reveal Papal Birth Control Texts,” April 19, 1967.
4. Charles E. Curran and Robert E. Hunt, Dissent In and For the Church, Sheed & Ward, 1969.
5. William H. Shannon, The Lively Debate: Response to Humanae Vitae, Sheed & Ward, 1970.
6. Statement of the Canadian Bishops on the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, September 27, 1968.
7. John Horgan, Humanae Vitae and the Bishops, Irish University Press, 1972.
8. Andrew Greeley, The American Catholic: A Social Portrait, Basic Books, 1977.
9. William D. Antonio, “The American Catholic Laity in 1999,” National Catholic Reporter, October 29, 1999.
10. Andrew Greeley “American Catholics Since the Council,” Thomas Moore, 1985, p. 81.
11. Avery Dulles, “Humanae Vitae and the Crisis of Dissent,” Origins, April 22, 1993.
12. National Catholic Reporter, “Pope Takes Firm Stand on Contraception Issue,” October 7, 1983.
13. Wanderer, “Pope Warns Theologians not to Question Ban on Contraception,” November 24, 1988.
14. Bernard Haring, “Does God Condemn Contraception?” Commonweal, February 10, 1989.
15. Herbert Vorgrimler, ed. Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, v.5, 1976

In 1965 Bishops Voted 9 to 3 that Artificial Contraception a Not a Sin (Part3)

continuation ... Part 3

Legacy of Humanae Vitae

In 1963, 70 percent of Catholics believed that the pope derived his teaching authority from Christ through St. Peter. By 1974, only 42 percent believed the same thing.[8] By 1999 nearly 80 percent of Catholics believed that a person could be a good Catholic without obeying the church hierarchy’s teaching on birth control.[9]  Catholic sociologist Andrew Greeley noted in 1985: “Certainly never in the history of Catholicism have so many Catholics in such apparent good faith decided that they can reject the official teaching of the church as to what is sexually sinful and what is not, and to do so while continuing the regular practice of Catholicism and even continuing the description of themselves as good, strong, solid Catholics.”[10]

John Paul II Takes a Hard Line

A refusal to tolerate any public dissent on the encyclical quickly became one of the hallmarks of John Paul II’s papacy. He moved aggressively to quell any dissent on the encyclical, promoting to the highest ranks of the hierarchy only those priests and bishops who agreed wholeheartedly with the ban and taking disciplinary action against clergy who dissented publicly. Widely respected Jesuit theologican Avery Cardinal Dulles said that adherence to Humanae Vitae became a “litmus test” that trumped all other issues, which resulted in the exclusion of qualified theologians from teaching positions and the advancement of bishops of “debatable quality.”[11]

Rhetorically, Pope John Paul II raised the teaching on contraception above almost all else in the church, using language that confirmed it was absolutely inflexible. In 1983, he issued a statement that said: “Contraception must objectively be considered so illicit that it can never for any reason be justified,” in response to several national bishops’ conferences which had suggested that contraceptive use (not abortion, but contraceptive use) was not a grave offense in situations such as when conceiving a child and becoming pregnant would threaten a woman’s health.[12] In 1988, he told Catholic theologians that they could not question the ban on contraception and to do so would be like questioning “the very idea of God’s holiness.”[13] In 1989, he sidestepped the fact that the teaching had never been declared infallible by proclaiming that Humanae Vitae had been “written by the creative hand of God in the nature of the human person.”[14] 

(to be continued ...)

In 1965 Bishops Voted 9 to 3 that Artificial Contraception a Not a Sin (Part2)

In 1965 Bishops Voted 9 to 3 that Artificial Contraception a Not a Sin  

Posted on March 22, 2011 by RHBill.org

                         ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  continuation ...  Part 2

Pope Paul VI Overrules the Commission

The dissenting members prepared a “minority report” which stated that the teaching on contraception could not change, not due to a theological principle, but because the Church could not admit it was wrong: “The Church cannot change her answer, because this answer is true…it is true because the Catholic Church instituted by Christ…could not have so wrongly erred during all those centuries of its history.” It went on to say that if the hierarchy was to admit it was wrong on the issue, its authority would be questions on all “moral matters.” Pope Paul then went on to write the encyclical Humanae Vitae.[3]

Reaction to Humane Vitae

No sooner was Humanae Vitae released than it was met with an unprecedented torrent of dissent from inside the church, most of it asserting that Catholics were free to follow their consciences on the issue of birth control. Many of the world’s most noted theologians dissented, and the theological faculties of Fordham University, St. Peter’s College, Marquette University, Boston College, and the Pope John XXIII National Seminary issued public statements of dissent, as did 20 of the most prominent theologians in Europe.[4]

The statement said that the encyclical was flawed in its assumptions and reliance on an outmoded conception of natural law and that “it is common teaching in the Church that Catholics may dissent from authoritative, non-fallible teaching of the magisterium when sufficient reason exists.” It concluded that “spouses may responsibly decide according to their conscience that artificial contraception in some circumstances is permissible.”[5]

Bishops around the world officially accepted the encyclical but reaffirmed the right of Catholics to follow their consciences on the birth control decision. The Canadian bishops released a statement saying that Catholics who “tried sincerely but without success” to follow the encyclical “may safely be assured that whoever honestly chooses the course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.”[6]

Bishops’ Conferences in Belgium, German, the Netherlands, France, and Holland issued similar statements. The National Conference of Catholic Biships said Catholics in the United States should receive the encyclical “with sincerity…study it carefully, and form their consciences in that light.”[7]

( to be continued...)

In 1965 Bishops Voted 9 to 3 that Artificial Contraception a Not a Sin- Part 1

In 1965 Bishops Voted 9 to 3 that Artificial Contraception a Not a Sin

Posted on March 22, 2011 by RHBill.org

In 1965 a papal commission created by Pope John XXIII voted overwhelmingly to rescind the ban on artificial contraception, saying that it was not “intrinsically evil nor the popes’ previous teachings on it infallible. The commission argued that there was no good theological basis for the ban. It studied the hostory of Catholic teachings on contraception and found that many of the scientific and theological underpinnings of the prohibition on contraception were flawed or outdated.[1] The commission was then joined by a group of 15 bishops who after hearing the evidence voted 9 to 3 (with 3 abstaining) to change the teaching of the church. The official report of the commission said:

• the teaching on birth control was not infallible;
• that the traditional basis for the ban on contraception–the biblical story of Onan, who spilled the seed–had been interpreted incorrectly in the past;
• that the regulation of fertility was necessary for responsible parenthood and could properly be accomplished by intervening between natural processes;
• and, finally that the morality of marriage was not based on “the direct fecundity of each and every particular act,” but on mutual love within the totality of marriage.[2]