Catholics, Contraception and the Fortnight for Freedom

(I posted this on my facebook page because someone asked. Thought I might post it here in case anyone is interested.)

  

What I am writing, I am not writings to proselytize or convince anyone. What I am doing is making clear what Catholics believe and why. I am aware the Protestants do not view this in the same way.

Catholics teach what they believe Christ handed down to the Apostles. They pass down the Word of God in two different ways--the oral and written word. The oral is "Tradition" ; the written is the Bible. Both are God-breathed and are authoritiative for the Catholic.

From the beginning of the church, it has been both pro-life and pro-babies (lots of documents to prove this). BEFORE the church had a unified, written doctrine of the Trinity or of the Divinity of Christ, the church was pro-life and against contraceptives. This is not only a cross over from Judaism, but Christ Himself taught this. It is one of the most ancient of all doctrines.

(Also note that ALL Christians--ALL Christians taught contraception was morally sinful until 1930 and the Anglican Church at the Lambeth Conference opened up contraception for married couples under certain circumstances. Since the 1970's only the Catholic Church continues to teach contraception is a sin.)

The Catholic Church teaches that this isn't our opinion or interpretation of scripture, the Apostles actually taught this and the church--HEARING it from them, passed and passes it down (the source of this doctrine is NOT scripture but actually those listening to the disciples teach it and then they go and teach it as well.)... This was the VERY WORD of God and cannot ever under ANY circumstance change. We, as Christians, are under the most solemn command to pass this on as His Word whether or not we agree or like or dislike it.  

 The woman's womb is the Lords and He opens and closes it. It is a grave sin--in fact an insulting slap in the face of God--to tell our Creator that we don't want to have His babies. (Again, Catholic use the written word to support this teaching of Christ, but the teaching itself is derrived from the early church listening to the Apostles and passing it down orally through the church. We teach this a directly coming from the mouth of Christ and given as truth for His Apostles to teach. That is the source of the doctrine--the oral teachings of Christ.)

 The very first command to the humans was "be fruitful and multiply" and that was commanded after Noah's ark landed and again with Israel. God's ultimate gift to mankind is to be like Him and create children in our own image just as God created us in His own image. It is a profound and powerful gift of God. ALL sexual immorality stems from this concept of the gift of pro-creation and our sinful attempt to possess it and manipulate it. 

For a Catholic, this is not something we can redefine, Christ's doctrine cannot "grow" wiith the times or be in anyway dilluted for the culture. It is what it is and we must remain faithful to our responsibility to pass down the Word of God even if we have to die doing it.

With this HHS mandate (part of the Heathcare Law) that requires Catholics to purchase contraception and abortifacient drugs, we are placed in an absolute crossroads. There is no compromise available to us--either capitulating to the legal process or standing and insisting that "we will NOT comply" with a law that causes us to sin against our Father. 

Adventists will understand with the whole Sabbath law prophecies of being "forced to worship on Sunday." Now, that I have presented the dilemma, some personal commentary.

 1. It is a little irritating that the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) have forever pushed the Democrat candidates and couldn't see this one coming. If Catholics had not voted in Obama, we wouldn't be in this predicament. So for the church to now ask God to come in and intervene with a miracle is showing a lack of understanding and naivete.

 Jesus taught that He will NOT be mocked, what we sew we will reap. America has sewn bad seed and now wants to reap a harvest of plenty? I personally could NEVER deliberately take action in one way and when the outcome is exactly what was anticipated then go and ask God to please get me out of the mess I made. (Well, not totally true, but it is what I logical demand of myself. If you eat ice cream every day, it is immature to beg God not to allow it to go to fat!)

 2. First we need to pray for repentence. This whole focus on praying for freedom just cuts me the wrong way. We need to be humble and submissive to God's will in this one and our Constitutional rights as American citizens need to be a secondary issue. We have lots of repenting to do before we can petition our Creator for His help.

So the whole Fortnight of Freedom is the Catholic Church having 24/7 prayers at church and is encouraging fasting and writing congress in order to restore our religous liberties taken away with the Obama Healthcare Law. I support that and I will be involved in all of it, from fasting to praying to petitioning my government. I will first, however, petition God for mercy upon us, to forgive us our sins both as an individual Christian (me) and then as Christians and then as a nation. Repentance needs to be our first and primary focus, then ask our Father for intervention in this horrible situation. We deserve this, gulp. We really do. God have mercy on us.....