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Gamaliel
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| Joined: | Mon Jul 7th, 2008 |
| Location: | Houston, Texas USA |
| Posts: | 9 |
| First Name: | Pete | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Roman Catholic |
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Posted: Fri Aug 1st, 2008 02:51 pm |
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I have a friend who is currently using artificial birth control in her marriage. They are experiencing serious financial difficulties and have conceived a child before while using NFP, so they feel they have no other choice to preserve their marriage. Her priest told them that as long as they were "open to having children at some point" in time, they should chose the course they feel to be most correct in good conscience, and that he could grant her absolution. Is this correct? Why or why not?
How does this fly with Vademecum for Confessors nos....
5. The confessor is bound to admonish penitents regarding objectively grave transgressions of God's law and to ensure that they truly desire absolution and God's pardon with the resolution to re-examine and correct their behaviour. Frequent relapse into sins of contraception does not in itself constitute a motive for denying absolution; absolution cannot be imparted, however, in the absence of sufficient repentance or of the resolution not to fall again into sin.40
6. The penitent who regularly confesses with the same priest frequently seeks something besides absolution alone. The confessor needs to know how to provide guidance to help him or her to improve in all Christian virtues, and, in consequence, in the sanctification of marital life.41 This certainly will be easier where a relationship of actual spiritual direction exists, even if this name is not used.
7. On the part of the penitent, the sacrament of Reconciliation requires sincere sorrow, a formally complete accusation of mortal sins, and the resolution, with the help of God, not to fall into sin again. In general, it is not necessary for the confessor to investigate concerning sins committed in invincible ignorance of their evil, or due to an inculpable error of judgment. Although these sins are not imputable, they do not cease, however, to be an evil and a disorder. This also holds for the objective evil of contraception, which introduces a pernicious habit into the conjugal life of the couple. It is therefore necessary to strive in the most suitable way to free the moral conscience from those errors42 which contradict the nature of conjugal life as a total gift.
Though one must keep in mind that the formation of consciences is to be accomplished above all in catechesis for married couples, both general or specific, it is always necessary to assist the spouses, also in the moment of the sacrament of Reconciliation, to examine themselves on the specific duties of conjugal life. Whenever the confessor considers it necessary to question the penitent, he should do so with discretion and respect.
[especially...]
8. The principle according to which it is preferable to let penitents remain in good faith in cases of error due to subjectively invincible ignorance, is certainly to be considered always valid, even in matters of conjugal chastity. And this applies whenever it is foreseen that the penitent, although oriented towards living within the bounds of a life of faith, would not be prepared to change his own conduct, but rather would begin formally to sin. Nonetheless, in these cases, the confessor must try to bring such penitents ever closer to accepting God's plan in their own lives, even in these demands, by means of prayer, admonition and exhorting them to form their consciences, and by the teaching of the Church.
Last edited on Fri Aug 1st, 2008 02:57 pm by Gamaliel
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Dave Armstrong
Network Apologist
| Joined: | Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 |
| Location: | Melvindale, Michigan USA |
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| First Name: | Dave | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Evangelical (1977): Diverse Protestant Influences / Catholic in 1990 |
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Posted: Fri Aug 1st, 2008 06:03 pm |
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I'd say the advice (and absolution) was incorrect. He is waffling on something that is a mortal sin. If they have good reason to delay children (and there are several, discussed in Humanae Vitae itself), then they can properly learn NFP, whch is perfectly legitimate. It's a matter of education, both in the morality of the question, and the technical aspects of NFP.
The problem is that many couples willfully rebel against the self-discipline and "marital chastity" that NFP requires. They've bought into this secular notion that sex is something that can always be obtained on demand, regardless of circumstances or moral codes. If they don't want children, they contracept. It is the "contralife will" that is gravely sinful and immoral. Contraception prevents conception, and in effect "ties the hands of God" (and the pill is usually an abortifacient too).
NFP does no such thing. It respects natural law and is open to life. Even a "mistake" is regarded as part of God's Providence and accepted in faith, that God is in control. If one has good reason to not have a child, then one abstains during the woman's fertile period. Yep, it's tough. So is much of the Christian life. You don't become a Christian to have an easy time of it.
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mrsbmoo
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Virginia USA |
| Posts: | 344 |
| First Name: | Becky | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | former Methodist. RCA, Presbyterian, Holiness, Wesleyan... Catholic as of June ... |
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Posted: Fri Aug 1st, 2008 06:04 pm |
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I ran into this when I was looking for large family web sites. In the comments in one blog, there were several women who had been told by their priest that for various reasons(NFP didn't work for them, serious health problems, etc) they were not sinning by either having their tubes tied or using artificial birth control. So it seems to be very common even if it is not supposed to happen. I would think that some of the responsibility for the sin(maybe even most) would fall on the priest for telling them it was OK. After all, he is supposed to be the authority. I know in the mid-60s, my mother in law was told by her priest that she was allowed to use birth control pills because she had almost died giving birth to my husband(he was very large and got stuck at the shoulders). She was on them until she had a hysterectomy in her 50s.
I think this is an area where there is far too little education/conscience formation. There were also posters who argued that if desire overcame your wish to use NFP that was a good thing, that the desire was from God. I had trouble with that one- saying that in the circumstances that you would die if you became pregnant, God would so fill you with desire for your husband that you wouldn't be able to abstain to avoid pregnancy? Sounds like a cop-out for your own issues. There was a lot of comments about how getting pregnant while not following the rules of NFP was a sign of true holiness, etc and that families with 1-3 kids were clearly cheating at NFP. What bologna! Some of the families at my church with one kid, I know have had fertility issues and feel lucky to have gotten the one. Others may just use NFP successfully withoput cheating to have the 2-3 kids they feel like they can handle or afford. So much judgemental stuff. They need to be addressing some of this in confirmation classes, before the people are faced with the real life circumstances of having to make life changing decisions.
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Becky
Wife of Michael(called Moo) and stay at home mom to 5 daughters between 13 months and 17
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Gamaliel
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| Joined: | Mon Jul 7th, 2008 |
| Location: | Houston, Texas USA |
| Posts: | 9 |
| First Name: | Pete | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Roman Catholic |
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Posted: Fri Aug 1st, 2008 07:12 pm |
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Thanks for the responses...yet how does Vademecum no. 8 fly with all this?
Perhaps I'm just not understanding this...
8. The principle according to which it is preferable to let penitents remain in good faith in cases of error due to subjectively invincible ignorance, is certainly to be considered always valid, even in matters of conjugal chastity. And this applies whenever it is foreseen that the penitent, although oriented towards living within the bounds of a life of faith, would not be prepared to change his own conduct, but rather would begin formally to sin. Nonetheless, in these cases, the confessor must try to bring such penitents ever closer to accepting God's plan in their own lives, even in these demands, by means of prayer, admonition and exhorting them to form their consciences, and by the teaching of the Church.
9. The pastoral "law of gradualness", not to be confused with the "gradualness of the law" which would tend to diminish the demands it places on us, consists of requiring a decisive break with sin together with a progressive path towards total union with the will of God and with his loving demands.43
God bless.
Last edited on Fri Aug 1st, 2008 07:14 pm by Gamaliel
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sat Aug 2nd, 2008 04:08 am |
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Gamaliel wrote:Her priest told them that as long as they were "open to having children at some point" in time, they should chose the course they feel to be most correct in good conscience, and that he could grant her absolution. Is this correct? Why or why not?
The problem with the priest’s advice is that it utilizes concepts and judgments from a formally condemned heresy known as Proportionalism. This is the same line of thought used by the theologians who counseled Pope Paul VI to declare that contraception is a morally legitimate practice. Instead, the pope issued Humanae Vitae, proclaiming under the protection of infallibility that contraception is always a grave sin, and that the line of thinking the theologians were using to justify it was in error. Pope John Paul II backed this up by having a number of such theologians, including an American by the name of Charles Curran, removed from their posts at Catholic institutions when they refused to recant.
The way this heresy works is as follows: It begins by rejecting moral absolutes. A moral absolute states that a certain act, such as the killing of an innocent person, is always wrong. The argument is that to take a person’s life “is a sin not because life is under the exclusive dominion of God, but because it is contrary to right reason unless there is question of a good of a higher order. It is licit to sacrifice a life for the good of the community” (from the Majority Report papers sent to Pope Paul VI, advising him to accept contraception as sometimes morally licit).
This “higher good” approach could be called the “Caiaphas principle,” after the Jewish high priest who used the same sort of thinking to justify killing Jesus of Nazareth (John 11:49–50). Proponents usually refer to it as the “preference principle” or the “principle of proportionate good” (whence the title of the heresy, Proportionalism). The idea of an overriding good justifying the commission of objective sins is basically the same as saying that the end justifies the means — a principle which has been rejected from the very beginning of Christianity (see Romans 3:8).
Therefore, these Proportionalist theologians are wrong when they argue as in this further passage from the Majority Report:
When man intervenes in the procreative purpose of individual acts by contracepting, he does this with the intention of regulating and not excluding fertility. Then he unites the material finality toward fecundity which exists in intercourse with the formal finality of the person and renders the entire process human.… Conjugal acts which by intention are infertile, or which are rendered infertile [by the use of artificial contraceptives], are ordered to the expression of the union of love; that love, moreover, reaches its culmination in fertility responsibly accepted. For that reason other acts of union are in a sense incomplete and receive their full moral quality with ordination toward the fertile act.… Infertile conjugal acts constitute a totality with fertile acts and have a single moral specification [namely, the fostering of love responsibly toward generous fecundity].
This is precisely the same reasoning as that presented by the priest who counseled your friend that if he and his wife were “open to having children at some point,” it would be acceptable for them to use contraception.
But if contraception is intrinsically evil — as the Church infallibly contends — then each and every act of contraception is a grave sin. There could then be no point in saying that “some day” the couple could be open to life (which they are not at present) and thus exonerated from their objective sin.
Now as to the question of “invincible ignorance” posed from a reading of the Vademecum (confessor’s handbook), we must first recognize that your friend is by no means invincibly ignorant. He knows, I am sure, that the Church condemns artificial contraception. Therefore, he cannot be in good faith in accepting an offer of absolution from the priest because he knows that he would be committing a mortal sin of which he is not repentant.
I have met with very few cases where the “good faith” principle might be applied (maybe two or three in the past 40 years). And regardless of its application, the objective sin, with all its consequences, remains, as the Vademecum also advises in §7. So this priest has himself committed a gross error in believing that he can excuse a couple’s deliberate sin in the name of an overriding concern over money.
David
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