Hi, Roxanne —

The Church's Teaching on artificial contraception is a teaching in the area of faith and morals.

It is therefore unchangeable and infallible. To practice artificial birth control is a grave matter and, if done with full consent of the will and serious reflection, is a mortal sin. Therefore one should repent and abstain from receiving Holy Communion until one has gone to sacramental Confession. The obstinate refusal to assent to a Church's Teaching in the area of faith and morals, constitutes heresy in which case one should also abstain from receiving Holy Communion.

That doesn't mean you have to like the teaching. It also doesn't mean that your faith can't seek understanding, but it does mean that you must submit to the Teaching.

Ultimately, as Catholics, we believe that Christ founded the Church and, through the Church, He has revealed Truths we are expected to assent to. One cannot therefore be 99% Catholic when it comes to issues of faith and morals. Catholicism is not buffet or cafeteria. You are either Catholic or not.

John

Roxanne,

Your question is shared by many. First, you should understand the Church's teaching on birth control. You are correct that every child has the right to be brought into the world through marital love, and to be welcomed as an equal child of God, but welcomed is not the same as wanted.

To insist that every child be specifically wanted by the parents beforehand is to make the child like a product, something that is made to satisfy a desire to have something. This gives a child a basic insecurity about measuring up. It also creates a consumer culture around children, such that children begin to be screened prenatally (or even before implantations) for desirable characteristics, and then the ones who don't measure up are killed.

After birth, the wanted child phenomenon has been shown by studies to result in more child abuse (when the child doesn't meet parental needs and expectations) and even to making the child the object of the worse sorts of desires. We do not have control over whether a child is procreated or not.

No matter what kind of birth control one uses, even if it's a surgical one (unless one removes the ovaries of the female and the testes of the male), it is possible to get pregnant. And some contraceptives cause early abortions:

• the pill part of the time, and
• the IUD all the time.

However, you are correct if you mean that every child should be welcomed with love, and too many are not welcomed and loved. We can solve that problem by correcting our attitudes and behaviors.

We do not make children. We provide the occasion and the bodily aspect. God directly creates the soul and created the dynamic creative power in us. He is Lord of Life, and we are His stewards.

As to the teaching on birth control, the Church teaches that the parents have the right and duty to practice control of births, when they have serious reason (too many people is not a serious reason and is not even a fact, as we are an under-populated and aging population all over the world).

In any case, the problem is not with birth control, but with method.

Any method that breaks apart the truth of marriage, that explodes the atom at the heart of society, by dividing love from life in the very act that expresses love and openness to life, any act that divides union from procreation, is a method that brings harm to women, to couples, and to society — as we have seen over the last 57 years.

Marriage is a union of persons, who give themselves totally to each other for life, becoming one flesh (and even one organism for the purposes of reproduction). Totally means in every dimension. To purposely suppress life-giving power from the union is to lie, to make the couple not one body, and to make the marital act simply one of mutual gratification. If you read Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, you will see that he was prophetic about the results of contraception. To do something that suppresses the procreative aspect of marriage is also to harm the unitive aspect of marriage.

John Paul II says that contraception violates marital love and is anti-life. To get a better take on the Church's teaching, you might read something by Christopher West and the theology of the body or thetheologyofthebody.com.

As to your particular problem, you need an informed conscience, so go to the Catechism and Church documents and to the sources I mentioned. It is possible to accept a teaching of the Church that one doesn't like, doesn't understand, or disagrees with. We are called to submit our judgment in this matter to the Church which we have accepted as the voice of Christ.

To reject the Church's teaching, and to say that our idea on a matter of faith and morals is superior or true, contrary to the Church's Teaching, is to make ourselves, our own Pope, which is a process that started with Martin Luther and has resulted in 50,000 Christian churches. So it is one thing:

• to feel that you disagree, yet obey and pray for wisdom and strength,
• and another thing to reject.

When one rejects a teaching, one is rejecting the voice of Christ and the Apostles.

16 He who rejects you, rejects Me. (Luke 10:16)

Mary Ann

Hi, Roxanne —

Actually, we are not saying different things.

I am saying that if you reject the Church's solemn official teaching (which is different than disagreeing while submitting assent and praying for light), then you are making yourself your own Pope, which is what Protestantism does.

Mary Ann

Roxanne,

I would encourage you to study and pray and the light will come. Meanwhile, hold your fire and obey. If we always understood the truth and obeyed it because we agreed with it, we would never be truly obeying. We would just be following our own selves!

God tests us, as He did Adam and Eve, by asking that we obey things we do not like or understand. Life is one of those territories that is a great mystery and is His territory.

You appear to be dividing faith in God and faith in God's revelation and plan. Hmmm. That is sort of like one of the Israelites saying,

Well, I believe in God, but I don't believe He said this one commandment Moses talks about.

Mary Ann

Yes. but we should define terms.

One cannot understand, cannot like, and cannot be able to get one's mind to assent to something, but nevertheless trust and submit one's will.

Submission of will is obedience. That is the sort of disagreement I meant.

If your sort of disagreement means:

I am right and the Church is wrong.

that means you have decided to give your will to your own opinion.

Mary Ann

Roxanne,

There is no disagreement between what I wrote and what Mary Ann wrote.

I said that if you obstinately refuse to give assent to a teaching in the area of faith and morals, you are in heresy.

Mary Ann told you that you need to continue to form your conscience in the light of the Magisterium's Teaching. She then suggested some reading material. Obviously, if you are not willing to do that, then your denial is an obstinate denial.

Mary Ann and I are telling you the same thing. You can't remain in heresy.

Look at her words carefully. She wrote:

it is one thing to feel like you disagree, yet still obey ... and another thing to reject.

I also made it clear in my answer that there was a difference between the obstinate denial and faith seeking understanding.

If you want Scripture on this subject just read Genesis 38 and see what happened to Onan for interrupting the sex act in order to prevent pregnancy.

The Church doesn't pull Her teachings out of thin air. They are all rooted in Scripture or
Sacred Tradition which has been handed down to us from the beginning.

John

I don't believe a non-Catholic can have a Catholic funeral Mass, but now, they may be able to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.

This is an area of discipline. It is not a Teaching on faith and morals. We can disagree with the discipline, but still are bound to obey it.

We are free to believe the discipline should change, because a discipline, unlike a Teaching on faith and morals, can change.

John