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| Katy Zatsick, ARCWP, shares Eucharist with community |
The Minority Report:
"This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved.”
"Who is the Leper of our Time?"
by Katy Zatsick
Reading my newspaper this week I was struck by front page articles challenging the requirement that the RCC must provide support for contraceptives through their employee health care benefit plan. Every report I heard or read this week presented that Roman Catholic women use birth control at the rate of over 90% the same as all American women. In our dialogue homily last week we addressed the demon of exclusion in the RCC. I argue Human Sexuality is the leper for the RCC hierarchy in our time. Reading comments and listening to them all week, I would like to have us reflect on the RCC understanding and theology of responsible human sexuality.
Let us go back to the beginning as most of us were alive at the time of Vatican II.
The Pontifical Commission on Birth Control was established in 1963 by John XXIII before his death. Paul VI enlarged the commission to 72 members from 5 continents (16 theologians, 13 physicians, 5 women without medical credentials, with an executive committee of 16 bishops, including 7 cardinals) The commission produced a report in 1966 proposing that artificial birth control was not intrinsically evil and that Catholic couples should be allowed to decide for themselves about the contraceptive methods to be employed. According to the majority report, use of contraceptives should be regarded as an extension of the already accepted cycle method.
A minority report (4 theologian priests, 1 cardinal, 2 bishops) spelled out the negative side’s rational:
1. “If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 (when Casti Connubii was promulgated).
2. “It should likewise have to be admitted that for half a century the Spirit failed to protect Pius XI and Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error. This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved.”
Humanae Vitae by Paul VI in 1968 explicitly rejected the majority report and let the prohibition against contraception stand. This doctrine has not been accepted as today we have 98% of RC women using birth control at sometime in their lives.
The same RC hierarchy that brought us the pedophile crisis now argues against the provision of contraceptives to ALL women who are connected to Catholic institutions, not only Roman Catholic women. My questions are: What does this stand mean for us and what does it mean for generations of women and men to come and their relationships? What is the sexual theology and legacy of moral behavior will we leave the next generations? I argue we cannot sit on the sidelines, we must speak up now.
This homily starter, included after the liturgy outline, sparked a lot of “What do we do?’s” last evening.
I have also included ARCWP’s press release which I gave out before the liturgy.
Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Commission_on_Birth_Control
for the quotes used in homily starter above.
During the dialog homily and after the following some ideas were generated:
-a condom in every collection basket, to the bishops etc. with attached info. No money.
-protest, march, vigil with signs; some version of “I use contraceptives” or a C on the forehead.
-What about a tour of Bob McClory and discussion of “Turning Point…?” Panels/discussions etc.
These actions are “all about power/authority over.”
I see the issue of contraception as more unfinished renewal ministry from Vatican II and Humanae Vitae.
We the Church need to take a strong stand and clearly state a healthy theology and praxis of sexuality.
Remember these are the same men (used exclusively) that bring us the ongoing pedophile crisis.
Roman Catholic Woman Priest Katy Zatsick gave this overview of the history of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control and the rejection of its proposal to allow contraception because they feared loss that if they world knew they were wrong on this issue, that would undermine their "so called" power and control ! Read it and weep the entire minority report below. This is an excerpt!
4 comments:
If 90% of Catholic women jumped off a bridge...
Sin is sin is sin, regardless of how many engage in the sin.
Mitred imposters who take orders from the Vatican speak for the Vatican, not for the majority of the faithful. They have no place in our national debate on contraception coverage.
Vox populi, vox Dei. The clergy should listen to the sense of the faithful.
This is why I think artificial contraception is immoral. From a biological point of view, it's clear that certain animal actions are ordered to certain ends – e.g. eating is ordered to nourishment and sex is ordered to procreation. These activities are pleasurable, because if they weren't, animals wouldn't do them. As human beings, if we trick our bodies so that our activities aren't ordered to their proper ends, we are not being true to our nature. Of course for human beings, there is more to eating than nourishment and more to sex than procreation (e.g. fellowship and love), but if you don't want to put on weight when eating or procreate when having sex then there's a natural way of going about things. In order to avoid becoming obese, we develop good eating habits, such as not eating snacks between meals and not eating too much; in order not to have too many children, it's possible to develop good sexual habits such as NFP. Alternatively, we can choose unnatural ways – to avoid gaining weight we can induce vomiting; to avoid having too many children we can use contraceptives. If we decide to go for the unnatural root, we are denying our human nature – we are dehumanizing ourselves. It seems that the majority of people don't have a problem with this when it comes to sex. They suppose their libidos are so incredibly strong, any attempts to develop reasonable sexual habits would be futile. But I believe that with the help of God's grace, we can overcome all disordered inclinations and be true to ourselves and to each other. Grace perfects nature. When people argue for the necessity of contraception, I wonder whether this is because they don't believe in the reality of God's grace.
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