Cardinal Lluis Martinez Sistach has a priest in his diocese; Manel Pousa, who in an interview in a Spanish newspaper, acknowledged that he had paid abortions, thus demonstrating that it is progressive. The Cardinal has not done anything with this person. From Spain we need, that we uphold our pastors of these scandals. And the Vatican rewards Martinez Sistach appointed member to the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts and the Congregation for the Clergy.


I do not speak English well, I hope you will understand ...

http://tinyurl.com/6est8r

Thanks for the article, Eric. My husband and I are on our parish Pre-Cana team--a couple weeks ago we had 26 couples for a day. We were "pegged" to give the sex talk as we are one of the two couples on the team that uses NFP. In the past, this talk has tip-toed around the topic for couples. By the Grace of GOd, we stood up when it was our turn and spoke out realizing and stating as much that nowhere else would these couples hear the truth about contraception--and cohabitation, pre-marital sex, etc. Eyes grew WIDE open as we spoke plainly and truthfully. Some we could see were indignant, clearly annoyed at having to listen. When we got the evaluations at the end of the day, 90% said that our subject matter was the one they MOST talked about and were glad to have the clarification on church teaching.

There is real hope that ideas will change, behaviors will follow. It is so important to give couples the truth about contraception and how it will put their marriage in great jeopardy.
Couples living the church teaching are needed desparetely to speak out--join your Pre-Cana teams if only for the 'sex talk'!!!

This reminds me of an arguement I had with a girl that worked at a Planned Parenthood center. In defense of one of my position I offer the fact (or so I thought) that the primary purpose of sex is to have babies and perpetuate humanity. She gave me this astonished look that bugs me to this day. No wonder so many people don't understand the stance of christian morality on sex; they don't understand what sex is.

Thanks to Eric for his essay...even if his points are somewhat worn and, sorry to say, mostly unpersuasive to mainstream culture couples.

May I suggest new approaches in persuading couples to eschew artificial BC? Two (related) come to mind--the "green" approach and the (physical) health of women. It's going to take good old fashioned American marketing prowess to bring these two issues to the hearts and minds and bedrooms of young people.

Sitting around the backyard at a family reunion my "enlightened" brother and his wife were extolling the virtues of "hormone-free" milk, meat, etc. as a way of keeping themselves and their future children healthy. At a Spirit-ordained moment, my wife simply said, "I agree that this lifestyle would be better and understand why you would make this change. What I do not understand is why so many millions of women would willingly ingest prescription hormones in a Pill each day if they are so concerned with their health." You could hear the birds 2 blocks away singing in the silence that followed. Later they both confessed, "We never thought of it that way." Hmmm. It wasn't a moal or religious argument, but one that was cultivated on their ground.

Perhaps we should stop calling it "Natural Family Planning" and coin new phrases--"Organic Reproduction Strategies"--"Green Sex"--and the like.

While the Couple to Couple League is an outstanding place for knowledge and information about "NFP", there is a new women's health science called NaPro Technology (natural procreative technology) developed as an offshoot of the Creighton Model FertilityCare System that addresses not just when one is fertile, but works as a health diagnostic tool for a host of women's health issues like infertility, post-partum depression, irregular cycles, pre-term birth, polycystic ovarian disease and others. By charting, women can discover not only when they might be fertile, but they can also give their chart to highly trained practitioners and doctors who can identify and offer effective treatment--medical and surgical--for many of these problems.

This is but a broad-brush introduction. Point is, if we demonstrate to couples medically superior alternatives to The Pill, they will see that Mother Church truly cares about them--thus potentially leading then to a deeper conversation of the things Eric speaks about (distain for children, materialism, etc.).

Something to think about.

www.naprotechnology.com

Chuck--I agree that your "back door" approach is something that could "work" for many folks in not using chemical contraception. But if we don't follow through with the spiritual, psychological and emotional reasons for not using chemical and physical birth control barriars, we will not get to the root of the problem and frankly, create more.

People really are smart enough to "get it". I find most don't want to live it let alone teach it.

It sounds like they have a different understanding than you of what sex is. Many people, including those who otherwise agree with Eric's article, would dispute that "the primary purpose of sex" is to procreate. And in the position of arguing with someone at Planned Parenthood, I certainly wouldn't lead with that "fact", even if I believed it to be true.

The purpose of sex is unitive and procreative. They can not be separated. That's why the Church is equally against contraception as well as many reproductive technologies.

Although the full teaching of the Church must be presented in pre-Cana and other catechetical contexts, I agree with Chuck that one way to meet the secular culture on this issue is to speak of it as another "green"/health concern. Obviously it doesn't end there, but good things can come when couples begin to think differently about contraception from a health perspective.

In one of my senior university classes there were a number of self-identified Catholics, but the only other person who was against contraception was a fellow who practiced the philosophy of yoga. He was pro-life, and believed most contraception was immoral because it was poison to the body. He also said he didn't think any form of contraception was healthy for a couple because it put a barrier between them. He and I had a lot more in common on a whole host of issues than any of the supposed Christians in the class.

First, some studies suggest that couples who choose natural methods of spacing births (natural family planning, or NFP) instead of artificial means experience a divorce rate as low as 2 percent, compared to 50 percent for the general population. NFP, in which husband and wife cooperate, actually has the effect of strengthening the marital bond.
******
Is this a result of NFP or could it be that those who use NFP are more likely to be faithful Christians who are committed to marriage until "death do us part"?