"Your parents spill a few secrets as they get older.One night at dinner with my mom, I ventured that the rhythm method had worked well for her, given that there were six years between my sister Peggy and my brother Kevin, and six more between Kevin and me. She arched an eyebrow. “Well, sometimes your father used something,” she said. My parents were the most devout Catholics I’ve ever known. But my dad came from a family of 16 in County Clare in Ireland, and my mom’s mother came from a family of 13 in County Mayo. So they balanced their faith with a dose of practicality. After their first three kids, they sagely decided family planning was not soul-staining. So I wasn’t surprised to see the Gallup poll Tuesday showing that 82 percent of U.S. Catholics say birth control is morally acceptable. (Eighty-nine percent of all Americans and 90 percent of non-Catholics agreed.) Gallup tested the morality of 18 issues, and birth control came out on top as the most acceptable, beating divorce, which garnered 67 percent approval, and “buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur,” which got a 60 percent thumbs-up (more from Republicans, naturally, than Democrats)...The poll appeared on the same day as headlines about Catholic Church leaders fighting President Obama’s attempt to get insurance coverage for contraception for women who work or go to college at Catholic institutions. The church insists it’s an argument about religious freedom, not birth control. But, really, it’s about birth control, and women’s lower caste in the church. It’s about conservative bishops targeting Democratic candidates who support contraception and abortion rights as a matter of public policy. And it’s about a church that is obsessed with sex in ways it shouldn’t be, and not obsessed with sex in ways it should be.The bishops and the Vatican care passionately about putting women in chastity belts. Yet they let unchaste priests run wild for decades, unconcerned about the generations of children who were violated and raped and passed around like communion wine..."
Bridget Mary's Reflection
It is shocking that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church continues to get away with such a travesty of justice the global sexual abuse cover-up and the treatment of women as second class citizens. It violates their consciences, the bishops claim to provide contraception coverage for their employees, but how about the Catholic and non-Catholic women who work for the institutional church whose freedom of conscience and reproductive health and well-being are at stake. If the Catholic Church uses tax dollars, then it should provide health care to all including contraception coverage. If the bishops were the ones bearing and raising children, you better believe contraception would be covered, and there would not be large families either! And, of course, this is a non-issue for married priests and women priests- which is exactly what the Catholic Church needs now- a dose of reality therapy. The real issue here is the bishops' political agenda and sexism! Freedom of religion applies to all , not just to the U.S. Catholic bishops. Wake-up gentlemen, it is the 21st century and women's equality is a justice issue!
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
4 comments:
The rhythm method had worked well for us.
Our Father never used something.
Freedom of conscience does not mean that what you end up doing is the right and moral thing to do.
Freedom of conscience means that little children born in mangers have got the Pharisees' number.
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