AmericanPapist Comments
What is your practical, real world solution, then?
What do you think will work?
Sermons?
Admonishments?
If so, please demonstrate a logical sequence of events. Show me how appeals to chastity will actually result in a lower abortion rate in the average Western secular country.
Um, Xtra, not having sex means that you won't get pregnant (if you're a female)in the first place. The Catholic Church teaches that sex is a gift from God, and that it should not be abused in any way. Sex has a purpose: to reproduce. Try studying John Paul's theology of the body. Christopher West wrote some excellent books on the subject.
Maybe this is bit off-topic butit relates: in Africa, the only successful AIDS-prevention program is one that endorses chastity and purity, and it is supported by the Catholic Church.
No abortions from the moment of conception through the 35th week of pregnancy. That would serve to clarify just what an abortion (at any stage) is. Many of those who would get an abortion so late probably wouldn't even shy away from a post-term abortion.
Seriously, though, the real solution is throwing off the dictatorship of relativism and reasserting human dignity. I'm wondering if that may come only after we have to live under sharia for a while.
Andrew, I'm quite aware what causes pregnancy. That isn't what I asked. Read what I wrote again.
Show me a logical chain of events that leads to less abortions in Western secular countries.
Start off that chain with admonishments from the Catholic Church, and then extrapolate the rest. Make a convincing argument that the message of chastity would have a significant effect.
Xtra-
Yes certainly sermons and admonishments will help. But I think that really what is needed is proper catechesis and education about the value and dignity of human life. Killing a human because they are unwanted is a serious sin.
Adoptions would be better suited?
The Catholic Church teaches that each human has dignity, a soul, and is worth saving from conception until death.
You ask about secular nations- I'm not sure if there is a 'proper' way of convincing people other than educating about the dignity of human life.
I do believe that the message of chastity would have an effect. I think when people are educated in saving sex for marriage, and remaining a virgin, that they are as a result, spiritually better, and are more fully human. We are not animals, always lusting. Lust comes from sin, and is a sin. God made each of us with dignity, and he wants us to be truly human. Of course making abortion entirely illegal would be good as well.
Xtra,
The hope is that the Catholic Church won't have to be a lone voice if all she's advocating is the promotion of clear, common sense.
Add to that voice some shining examples of the beauty of a family, as opposed to the agonies and quanderies of life in a contraceptive culture--why shouldn't happiness and true love be something that catches on and is taught by anyone who knows what is good for a person and makes him truly happy? How is killing anything (including killing the love and bonding that is part and parcel of sex) supposed to make someone happy?
Xtra,
first, I require all discussion on my website to be courteous, or I'll simlpy shut them down.
that said, I would invite you to read this article by Janet Smith, entitled: Contraception, Why Not?
http://www.catholiceducation.org...ity/
se0002.html
It treats, among many other things, why Contraception in fact has brought about MORE total unwanted pregnancies and why the solution to unwanted pregnancies has to do with treating the CAUSE of this problem in society and not to CONTINUE simply trying to fix the EFFECTS of society's problems.
Second, you can order (for free) a taped version of this article (2 hour format with questions and answers included):
http://www.omsoul.com/item531.Fr...n--Why-
Not.html
If you truly want an answer to your questions, again, I would invite you to do some serious reading on your own beginning with these resources. Thank you.
Third, if you do want a quick response to your questions, here you go:
Why would chastity have an effect on the number of abortions?
1) Quite simply, people outside of marriage would not be having sex, and thus not getting pregnant. If you don't want to go to Babyville, don't get on the bus that leads to babyville.
2) Couples who ARE married and don't want children can have recourse to natural family planning, which has an effective rate of 99%. Yes, you read that right. And couples who use Natural Family Planning get divorced at about the rate of 2-4%.
3) So, let's review. No one outside of marriage is getting pregnant at all, and no one inside marriage is getting pregnant who doesn't really want to. Where does that logic fail?
Finally, since I think the question you really wanted to ask was "What are people who don't want to follow the Church's teaching on sexuality supposed to do?"
This is also simple.
The Church does not force anyone to do its will (and guess what, God doesn't either). What the Church DOES do is try to defend the innocent, and the Church believes that unborn babies are innocent humans who do not deserve to die.
But even for people who DO NOT accept the Church's teaching on sexuality, the article (and particulalry the audio CD) I mention do lay the case out very clearly that contraception actually has increased the total number of unwanted pregnancies, contrary to what is commonly (and mistakenly) thought.
"the article (and particulalry the audio CD) I mention do lay the case out very clearly that contraception actually has increased the total number of unwanted pregnancies, contrary to what is commonly (and mistakenly) thought."
... by (at least in the article's case, haven't listened to the CD) using a combination of highly specious reasoning informed by subjectivity and unsubstantiated data and an ignorance of pragmatic realities.
Which leads me on to the next point:-
The question that I asked was, in fact, the one I wanted asked, not the one you have supposed I wanted asked. I am not talking about what people should or shouldn't do. I am talking about what people WILL do. I maintain that admonishment to chastity outside of marriage in a modern secular country will not have much effect. Take Italy for example. I think you'd allow that it's a pretty Catholic place. I think you'd also allow that it's hardly a country devoid of premarital sex and contraception (and abortion for that matter). This is in the (at the very least geographic) host to the Catholic Church. This is what I'm talking about. Encyclical upon encyclical can be issued, but people will continue to have sex outside of marriage, even in an observant country. It is a practical reality.
So I come back to the original question which I reinforce is the one that I wanted to ask: "Show me how appeals to chastity* will actually result in a lower abortion rate in the average Western secular country?"
*Please note, not how chastity itself would work. The answer to that is obvious.
"practical reality" "pragmatic"
People WILL have sex outside of marriage. THEREFOR it's useless to tell people not to and we have to do the best we can (like supply abortions).
Here's another "practical reality", a "pragmatic" situation.
People WILL murder other people. THEREFORE it's useless to tell people not to and we have to do the best we can (provide them with guns).
I answer to both solutions, the first one (yours) and the second one (mine) that EVEN IF it's a REALITY that people will want to (for me)kill or (for you)abortion/contraception WE SHOULD NOT LET THEM, NOR HELP THEM.
The appeal to chastity does not "work" just as much as the appeal to "not killing" does not work - because people choose not to listen to the message.
So, in answer to your question "Show me how appeals to chastity will actually result in a lower abortion rate in the average Western secular country?"
I answer, "not at all if people are not willing to change."
But then again, I would also answer the question "Show me how appeals to not-murdering will actually result in a less murders in the average Western secular country?" with the answer "not at all if people are not willing to change."
Now, I ask you to answer one question for me here: IF (and you dont have to believe this right now) abortion and contraception ARE murdering an innocent human being, we SHOULD NOT help people do it (murder an innocent human being).
If you answer YES, we will have a common ground if you believe contraception/abortion is MURDER (we can then get you some resources to demonstrate that a fetus is a human being).
If you anser NO (that murder is sometimes okay), we have nothing to talk about.
Second question: Do you see how that if abortion/contraception is murder -that's the most important question for this debate? Since it is a debate about killing human beings.
If no, you are a proportionalist and/or utilitarian, and you have wider problems than I can address in one sitting.
If yes, then once again we have a common ground we can begin to talk.
I'll wait for your two responses.
Well Xtra, if people don't listen and follow through, then they don't listen and follow through. My answer for you is a proper catechesis for all Catholics regarding sexuality, marriage, and life. The culture of Italy (I have never been there) is obviously decadent, and will probably die out. The Catholics that have children will eventually replace them (if the Muslims don't). The fact that it's a "secular" country is the problem.
Or maybe the problem is that people don't want to listen to a higher moral authority, such as God and His Church.
Just because appeals to chastity don't work doesn't mean that the Church should stop making them.
My opinion is that it is a lack of proper education regarding these issues.
The catechisis on marrigage is so lacking. Prepubescent children need to be exposed to the realities of commited relationships that are in it for thick and thin. They need to understand that all but one of the peers they choose to date are someone else's spouse.
My husband does PMIs and he has remarked that it is a rare occassion that one of the engaged couple is coming from an intact family. Some have 2, 3, or more stepparents.
I've given birth to 6 children, only 2 planned, 4 graciously given as a bonus gift from God. Each and every time a pregnancy occured I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that my spouse was with me all the way, would take responsibility for the child and nurture and love not only the child but our committment to each other.
This is how you lower the abortion rate, you establish committed relationships in the Church and support them with skills and values that make marriage work.
I don't personally believe it to be universally so, but I can easily see how some can label abortion as murder. However, inflating contraception (especially methods with no abortifacient agent) to the level of murder is utterly histrionic.
And once again, no matter what the Catholic Church admonishes, there are many Catholics themselves who use contraception. This jibes with your statement of the efficacy of appeals to chastity in the face of intransigence: people aren't willing to give up premarital sex. Ergo, it won't bite. I suppose you could say that it just takes more effort. If you just take the theoretically MOST receptive audience, observant Catholics, and see how as stated they are hardly small c catholic in their response to the Church's teachings on contraception, no matter how much you might rail against them as proportionalists or whatever other apostate term of sturm und drang you choose, the reality is that they exist in large numbers.
I'm not saying the Catholic Church should stop saying what it wants to say. It can do as it pleases, and no doubt it will. But -- and here's that concept you don't seem to like the mention of once more -- pragmatic reality will always intercede.
Well Xtra, luckily "truth is not determined by a majority vote."
Some things are true regardless of how few people practice it. Most people in the 1840s practiced slavery. That did not make it right. Slave owners then could point to the same widespread use of the institution as a justification for their actions as you would want to do about the widespread occurance of premarital sex and abortions.
But in the end, who do we remember? The few souls who saw an injustice and stood up for what they believed was right. Was it easy for them? No, probably not.
In short, I don't see abortion/contraception as "pragmatic realities," I see them as wrong deeds, or at the very least, deeds beneath the dignity of men and women. I believe that men and women can individually choose not to engage in them, to the profit of society and the eternal benefit of their souls.
A pragmatist dies at the end of his life. I however, believe by faith that the "pragmatic end of my life" will be the beginning of an eternal life where God will judge me by how I loved him and my fellow man.
That's my way of looking at the world. Ironically, I think it is the most "pragmatic" approach in the end - and that's not just Paschal talking.
Peace.
And actually, as a final comment, almost 66% of Catholics observed the Church's teaching on contraception even in the 1950s. Did that make it WRONG to contracept back then just like the flip side makes it RIGHT now?
Could you see how the "majority" approach to what SHOULD be done is not tenable?
Further, you take the approach "THIS is the way things are - we have to fix THIS situation".
My solution is to determine what CAUSED this situation in the first place, and to try to remove the chief causes of it.
Allow me a final comparison:
We both see a group of starving kids. I see your solution to be "well, the kids are already here, and they will probably starve - let's kill them off."
I propose the solution to be, "Well, the kids are already here, let's try to find some way to help them survive, and try to prevent starvation in the first place."
Remember, the Church doesn't claim parents ALWAYS have to have kids. If they cannot financially support more children, they are allowed to use Natural Family Planning to prevent conception.
As for the rest, I think you really need to listen to the Contraception: Why Not? recording.
If you don't want to go through that trouble: listen to this debate between Charles Curran (a chief proponant of contraception in the Church) and Dr. Smith (the same professor I talked about earlier):
http://www.americanpapist.com/
sm...ithvcurran.html
Again, you introduce a parallel that is beyond reasonable.
Premarital sex is hardly in the same category as slavery. As you've probably guessed, I think premarital sex of a responsible nature is perfectly fine. I do, however, have enormous problems with the idea of slavery.
I doubt that those now railing against premarital sex are going to be looked on with the same kind of reverence as the abolitionists.
Good, I'm glad we are beginning to more clearly understand our respective positions.
I would also thank you for (at least in my view) somewhat tempering the tone of your discourse. I am more than happy to discuss the issues with you.
Next, I would ask you to read this document and tell me what you think about it:
http://www.aodonline.org/
aodonli...emaritalSex.pdf
"We both see a group of starving kids. I see your solution to be "well, the kids are already here, and they will probably starve - let's kill them off."
I propose the solution to be, "Well, the kids are already here, let's try to find some way to help them survive, and try to prevent starvation in the first place." "
This is a bad illustration of my mindset.
I'd say "let's tend to their immediate needs and look for ways to prevent it happening in the future". That's pretty close to your position.
However, the difference is that I wouldn't entertain solutions that have extremely little chance of working based on all current and preceding evidence.
The way you have put my position would be like me saying that you would just say to them "try not to need to eat in the first place". That doesn't actually work logically or encapsulate your thinking -- eating is a necessity whereas nobody ever died from lack of sex -- but it's an illustration of how words can easily be misconstrued or spun.
I'll read the piece and get back to you. Won't be for a few hours though.
It's a pretty comprehensive piece, more academically thorough than the first one you directed me to. However (you knew that was coming), we all know the various warnings that can be issued about statistics, their malleability, tendency to be cherry-picked and variance in quality.
What I will say is this. You don't need flawless stats to realise that sexuality has become a much more open part of Western culture since, say, the 50's. I will not pretend that this has been totally without a downside. Sexuality permeates youth culture like never before, and I definitely believe this leads many people to have sex way before they are emotionally ready to handle the baggage that comes with it. Again, I come back to the point of practical realities -- I don't think that anything suggested in the article will do much to change the situation. America is already the most declaratively religious Western country, yet the teen (and I'm talking early teen) sex rate is pretty rampant. It all comes back to what to do with the result against a backdrop of the reality that many young teens have sex, and trying to stop that by admonishment is a little like Knut ordering the tide to retreat. I'm certainly not saying to encourage it -- and definitely tell them that waiting is a good choice that results in very little downside -- but wishing the genie back in the bag is utopian.
As far as adult sexuality goes, that is why I put in the caveat of ~responsible~ sex outside of marriage. Frankly, the author's suggestions come across as a recipe for neurosis, with checklists about "are feet on the floor!?" and "at what point did sexual arousal commence!?". As for original sin, I don't acknowledge the concept. I am not religious. It just seems like a psychological recipe for disaster to wrap up what I think ANYONE would acknowledge is completely natural urge in this guilt-inducing context. Now, I'm not saying that the urge needs to be sated at every and any opportunity, nor am I saying that all adults are necessarily equipped to deal with the effects of their sexuality. Far from it. But there are plenty of people who lead perfectly decent, productive and fruitful and in fact enhanced lives who have or have had sex outside of marriage, and quite frankly I think many religions and religious people make way too much of a flapdoodle about it.
As the author says, it's (sex outside of marriage) is hardly something new. Even though I have actually done it here with relation to early teen sex, crying o tempora o mores is an age old syndrome. But if any of us, I don't care who, got in a time machine and took a trip back to 19th century England and wandered to the East End, we would be utterly shocked at the licentiousness and brazen sexual squalor that was daily existence for the unfortunate women on the wrong side of the economic divide. The past is often remembered with a fondness it doesn't always deserve, and also can hide imperfections that aren't so easy
Xtra,
I think it's ironic that many of the same people who are anti-capital punishment are pro-abortion. One way to change a secular country is to point out how irrationale and idiosyncratic many of the beliefs are. Also, having people take responsiblity for themselves and their actions is another start. If people want choice they must also be prepared for consequences. If you want to hve sex, then you should be prepared to raise a child.
Xtra,
I think it's ironic that many of the same people who are anti-capital punishment are pro-abortion. One way to change a secular country is to point out how irrationale and idiosyncratic many of the beliefs are. Also, having people take responsiblity for themselves and their actions is another start. If people want choice they must also be prepared for consequences. If you want to hve sex, then you should be prepared to raise a child.
Xtra - study the Theology of the Body. Christopher West is an author and explains very well in some of his books John Paul's teachings on sexuality. It doesn't condemn anyone, but rather explains how sexuality is a gift from God. If people were more educated in the teachings of the Church, then these problems would lessen and eventually disappear.
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