Posts by Tess Rooney
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Actually that link explains it waaay better that I have been trying to do. So please look at it.
-
Well, since I know exactly when I'm ovulating and where I am in my menstrual cycle I'm not fretting over getting pregnant.
And you all seem to think that Catholics can't space their family or choose the number of children they want - they can. In fact it would be sinful to have more children than you could care for.
The point is that the sexual act is not _changed_ to stop conception. The sexual act at a fertile time is exactly the same as a sexual act in an infertile time. The difference between the two is not a difference made by the couple, but by God when he created our bodies.
I'm likely explaining it badly, so go here and read if you care to understand:
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_04moraldifference.html
-
but is worth pointing out that to the extent that Christians were prosecuted, it was for sedition, not for their religious beliefs as such.
Christians were persecuted for a variety of reasons. They were obvious scapegoats for one. And I would also question your separation of sedition and religious belief since had they been prepared to worship the Roman Emperor as divine, they would have been regarded as loyal and less likely to be persecuted. A religious AND political act was required of them.
Pliny the Younger tortured two women, and found "a debased superstition carried to great lengths" (Pliny the Younger: Letters, X.25 ff). Trajan's reply was that provided that "if any one denies he is a Christian, and makes it clear he is not, by offering prayer to our gods, then he is to be pardoned on his recantation, no matter how suspicious his past."
So there was a specific religious dimension because there was no idea of separation of religion and state.
-
I've read all that stuff about the rhythm method before. It still makes no sense to me. If you're timing the booty, you're not 'open to life'. You're crossing your fingers and hoping it doesn't happen. The fact that it doesn't work all the time is irrelevant: it's just a less efficient contraceptive.
I can speak only to the Billings Ovulation Method, but modern NFP isn't the "rhythm" method, which was highly unreliable. BOM is highly reliable. I know, I've used it for years, and I am very, very fertile.
Contraception comes from the Latin contra + (con)ception. It means against conception. It means making the sexual act actively sterile. By using a contraceptive you are medicating a woman's fertility, or placing a physical barrier between the lovers.
By only making love at naturally infertile times the sexual act isn't being changed. As I said, there is no law that says couples must make love at all times.
-
It's a sin for a peasant not to make more peasants for their lord (or Lord, as the case may be).
And how do you explain Catholicism/Christianity prior to feudalism? How do you explain it prior to Constantine I when Christians were meeting in the catacombs and getting set on fire for Nero's amusement and garden lighting?
Do you accept people having any form of sincere belief in the Divine?
-
I'm a Billings Ovulation Method teacher, BOM is a form of natural family planning. I have four children. Given my health problems it would not be prudent or safe for me to have more children. But really, I would quite like more :)
Here's a link to research about how reliable BOM is: [ [http://www.woomb.org/omrrca/bulletin/vol27/no4/chinaEvaluation.html | linky-goodness] ]
As to why NFP is okay, but condoms or other forms of artificial contraception is not...
People aren't forced to have sex. They just have to be open to life (ie. not contracepting, or going to abort) when they do have sex. God, in his wisdom, created woman such that she can only fall pregnant for a very short time each menstrual cycle. The couple can choose to make love when they wish within that cycle. Provided that, if they are spacing their children, they must be doing so for non-selfish reasons.
The whole object of sex is mutual self-giving. Holding nothing back.
To quote from the Catholic Catechism (actually taken from Familiaris consortio):
_Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.... the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality._
[ [http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P86.HTM#-2EN | reference ] ]
-
Actually, let me be more precise, if a couple marry and choose not to have children, I don't agree with that.
-
Tess, I'm interested, how do you feel about heterosexual couples who marry for companionship rather than for strictly reproductive purpose?
I don't agree with it.
-
Not romantic so much as ideal. Although since this is my 11th wedding anniversary today, I have had practical experience of making it beome realised.
-
I'm sorry. I thought it was more obvious. I accept the Church's teachings.