Church and Contraceptives: Stripping off the Rationalizations

Funny that the US has the highest rate of teen pregnancies among the first world countries is that it's because of a high rate of religious states. The Founding Fathers actually said it was dumbfuck stupid to have Christianity as the country's religion, but of course they stated it in much more elegant terms. It's just some religious nut president of theirs added a "God" in their national declaration (wth is that called?) that they say every time after the national anthem and their flag is raised.

Europe and Canada do not have the same problem as the US, same goes for Switzerland, France and Japan. Seriously, the holy bullcrap that these priests and bishops spew should take into account full sets of data instead of nitpicking them for twisting into their own agendas. They should stop sticking their penis *COUGH* I mean religion into the sex lives of other people.

I just came alone another nice fact about the RCC morality: ordaining women to priesthood is a very serious crime on the same level or even more serious than raping little children :

http://www.atheist.ie/2010/08/official-vatican-do…

// “ A Vatican official has explicitly described the crimes contained in this document as being “on the same level” of seriousness. They are the “Delicta Graviora”, the crimes which the Catholic Church considers the most serious of all, and which are reserved to the Holy See for judgment………
For example, sexually abusing a child is listed not as a crime against the child, but as a crime against the Biblical commandment forbidding adultery. And attempting to ordain a woman attracts a more serious punishment than sexually abusing a child. This is the type of morality that results when people put theology ahead of reality. “ //

Again showing the relevance about the topic here : this institution (the RCC hierarchy – with its Pinoy outlet CBCP ) who do not find raping to be wrong against the victim and less serious than ordaining women – this institution is again claiming high moral ground and is lecturing the country about child care. As usual : epics fail !

Another copy & paste exercise to counter a list of facts with subjective emotional opinion.

Looking at the quote and search the internet yields to lots of Catholic apologetic websites (some even call themselves like that ) and I remember that opinion from the Jewish rabbi made with a political agenda in turbulent times including claims that ten-thousands of Jews were sheltered in the Vatican premises of Castel Gandolfo. A short internet check back then shows this summer residence as a regular sized building at the end of a marketplace – unsuitable to house for ten-thousands of refugees. So I take claims like this with a big grain of salt.

About the alleged Einstein quote: also here lots of controversial discussions but no confirmation of the original Time magazine quote besides the claim made in the book (Pinchas E. Lapide, Three Popes and the Jews, p.251). Objection goes that the quote is not found in the quite complete compilation of Einstein quotes, that the writing style and wording doesn’t sound like Einstein at all, that Einstein ambiguously (e.g. not explicit about this alleged quote) complained about misquoting him, up to //“Albert Einstein the Human Side” which was edited together by Helen Dukas, his secretary, from letters from the Einstein Archive. Einstein stated that he did not state those words and it did not reflect his views.//

So possibly another lying for Jesus from the faithful. Independent from the whole discussion what somebody stated as personal opinion or not – the facts remain : Hitler’s religious speeches and writing, the German election results and support from Catholic parties, the Reichskonkordat …etc…

So the discussion here seems to be a pattern: verifiable facts from freethinkers or rational arguments are countered by copy & paste of subjective personal opinions from theists for a single picked out topic.

But back to the original article which is about the RCC in the Philippines and not the’ argumentum ad Hitlerum’. And there the drifting off discussion started with the hint that the RCC is an immoral organization with a 2000 year bloody track-record and is currently the center of some global child rapist and child torture and abuse scandal which is called ‘systematic and endemic’ in official government reports (Ireland – linked to above) with systematic cover up and evasion of justice for serial child rapist.

And an organization like this is claiming the high moral ground and teach the country about moral values of RH issues.

[Nomadic Gadfly says: “Dinesh D’Souza wrote this:”]

Well the master twister who denies even the inquisition – or likes to downscale it to 100 victims in 400 years – or so….

It is not what Hitler this maniac actually believed or not, but here is what this alleged ‘atheist’ said in speeches or writings:
http://nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm
Sound very much religious not atheistic.

About this alleged chain from Darwin to Nietzsche to Hitler : As Dan Dennett highlights (Darwin’s dangerous ideas) Nietzsche despised the Brit Darwin and his ideas.
Then Darwinism is not the artificial selection or social Darwinism – which should be called Spencerism. And of course the Nazi leadership was not going against the church but with the church, and the leadership despised all intellectuals like Nietzsche and had their basis more in the uneducated mass.
But this was so many times debunked and refuted – why has this always to be repeated ?!

And it is very much not about Hitler himself, but about the support of the Catholic church for Hitler (I posted this topics already here on the FF front-page blog – seems to be no user based search function) so here again just as bullet points:
– election of Hitler to be German chancellor and president by the Catholic parties like Zentrum
– Reichskonkordat e.g. agreement of the Vatican with Hitler resulting in support for each other
– The Catholic church in Germany was willingly collaborating by providing church birth registers to identify Jews
– The archbishop of Vienna ordered all churches to flag the swastika when Hitler celebrated the joining of Austria to Germany
– The death mass of Hitler was celebrated by a Catholic priest and Hitler was never excommunicated
– After the war, the Vatican provided passports for some the Nazi leadership to escape to South America

Do not sound like much resistance of the RCC but very much like staunch support and collaboration with Hitler, of course there will be brought up the names of usually the same 1or 2 priests which objected to the regime, which cannot refute the widespread collaboration thou ….

Well these factual topics are of course mainly highlighted in atheist books and articles (in defense of the ad nausea ‘argumentum ad Hitlerum’ ) , not stated as self critic inside the Catholic church.

Time compiled a full list of reported Catholic Church sex abuse scandals including a follow-up on how each case was resolved:
* Ireland 1936-2009
* Mexico 1940s-2005
* Wisconsin 1950-1998
* Boston 1962-2002
* Germany 1970s-2010
* Belgium 1970s-2010
* Austria 1975-1995
* Minnesota 2004-2006
* Brazil 2007-2010

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/comple…

*note the cases where the sex offender priest was either not tried in a court of law, the church handled it "privately", re-assigned the erring cleric to another parish, or let the case drag on until the priest was too old to serve time.

[Nomadic Gadfly says: “In case ecce signum doesn’t know. Can you show to him the evidence of this statement?”]

Just use an internet search engine (Google, Bing …) and search for “Catholic abuse scandal” possible separated by country to find the facts, press articles, etc… this hitlist can include also church documents if there is an aversion against “twisted secular articles”.

About Ireland especially Murphy and Ryan report e.g. official government inquiries :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sexual_abus… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_report

[Nomadic Gadfly says: “Evidence that can stand of court, if there is any.”]

Well when you are an influential institution and above the law, if the prosecutor’s office is colluding with the perpetrators and not filing cases (Ireland), if internal church inquiries are delayed until the crime is expired in secular law (10 years after the minor victim reaches adulthood), priests are shuffled around to other dioceses or if criminal cases are filed priests escape their home country to Rome (Google for it if you want to get details ! ) or also to Philippines (some article here on FF Forum in April) – there are not much cases filed because : without prosecutor –no judge.

For the USA: There were a bunch of cases filed against the RCC, and compensation payments made amounting to billions of US$ – some dioceses even bankrupted (Google for it if you want to get details ! ).

[Nomadic Gadfly says: “Forced conversion of tribes from missionaries.”]

If you are more interested into the topic, Just take it from there and search for more details.
Here for the “fact twisting secular site”

http://atheism.about.com/b/2007/05/23/pope-benedi…

// “Some still believe that the physical suffering of humans can be explained, defended, and justified on the grounds of purification. Very occasionally this principle is applied to oneself, but far more often it is conveniently applied to others. Pope Benedict XVI appears to be a good example because he recently tried to defend the mass slaughter and forced conversion of indigenous tribes in America by European governments because it purified them.
In a speech to Latin American and Caribbean bishops at the end of a visit to Brazil, the Pope said the Church had not imposed itself on the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

They had welcomed the arrival of European priests at the time of the conquest as they were "silently longing" for Christianity, he said.
Catholics who actually live and work with native Americans have barely hesitated to distance themselves from Benedict: Cimi, an Indian advocacy group within the Brazilian Catholic Church, won't support him for example. Cimi advisor Father Paulo Suess is quoted as saying: "The Pope doesn't understand the reality of the Indians here, his statement was wrong and indefensible. I too was upset." Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez wants Pope Benedict XVI to apologize:
"How can the Pope say that the evangelization was not imposed," said Chavez. "Then why did our indigenous people have to flee to the jungles and the mountains?" he asked. …"What happened here was much worse than the holocaust in the Second World War, and no one can deny us that reality," said Chavez. "Not even his Holiness can come here to our land and deny the holocaust of the indigenous people." //

Well seems to be not only “fact twisting secular propaganda” that the indigenous people did not welcome the missionaries and their Christian religion but were forced to it — if even you infallible leader finally apologized for it, so how can you still deny ?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/23/world/europe/23…

//” Pope Benedict XVI tried today to quell anger in South America over his recent comments on the conversion of native populations there, acknowledging today that “unjustifiable crimes” were committed in the European conquest of the continent five centuries ago. Speaking in Italian to a weekly audience here, the pope said that it was “not possible to forget the suffering and the injustices inflicted by colonizers against the indigenous population, whose fundamental human rights were often trampled.” //

++++
*in court.

++++

"Forced conversion of tribes from missionaries."

FORCED… really? Show me the evidence and what percentage of cases that merit such a generalization?

++++

"Fierce support for Catholic Adolf Hitler and his fulfilling of “God’s will” with the holocaust."

Historical facts, please?

++++

In case ecce signum doesn't know.

Can you show to him the evidence of this statement?

"The RCC is the biggest transnational pederast organization on the planet, with approx 13000 priestly abuse cased in the USA alone, thousands of cases in Ireland with a pattern of systematic torture and rape of children, 35,000 abuse and rape cases alone in Dublin"

Evidence that can stand of court, if there is any.

Dinesh D'Souza wrote this: Long but worth reading for evaluation

Was Hitler a Christian?
DINESH D’SOUZA

Leading atheists are arguing that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime were theist and specifically Christian.

Christopher Hitchens in God Is Not Great depicts Hitler as a pagan polytheist — not exactly a conventional theist but still a theist. Atheist websites routinely claim that Hitler was a Christian because he was born Catholic, he never publicly renounced his Catholicism, and he wrote in Mein Kampf, "By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." Atheist writer Sam Harris writes that "the Holocaust marked the culmination of…two hundred years of Christian fulminating against the Jews" and therefore "knowingly or not, the Nazis were agents of religion."

How persuasive are these claims? My New York Times bestseller What's So Great About Christianity has the full story and the requisite citations but here's the condensed version. Hitler was born Catholic just as Stalin was born into the Russian Orthodox Church and Mao was raised as a Buddhist. These facts prove nothing as many people reject their religious upbringing, as these three men did. From an early age, historian Allan Bullock writes, Hitler "had no time at all for Catholic teaching, regarding it as a religion fit only for slaves and detesting its ethics."

How then do we account for Hitler's claim that in carrying out his anti-Semitic program he was an instrument of divine providence? During his ascent to power, Hitler needed the support of the German people — both the Bavarian Catholics and the Prussian Lutherans — and to secure this he occasionally used rhetoric such as "I am doing the Lord's work." To claim that this rhetoric makes Hitler a Christian is to confuse political opportunism with personal conviction. Hitler himself says in Mein Kampf that his public statements should be understood as propaganda that bears no relation to the truth but is designed to sway the masses.

The Nazi idea of an Aryan Christ who uses the sword to cleanse the earth of the Jews — what historians call "Aryan Christianity" — was obviously a radical departure from the traditional Christian understanding and was condemned as such by Pope Pius XI at the time. Moreover, Hitler's anti-Semitism was not religious, it was racial. Jews were targeted not because of their religion — indeed many German Jews were completely secular in their way of life — but because of their racial identity. This was an ethnic and not a religious designation. Hitler's anti-Semitism was secular.

Hitler's Table Talk, a revealing collection of the Fuhrer's private opinions, assembled by a close aide during the war years, shows Hitler to be rabidly anti-religious. He called Christianity one of the great "scourges" of history, and said of the Germans, "Let's be the only people who are immunized against this disease." He promised that "through the peasantry we shall be able to destroy Christianity." In fact, he blamed the Jews for inventing Christianity. He also condemned Christianity for its opposition to evolution.

Hitler reserved special scorn for the Christian values of equality and compassion, which he identified with weakness. Hitler's leading advisers like Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich and Bormann were atheists who hated religion and sought to eradicate its influence in Germany.

Recognizing the absurdity of equating Nazism with Christianity, Christopher Hitchens seeks to push Hitler into the religious camp by portraying his ideology as a "quasi-pagan phenomenon." Hitler may have been a polytheist who worshipped the pagan gods, Hitchens suggests, but polytheism is still theism. This argument fails to distinguish between ancient paganism and modern paganism. It's true that Hitler and the Nazis drew heavily on ancient archetypes — mainly Nordic and Teutonic legends — to give their vision a mystical aura. But this was secular mysticism, not religious mysticism.

The ancient Germanic peoples truly believed in the pagan gods. Hitler and the Nazis, however, relied on ancient myths in the modern form given to them by Nietzsche and Wagner. For Nietzsche and Wagner, there was no question of the ancient myths being true. Wagner no more believed in the Norse god Wotan than Nietzsche believed in Apollo. For Hitler and the Nazis, the ancient myths were valuable because they could give depth and significance to a secular racial conception of the world.

In his multi-volume history of the Third Reich, historian Richard Evans writes that "the Nazis regarded the churches as the strongest and toughest reservoirs of ideological opposition to the principles they believed in." Once Hitler and the Nazis came to power, they launched a ruthless drive to subdue and weaken the Christian churches in Germany. Evans points out that after 1937 the policies of Hitler's government became increasingly anti-religious.

The Nazis stopped celebrating Christmas, and the Hitler Youth recited a prayer thanking the Fuhrer rather than God for their blessings. Clergy regarded as "troublemakers" were ordered not to preach, hundreds of them were imprisoned, and many were simply murdered. Churches were under constant Gestapo surveillance. The Nazis closed religious schools, forced Christian organizations to disband, dismissed civil servants who were practicing Christians, confiscated church property, and censored religious newspapers. Poor Sam Harris cannot explain how an ideology that Hitler and his associates perceived as a repudiation of Christianity can be portrayed as a "culmination" of Christianity.

If Nazism represented the culmination of anything, it was that of the nineteenth-century and early-twentieth century ideology of social Darwinism. Read historian Richard Weikart's revealing study, From Darwin to Hitler. As Weikart documents, both Hitler and Himmler were admirers of Darwin and often spoke of their role as enacting a "law of nature" that guaranteed the "elimination of the unfit." Weikart argues that Hitler himself "drew upon a bountiful fund of social Darwinist thought to construct his own racist philosophy" and concludes that while Darwinism is not a "sufficient" intellectual explanation for Nazism, it is a "necessary" one. Without Darwinism, quite possibly there would not have been Nazism.

The Nazis also drew on the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, adapting his atheist philosophy to their crude purposes. Nietzsche's vision of the ubermensch and his elevation of a new ethic "beyond good and evil" were avidly embraced by Nazi propagandists. Nietzsche's "will to power" almost became a Nazi recruitment slogan. I am not for a moment suggesting that Darwin or Nietzsche would have approved of Hitler's ideas. But Hitler and his henchmen approved of Darwin's and Nietzsche's ideas. Harris simply ignores the evidence of the Nazis' sympathies for Darwin, Nietzsche, and atheism. So what sense can we make of his claim that the leading Nazis were "knowingly or unknowingly" agents of religion? Clearly, it is nonsense.

So in addition to the mountain of corpses that the God-hating regimes of Stalin, Mao, Pot Pot and others have produced, we must add the body count of the God-hating Nazi regime. The Nazis, like the Communists, deliberately targeted the churches and the believers because they wanted to create a new man and a new utopia freed from the shackles of traditional religion and traditional morality. In an earlier blog, I asked what is atheism's contribution to civilization? One answer to that question: Genocide.

@Ecce

If we wanted advice on our sex lives, we'd probably go to people like Dra. Holmes. Not some philosopher who apparently has no fucking idea about sexuality, or has no qualms about using slippery slope arguments, and comparing contraceptive use with people's sexual quirks, or thinking that homosexual relationships are some sort of crime or abomination to humanity.

A person's sex life is not your fucking business, nor is it mine.

Ecce Signum copy and paste from a devout Catholic dogmatist who try to rationalize the Catholic dogma. What tells Wikipedia about the author of the copy & paste exercise:
Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe: studied philosophy of religion under Wittgenstein. During her first undergraduate year she converted to Roman Catholicism, and remained a lifelong devout Catholic. She scandalized liberal colleagues with articles defending the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to contraception in the 1960s and early 1970s. Later in life, she was arrested twice while protesting outside an abortion clinic in Britain, after abortion had been legalized (albeit with restrictions). She was also known for her willingness to face fierce public controversy in the name of her Catholic faith.

[ Ecce Signum says: “and what are those “atrocities in the name of their ideology”? Or are you getting your facts from twisted facts of Catholic urban legends written by secular media?”]

Atrocities of the RCC : well what about learning a little history instead just copy & paste from their dogmatist apologetics ?
– Crusades,
– Inquisition
– Catholic Anti-Semitism during middle ages
– Forced conversion of tribes from missionaries
– Fierce support for Catholic Adolf Hitler and his fulfilling of “God’s will” with the holocaust

Each of these topics alone were resulting into millions of death each !

And to come to some more actual topics: condemning condom use in Africa and forcing the USAID to be withdrawn for each country promoting condom use to force countries to abandon condom use – this on the heights of an AIDS epidemic killing more than 1 million victims per year is a crime on genocidal proportion.

And of course in case it escaped your attention: The RCC is the biggest transnational pederast organization on the planet, with approx 13000 priestly abuse cased in the USA alone, thousands of cases in Ireland with a pattern of systematic torture and rape of children, 35,000 abuse and rape cases alone in Dublin – a city just half the size of Cebu ! And all over Europe the same picture : torture and sexual abuse whereever you look inside the Catholic church.

So this 2000 year bloody history leaves 2 possibilities : whether they are all “twisted legends written from the secular media” as you claim, or you Ecce Signum are member and staunch supporter of an evil organization responsible for the atrocities mentioned above.

"In considering an action, we need always to judge several things about ourselves. First: is the sort of act we contemplate doing something that it's all right to do? Second: are our further or surrounding intentions all right? Third: is the spirit in which we do it all right? Contraceptive intercourse fails on the first count; and to intend such an act is not to intend a marriage act at all, whether or no we're married. An act of ordinary intercourse in marriage at an infertile time, though, is a perfectly ordinary act of married intercourse, and it will be bad, if it is bad, only on the second or third counts.

It may help you to see that the intentional act itself counts, as well as the further or accompanying intentions, if you think of an obvious example like forging a cheque to steal from somebody in order to get funds for a good purpose. The intentional action, presenting a cheque we've forged, is on the face of it a dishonest action, not be vindicated by the good further intention.

If contraceptive intercourse is permissible, then what objection could there be after all to mutual masturbation, or copulation in vase indebito, sodomy, buggery (I should perhaps remark that I am using a legal term here – not indulging in bad language), when normal copulation is impossible or inadvisable (or in any case, according to taste)? It can't be the mere pattern of bodily behaviour in which the stimulation is procured that makes all the difference! But if such things are all right, it becomes perfectly impossible to see anything wrong with homosexual intercourse, for example. I am not saying: if you think contraception all right you will do these other things; not at all. The habit of respectability persists and old prejudices die hard. But I am saying: you will have no solid reason against these things. You will have no answer to someone who proclaims as many do that they are good too. You cannot point to the known fact that Christianity drew people out of the pagan world, always saying no to these things. Because, if you are defending contraception, you will have rejected Christian tradition.

People quite alienated from this tradition are likely to see that my argument holds: that if contraceptive intercourse is all right then so are all forms of sexual activity. To them that is no argument against contraception, to their minds anything is permitted, so long as that's what people want to do. Well, Catholics, I think, are likely to know, or feel, that these other things are bad. Only, in the confusion of our time, they may fail to see that contraceptive intercourse, though much less of a deviation, and though it may not at all involve physical deviant acts, yet does fall under the same condemnation. For in contraceptive intercourse you intend to perform a sexual act which, if it has a chance of being fertile, you render infertile. Qua your intentional action, then, what you do is something intrinsically unapt for generation and, that is why it does fall under that condemnation. There's all the world of difference between this and the use of the "rhythm" method. For you use the rhythm method not just by having intercourse now, but by not having it next week, say; and not having it next week isn't something that does something to today's intercourse to turn it into an infertile act; today's intercourse is an ordinary act of intercourse, an ordinary marriage act. It's only if, in getting married, you proposed (like the Manichaeans) to confine intercourse to infertile periods, that you'd be falsifying marriage and entering a mere concubinage. Or if for mere love of ease and hatred of burdens you determined by this means never to have another child, you would then be dishonouring your marriage."

– from Elizabeth Anscombe

Hi, this is my first time to leave a comment. But here goes.

The US does not have a very liberal sexual education program. Among the developed countries, the US has the most conservative sex education program (since it's routinely gutted by religious conservatives)and consequently has the highest teen pregnancy rate among the developed countries.

I learned that from an article by George Monbiot, an English writer and investigative journalist. He's not a crackpot, He has received honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews and the University of Essex, and an honorary fellowship from Cardiff University.

What really irritates me is that the Church are spreading lies and misinformation, yet they still believe that they are morally superior

Paragraph 13 and 21 of the document provide the reasoning behind.

Faithfulness to God's Design
13. Men rightly observe that a conjugal act imposed on one's partner without regard to his or her condition or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and therefore offends the moral order in its particular application to the intimate relationship of husband and wife. If they further reflect, they must also recognize that an act of mutual love which impairs the capacity to transmit life which God the Creator, through specific laws, has built into it, frustrates His design which constitutes the norm of marriage, and contradicts the will of the Author of life. Hence to use this divine gift while depriving it, even if only partially, of its meaning and purpose, is equally repugnant to the nature of man and of woman, and is consequently in opposition to the plan of God and His holy will. But to experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. Just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also, and with more particular reason, he has no such dominion over his specifically sexual faculties, for these are concerned by their very nature with the generation of life, of which God is the source. "Human life is sacred—all men must recognize that fact," Our predecessor Pope John XXIII recalled. "From its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God." (13)

Value of Self-Discipline
21. The right and lawful ordering of birth demands, first of all, that spouses fully recognize and value the true blessings of family life and that they acquire complete mastery over themselves and their emotions. For if with the aid of reason and of free will they are to control their natural drives, there can be no doubt at all of the need for self-denial. Only then will the expression of love, essential to married life, conform to right order. This is especially clear in the practice of periodic continence. Self-discipline of this kind is a shining witness to the chastity of husband and wife and, far from being a hindrance to their love of one another, transforms it by giving it a more truly human character. And if this self-discipline does demand that they persevere in their purpose and efforts, it has at the same time the salutary effect of enabling husband and wife to develop to their personalities and to be enriched with spiritual blessings. For it brings to family life abundant fruits of tranquility and peace. It helps in solving difficulties of other kinds. It fosters in husband and wife thoughtfulness and loving consideration for one another. It helps them to repel inordinate self-love, which is the opposite of charity. It arouses in them a consciousness of their responsibilities. And finally, it confers upon parents a deeper and more effective influence in the education of their children. As their children grow up, they develop a right sense of values and achieve a serene and harmonious use of their mental and physical powers.

***

By the way the Natural Family Planning that the Church is promoting is not the same as the "rhythm" method. http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/nfp/informati…

[ Nomadic Gadfly says: "What is so special in SEX that the FOREVER CELIBATES are so concerned about? "]
Interesting topic ! As many authors evaluating religiosity and most atheist authors are also wondering.

Why are religious cults and the RCC extremely so – are so much interested and concentrating on sexuality and reproduction ?!?

Their usual conclusion : produce more religious offspring to increase membership, considering especially the high number of children the Bible belt Christian fundamentalists or orthodox Jews are producing.

My pet theory is the cementation of huge family size leading to widespread poverty of uneducated masses – e.g. a dysfunctional society with poverty and suffering, which results in high religiosity because of the need for lots of brain-soothing. And the nightmare of all religious cult leaders, especially the sex obsessed RCC , is a socially secure (pension, healthcare, social welfare) , well educated society, with controlled family planning, educated working women e.g. something like secular Europe or Japan, where the need for brain-soothing and retreat from suffering by religious comforting is not needed any more.

Is anyone knows the link of RH 96?

I want to read it… always better to hear from the horse's mouth.

A way of confession:

This is one of the paths that I am less interested. Maybe because I have a bias against the church: CBCP always ALERT its ALARM SYSTEM in the issue of reproductive health. Surely, the will WALK their TALK in this issue.

Whereas in the PRAXIS against SOCIAL INJUSTICE there are only sporadic responses, but NO ORGANIZED EFFORT to fight against corruption and injustices.

What is so special in SEX that the FOREVER CELIBATES are so concerned about? Maybe I will write my own critique on this issue. Whew!

@Nomadic

"Can you cite in particular where in the CBCP pastoral exhortation that the bishops condemned the use of condoms?"
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/185637/cbcp-official-…

"The Pope and the bishops teach that contraception os wrong in itself. It is wrong not because the Church forbids it. The Church forbids it because it is morally wrong. Hence, contraception is wrong not only for Catholics but for all human beings. It is against the natural law. But the Church does not seek to impose its teaching on others. It can only propose to non-Catholics its teaching."

Well fuck them. Their idea of "proposing" is calling anybody who does not agree with them as "sinful." or lost. That's not "proposing." That's passive-aggresive emotional blackmail.

I do not consider the church as a moral compass, and the fact that they think they can be, despite their ongoing sex scandal issues, insults me.

Hi, Innerminds,

You wrote: "A few days ago the CBCP issued a statement exhorting the proposed bills on sex education and reproductive health,…"

It was a pastoral exhortation on proposed bills on sex education and reproductive health.

++++++++++++++++

Since you focused your reflection on the reproductive health, particularly the contraceptives, I will limit my comments on the issue of contraceptives as well.

On Witnessing.

The CBCP has this confession: "Our action or lack of action might sometimes, sadly, contradict our call and weaken our credibility. But realizing this with the deepest sorrow we nonetheless cannot abdicate our duty and mission. We have to vigorously proclaim truth and integrity, combat corruption, and help build up a moral society."

And the bishops exhorted: "All the faithful, clergy religious and laity, and all our religious institutions are called to proclaim these moral and religious truths. It is our divine mission."

++++++++++++

On Contraceptives.

I'm surprised that your article has pointed its lenses to the contraception and yet I can't follow your arguments on this subject. Please correct me if I missed something.

You wrote: "Lest we muddle the issue with arguments on contraceptive pills that have an abortifacient effect no matter how improbable, let us narrow it down by using condoms as a concrete example, particularly the use of condoms between married couples versus natural family planning."

You should have narrowed your title to condoms instead of the generic term contraceptives. Well, it is your choice. Nonetheless, let me go back to the basics here. I will be using here Bishop Bacani's book Catholics and HB 5043 (Reproductive Health Bill, 2008). The CBCP pastoral exhortation said: "House Bill 96 is substantially the same Reproductive Health Bill formerly known as HB 5043."

Bishop Bacani wrote: "To pro-life Catholics, there is a clear distinction between contraception from abortion. Contraception happens when a person prevents sexual intercourse from resulting in conception. Abortion happens when the fertilized ovum is prevented from coming to term or being born alive."

Bacani clarified that the Church is against the HB 5043/HB 96 is this: "The present bill if approved, would promote the use of oral and injectable contraceptives, implants, and the IUD. Now, these contraceptives drugs and devices are not only contraceptives. They are also abortifacients."

"It promotes contraceptive barriers, techniques, supplies, and services that control fertility as if it were a disease. Science has proven that some contraceptives render the mother’s womb inhospitable, thereby causing abortion," CBCP said.

"Contraceptives that are purely contraceptive only prevent the fertilization of the ovum by the sperm. They do this either by inhibiting ovulation, or by preventing the sperm from meeting and fertilizing the ovum if ovulation takes place. The condom used by male, the female condom and spermicides are purely contraceptive. If the pills that go no further than inhibiting ovulation, they would be purely contraceptive," Bacani explained.

+++++++++++

You wrote: "…the use of condoms between married couples versus natural family planning. Since the CBCP condemns the former but approves the latter…"

Can you cite in particular where in the CBCP pastoral exhortation that the bishops condemned the use of condoms?

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CBCP clarified that life begins in conception: "the Constitution protects “the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception” (Art. II, Sec. 12). And conception is the moment of fertilization. At implantation the new life is already a seven-day old human being."

In the floor discussion of the provision in the Constitution, Bacani recalled that "Commissioner Cirilo Rigos asked Commissioner Bernardo Villegas, a sponsor of the provision, "When is the moment of conception?' Commissioner Villegas replied, '…it is when the ovum is fertilized by the sperm that there is human life.' No one in the Commission argued against the reply of Commissioner Villegas." That's what we have in our Constitution.

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Here's a Q&A in Bishop Bacani's book:

Q: Is contraception forbidden only to Catholics?

A: The Pope and the bishops teach that contraception os wrong in itself. It is wrong not because the Church forbids it. The Church forbids it because it is morally wrong. Hence, contraception is wrong not only for Catholics but for all human beings. It is against the natural law. But the Church does not seek to impose its teaching on others. It can only propose to non-Catholics its teaching.

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You wrote: "…the claim that a pope is infallible once he speaks ex-cathedra, which was the case when he wrote the encyclical."

Well, Bishop Bacani thinks otherwise: "We accept the Church’s teaching against direct contraception and direct sterilization, as official Catholic teaching, or authoritative teaching without claiming that it is infallible and irreversible.”

[Twin-Skies says: "First of, it’s a little hard to take a document on sexuality from the church seriously when said document is over 40 years old. "]

As the RCC dogma hasn't changed much in the last 2000 years, this is a very recent document for RCC standards.
Interpreting morality and society through mythical Bronze age scripture as main guideline, will not result in any better standards whether advised during the hippy flower power generation 1968 or today in 2010.

@innermind

Regarding this CBCP statement:

"c. With its very liberal sex education programs and its aggressive attitude in pushing contraceptives and condoms for safe sex, the United States still has the highest teen birth rate, 93.0 per 1000, and one of the highest rates of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) among teens in the industrialized world."

I've already addressed that assertion partly here:
https://filipinofreethinkers.org/2009/10/17/on-the…

That only covered texasm but based on some follow-up readings, I realized that several other Southern States slap-bang in the bible belt were also reporting higher than expected incidences of STDs and teen pregnancies after their implementation of an abstinence-only policy on sex education.

The bottom line is that if the CBCP is planning to use the US as an example of "liberal" sex ed programs, they may very be shooting themselves in their own foot.

Actually, scratch that – they're gonna kneecaps themselves if they persist 😉

@inner

First of, it's a little hard to take a document on sexuality from the church seriously when said document is over 40 years old. Wouldn't that time frame affect just how well the encyclical can be adapted to reality?

Furthermore, the CBCP does not have the last say in why people decide to have sex.

People have sex for the simple reason it's fun; married couples engage in sex regularly as a way of keeping their relationship strong and not necessarily for the goal of having children.

I don't really consider this immoral, and quite frankly I'd prefer not to take lessons on my sexuality from a cadre of old men who have sworn to a lifetime of celibacy.

That would be like asking me to take lessons on meat carving from a Vegan.

In any case, thanks for the article. Short, concise, and very focused 🙂