The Catholic Teaching on Artificial Insemination & In Vitro Fertilization

The practice of this artificial fertilization, since it is a question of man, cannot be considered neither exclusively, nor even mainly, from the biological and medical point of view, leaving aside that of morality and law.

Artificial fertilization, outside of marriage, is to be condemned outright as immoral. Such is indeed the natural law and the positive divine law, that the procreation of a new life can only be the fruit of marriage. Marriage alone safeguards the dignity of the spouses (mainly the woman in this case), their personal property. By itself, only it provides for the good and education of the child. Consequently, on the condemnation of artificial fertilization outside the conjugal union, no difference of opinion is possible between Catholics. A child conceived under these conditions would, by the very fact, be illegitimate.

Artificial fertilization in marriage, but produced by the active element of a third party, is also immoral and, as such, to be condemned without appeal. Only the spouses have a reciprocal right over their body to engender a new life, an exclusive, non-transferable, inalienable right. And that must also be taken into consideration of the child. To anyone who gives life to a small being, nature imposes, by virtue of this bond, the burden of its conservation and education. But between the legitimate husband and the child, the fruit of the active element of a third party (the spouse was he consenting), there is no bond of origin, no moral and legal bond of conjugal procreation.

As for the lawfulness of artificial fertilization in marriage, it suffices for us, for the moment, to recall these principles of natural law: the simple fact that the result to which we aim is achieved by this route, does not justify the use of the medium itself; nor the desire, in itself very legitimate among spouses, to have a child, is not enough to prove the legitimacy of the recourse to artificial fertilization, which would fulfill this desire.

Let it not be forgotten: only the procreation of a new life according to the will and the plan of the Creator carries with it, to an astonishing degree of perfection, the achievement of the aims pursued. It is, at the same time, in conformity with the bodily and spiritual nature and with the dignity of the spouses, with the normal and happy development of the child.

All is an Excerpt: Speech of Pope Pius XII to Catholic Doctors in Rome for their 4th International Congress (Sept. 29, 1949), Acta Apostolicae Sedis 49

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4 Disastrous Effects of Artificial Contraception

Paul VI, despite his deficiencies which led to unprecedented disasters in the Liturgy and the Faith as part of the aftermath of Vatican II, was notably accurate in his predictions on the effects of contraceptives.   The effects of artificial contraception as outlined in his landmark encyclical “Humanae Vitae” are worth mentioning and evaluating:

1.       General lowering of moral standards
2.       A rise in infidelity and illegitimacy
3.       Reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men
4.       Government coercion in reproductive matters

As forty years have passed since this landmark encyclical, let us explore the effects of contraception as it concerns what Paul VI predicted.  The results are grave.

Contraception has become commonplace in our culture.  Whether in the form of the birth control pill, injections, implants, or condoms, the purpose of contraception is to prevent procreation, or the creation of a child.  But while contraception may be readily available in pharmacies, supermarkets, and doctors’ offices that does not mean that it is morally acceptable.

Since contraception is designed to prevent the development of a new human life, it is anti-life in nature.  Therefore, it opposes the Will of God, the Divine Author of Life.  As Pope Paul VI stated in the encyclical Humanae Vitae, “Every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil.

The Catholic Church recognizes a definite link between contraception and abortion.  To begin with, some contraceptives, known as abortifacients, cause chemical abortions.  Both IUDs and the birth control pill can kill tiny human embryos.   In his book, A Consumers Guide to the Pill and Other Drugs, author John Wilks noted that the birth control pill is contraceptive in nature when it prevents ovulation or blocks the sperm from reaching the egg.  If, however, the pill prevents the implantation of the fertilized egg, it is, in fact, causing a chemical abortion, since life begins at fertilization, or conception.  

From a simple compare and contrast point of view, there is little room to doubt that society over the past 60 years has become degenerate in its moral standards.  Look no further than the media. What is permissible for a child to say or be exposed to and what is allowed to be discussed in public are abhorrent.  The list is long and as Paul VI predicted, society has become more and more lacking in morals in the years since artificial contraception became prevalent in society.

As to his second point, the amount of children being born to parents who are not married is staggering.  The percentage of first births to cohabiting women tripled from 9% in 1985 to 27% for births from 2003 to 2010. This rise in first births to cohabiting women parallels increases in first births to unmarried women overall. Of first births from 2006-10, 46% were to unmarried mothers, compared with 38% in 2002. (Source: National Center for Health Statistics, National Survey of Family Growth 2006-2010). 

Infidelity is the act of cheating on a spouse.  Statistics show the rate of infidelity in the US rose drastically over the last 25 years.  The divorce rate has risen from 20% in 1960 (that is population wide and not only Catholics who at the time were virtually zero) to over 50%!
For those who continue to claim that contraception reduces abortion, the statistics over the past fifty plus years shows this to be far from true.  An article in LifeSiteNews by journalist Peter Baklinski states:

“Most abortions result from failed contraception,” admitted Joyce Arthur, founder and executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, earlier this year. 

…

The United State’s highest court had no difficulty in seeing the causal link between contraception and abortion in a 1992 ruling that confirmed Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that brought legal abortion to America. 

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court argued that in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception: “...for two decades of economic and social developments, [people] have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.” 

What the Supreme Court pointed out is that in a contracepting society, abortion not only becomes a necessity, but it becomes the ultimate fail-safe method of birth control. In the mind of the court, contraception doesn’t lessen the need for abortion, but on the contrary, contraception precipitates abortion.
…
Dr. Janet Smith, a professor, author, and national speaker, agrees with Dr. Irving: "Contraception leads us to believe that sex can be a momentary encounter, not a life-long commitment. It has brought about the concept of 'accidental pregnancy.'" 

“The connection between contraception and abortion is primarily this: contraception facilitates the kind of relationships and even the kind of attitudes and moral characters that are likely to lead to abortion,” she wrote.  

Put differently, contraception radically changes the meaning and purpose of sex. Contraception turns the sexual act between a man and a woman that is biologically ordered towards the creation of a new life into a parody of the act, where a newly created life can suddenly be viewed as an uninvited and unwelcome guest. Abortion becomes the easy solution by which the parent permanently and violently disinvites the unwelcome guest. 

With the Governmental mandate forcing individuals and companies to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees, and with other anti-information initiatives including ObamaCare, we see again the prediction of Paul VI coming true.

Contraceptives are destroying marriages, killing lives, increasing violence against women, and destroying society.  It would be in the best interest of us – not only from a spiritual but even from a secular point of view – to eliminate contraceptives altogether.

Note: If you check out a post of mine back from 2008, you'll see that Fr. Eutenuer agrees.

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Excerpt: "Brief Apology for the Church of all Time" by Fr Roger-Thomas Calmel

 Image Source: Bishop Perry of Chicago on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

“However crazily the Catholic hierarchy may behave, priests cannot take the place of bishops, nor can laity take the place of priests. Do we then think of setting up a huge worldwide league or association of priests and Christian layfolk to enter into dialogue with the hierarchy and force them to restore Catholic order ? It is a grand and touching idea, but it is unreal. That is because any such group, wanting to be a Church group but being neither a diocese nor an archdiocese nor a parish nor a religious order, will come under none of the categories over which and for which authority is exercised in the Church. It will be an artificial grouping, an artefact unknown to any of the Church’s real groups which are established and recognized as such.

“So, as with every grouping together of men, the problem of leadership and authority will arise, and the huger the group, the sharper the problem. Unfailingly it will come down to this: being an association, the group must solve the problem of authority; being artificial (no kind of natural or supernatural group), it cannot solve the problem of authority. Rival sub-groups will rapidly arise, war will become inevitable, and there will be no canonical way to end or wage such a war.

“Are we then condemned to being able to do nothing amidst the chaos, often a sacrilegious chaos? I do not think so. Firstly, the indefectibility of the Church guarantees that down to the end of the world there will be enough of a genuine personal hierarchy to maintain the sacraments, in particular the Eucharist and Holy Orders, and to preach the one and only unchanging doctrine of Salvation. And secondly, whatever be the failings of the real hierarchy, we all of us, priests and laity, have our little part of authority.

“Therefore let the priest capable of preaching go to the limits of his power to preach, to absolve sins and to celebrate the true Mass. Let the teaching Sister go to the limits of her grace and her power to form girls in the Faith, good morals, purity and literature. Let every priest and layman, every little group of laity and priests having authority and power over a little fort of the Church and Christendom, go to the limits of their possibilities and powers. Let leaders and inmates of such forts know and be in contact with one another. Let each of the forts protected, defended, trained and directed in its praying and singing by a real authority, become as far as possible a fortress of holiness. That is what will guarantee the continuation of the true Church and will prepare efficaciously for its renewal in God’s good time.

“So we need not to be afraid, but to pray with all confidence and to exercise without fear, according to Tradition and in the sphere that is ours, the power we have, preparing thus for the happy time when Rome will come back to being Rome and bishops to being bishops.”

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1967 Letter from Father DePauw, President of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement, to Pope Paul VI on the Aftermath of the Crisis of Vatican II

Be Thou Peter!

Fr. Gommar A. DePauw, J.C.D,
President of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement

This letter was originally sent to Pope Paul VI as a private communication between a priest and the Supreme Pontiff who, two years earlier, had blessed and commissioned him as leader of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement (C.T.M.). ...

TIA reproduces here important excerpts of this letter, which was sent to Pope Paul VI on August 15, 1967, by Father Gommar A. DePauw, J.C.D, President of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement.  Father DePauw died on the morning of May 6, 2005.  His biography is available here.

The subtitles were added by TIA’s website desk

Your Holiness:

I still vividly remember that December 1, 1965 evening when Your Holiness personally blessed me and my work with the traditionalist Catholics who selected me to be their spokesman ….

I equally remember how Your Holiness literally begged me to urge the Catholics I was to lead in their fight for “TRUTH and TRADITION,” not to lose faith in the Church. And Your Holiness justified that request by stating: “Once the dust stirred up by the recent Ecumenical Council will have settled down, the Church will come out of all this with renewed strength and vigor.”

May I humbly submit that during this past year and a half I have labored as hard as any human individual could to do precisely what Your Holiness asked me to do: to keep the faith in our Church alive among those Catholics who had justifiedly become alarmed to the point of publicly asking themselves and others: “What, in the name of God, is happening to our Catholic Church?!” And may I add that one of the principal aspects of my efforts to keep that faith in our Church alive has consistently been the stressing of belief in the divine foundation of the Roman Papacy and respectful loyalty to its present incumbent, Your Holiness, Paul VI.

Already then, December 1, 1965, Your Holiness asked me to realize that our Church was going through “one of the gravest crises in her history.” If such a description of our Church’s condition was true then, how much more can the same be said of our Church today! To say that it has gone from bad to worse would be the understatement of the century.

Today's condition of the Catholic Church is beyond the point of doctrinal heresy, factual schism, and even apostasy. It is in a state of chaos and utter collapse resulting from the systematic destruction of first our liturgical and other traditions, and now our very beliefs and morals ….

In open violation of all past and present liturgical directives, the Roman Catholic Liturgy, once the envy of all other religions, has for all practical purposes been destroyed. And it gives us very little personal satisfaction to know that all those responsible for this destruction were in advance irrevocably anathematized by the still valid solemn decree of the Council of Trent: “If anyone says that the Mass ought to be celebrated in the vernacular only, let him be cursed.”(Canons of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, n. 9.)

Coercive changes have subrogated our traditional practices with the “litniks”of our Church Establishment daily intensifying their attempts to subjugate the “people of God” to becoming “Protestant” Catholics.

Our churches are no longer Catholic in appearance, atmosphere, or aim. Tables looking like butcher blocks or ironing boards have replaced our altars in perfect harmony with the 16th century Protestant Reformation directives bent on destroying the belief in the dogma of Transubstantiation and the sacrificial nature of the Mass and replacing it with a symbolical trans-signification-communal meal.

Our Holy Mass has disappeared an in its place our people are offered a holy mess of vernacularized vacuum stripped of the surety, serenity, uniformity, and dignity of our traditional Latin liturgy.

Hymns associated with the anti-Catholic rebellions of Luther, Calvin and Wesley have unceremoniously uprooted our cherished Catholic hymns to our God and the Blessed Mother, while our uniquely Catholic Gregorian and polyphonic music has been discarded for sounds and instruments sometimes borrowed from the decadent milieu of young human animals.

Communion rails are ripped out and Holy Communion is refused to the “people of God” unless they stand (not kneel) to receive Him at the mention of Whose name all knees should bend, if one is still to trust the text of the “unrevised” New Testament we were given at one time in our Catholic institutions.

The Most Blessed Sacrament, to be reserved in “the central place of honor” according to the legitimate liturgical directives, is relegated to an obscure shoe box-type niche, playing much less than second fiddle to the throne-type chair of the presiding clerical Buddha set up in dead center of a religious flavored discotheque-barn, from which the traditional statues and Stations of the Cross have been shipped to the nearest auction gallery or antiques shop.

A steadily increasing number of once unsuspecting Catholics are suddenly realizing that, as we predicted more than two years ago, they are gradually, first with subtle and then with increasing bold changes in the liturgy, being ushered into a humanistic rite of a universal brotherhood meal expressive of the existentialist pantheistic concepts of an illuminated “one-world-religion” preparing the way for a Communist controlled “one-world-government.”

The aggiornamento changed dogmatic and moral precepts

But, not only our liturgical traditions have been destroyed. The very beliefs and morals of our Catholic heritage are now up for grabs in our so-called “Church of the Aggiornamento.” Steadily, day in and day out since Vatican II, silt has subversively been shunted in to the minds of the Roman Catholics in America.

Our “Catholic” universities, seminaries, and colleges are bluntly rejecting the religious character that justifies their existence, and their teachers of the “new theology” are calling into question, if not outright rejecting, every tenet of our doctrinal heritage ….

Sunday after Sunday our traditional dogmas and moral precepts are denigrated with pseudo-modern preachments of Socialism or worse emanating from our pulpits occupied by “new breed” clergymen, whose pathological obsession with sex has brought them to the low point of not only advocating the end of clerical celibacy, but even of condoning Fornication, homosexuality, trial marriages, artificial birth control, divorce, and abortion.

Our Church Establishment's press and radio and television presentations are totally captured by the same heretical forces. And our once respected nuns not only have become nonentity “nones” with absurdity of demeanor and dress, but are sabotaging the religious instruction of our youngsters and children by replacing our traditional catechisms with brain-washing religion (?) books subtly poisoning the minds of our coming generations into gradual acceptance of first a unitarian, then a pantheistic, and finally an atheistic philosophy of life.

While some of our American Cardinals and Bishops are way in front of these apostatic hordes of religious rioters, the rest of our Hierarchy are burying their heads in the sand, rocking their consciences to sleep with the proverbial “Everything will be O.K.!” or trying to compensate for the trust and respect they no longer command among their own Catholic people by hob-nobbing with those outside-the-fold merely to produce nothing but a superficial inter-faith harmony built on the swift sand of doctrinal compromise and false hopes.

Your Holiness, we traditionalist Catholics see the evil visibly extant and reject any portion of that evil!

Rejection of the Conciliar Church

Your Holiness …. taking a closer look at the “Conciliar” church forced upon us in the name of Vatican II, and simply judging the tree by its fruits, we are tempted to agree with one of your own immediate collaborators in Rome who has been quoted as characterizing the recent Vatican Council as “a sinister farce acted out by a number of good-for-nothings, some of whom, despite the gold crosses on their chests, don't even believe in the Holy Trinity or the Virgin.”

Your Holiness, we were, we are, and we intend to remain members of the CATHOLIC Church, and we refuse to become absorbed into any new CONCILIAR church! WE CONDEMN AND REJECT THE CONCILIAR CHURCH!

In spite of all the gigantic and expensive promotional techniques used to “sell” it, the “Conciliar” church fails to fascinate the public, and refuses to spiritually refresh the individual. Instead it is repugnant to the point of rejection so tragically evident in the all-time low of our conversion rate and religious vocations, and the pathetic trek of our most loyal and devout Catholics transferring the almost snuffed out candle of traditional Catholic beliefs and practices from our desecrated churches to the underground sanctuary of their hearts and homes.

Responsibility of Paul VI

Your Holiness, if no IMMEDIATE ACTION is taken by YOU, the public reality of the Catholic religion will phase out very soon. Already the memory of a “real” Mass is fading away from the minds of our younger generation, while their elders are growing indifferent or bitter over a Church which, if all her former beliefs and practices were so irrelevant as to be replaced so quickly and drastically, they prefer to forget as the biggest hoax ever on record.

Your Holiness, take one last, hard look at the dying embers of your Church and ours! And decide, bluntly and honestly, whether you wish to be a POPE, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Supreme Pontiff of the one true Church, or to perpetuate your current image of the BISHOP of Rome, the first among equals, with a place of HONOR but without authority within the ranks of a so-called “college” of Bishops …..

We of the C.T.M. still refuse to join the increasing number of Catholics all over the world who accuse you of being part of the team out to destroy the Church we once knew, and of being less interested in remaining the Supreme Pontiff of Christ's one true Church than in becoming the Chief-Chaplain of a new one-world religion in the service of a one-world government.

We of the C.T.M. still have pent up in the reserve of our hearts the enthusiastic loyalty we, traditionalist Catholics, exclusively set apart for our Supreme Pontiff. And we would like nothing better than to forget the past four years and shower our loyalty on a Paul VI turned into a new Saint Pius X who had the courage to face the reality of enemies within our own ranks and the integrity to condemn them. The first four years of your pontificate, Your Holiness, have been disappointing to the most loyal of your sons and daughters. But, late as it is, you still have the opportunity to once more be capable instead of culpable.

Practical suggestions

May we, the traditionalist Catholics whose unworthy spokesman I am, help Your Holiness out of the impasse your enemies cornered you into, by humbly submitting to you the following requests:

Vatican II must be annulled.

Publicly announce via all available international public media that you are again exercising the prerogatives of the Supreme Pontiff of Christ's One True Church, and that the interregnum of Vatican II is over ….

[The Vatican II turned out to be a horrible mistake.] Maybe it was precisely the fear of this horrendous possibility that caused the Holy Ghost to have Pope John declare from the very start that Vatican II, unlike all previous Ecumenical Councils, was not a DOCTRINAL Council but simply a PASTORAL one, thus leaving the door open for any future Pope to eradicate it from the records.

Your Holiness, when honest people commit a blunder they admit it and try to undo it as quickly as possible. Vatican II has so far produced nothing but confusion and disunity among the people of God's Church. It takes humility and courage to admit that even a Pope, outside the realm of his infallible ex cathedra definitions, can commit a blunder. But it is this kind of humility that endears a truly great leader to his subjects. Even so, you know better than all of us together that to lose face is nothing compared to losing souls.

Rescind that falsely interpreted and abused “Collegiality” decree IMMEDIATELY and PERMANENTLY. The burden of the Papacy cannot be shared and was never intended to be. To Peter and to him alone were given the keys of the Kingdom. Peter and Peter ALONE was appointed to strengthen the faith of “his brethren,” the first bishops who governed the primitive Church not just WITH but UNDER Peter. Stop wearing that Bishop's mitre and place the papal tiara back on your anointed head where it was placed the day you accepted to serve as Christ's Vicar and Supreme Pontiff. You accepted the job; you have tasted the privileges – now, taste the responsibilities; they are the two sides of the same coin. Give us another opportunity to let the world know once again that: “HABEMUS PAPAM!” We have a Pope!

Stop accepting decisions made by your alleged “advisors.” Stand on your own two feet! These advisors have led you and the Church into the abyss of their anti-Christ activity. They have forced you into a world position of being apparently at ease in such impossible situations as your praying at the pantheistic monstrosity of the United Nations’ “meditation room,” your denying to the favorite visionary child of Fatima the favor granted to publicly known, unrepentant examples of degraded womanhood, your hobnobbing and exchanging symbols of religious authority with leaders of what still are heretical or schismatic sects, and above all, your lending respectability to the leaders of international Communism, which is still out to destroy our Church and all other religious bodies for that matter.

Stop listening to the politically attuned and diabolical-oriented “advisors” who have infiltrated the highest echelons of our Church, exactly as Our Lady foretold in her last message of Fatima which has been unjustifiedly withheld from our Catholic people for seven years now ….

Listen instead to the genuine Roman Catholic, the traditionalist “man and woman in the pew” who want their Pope to act like a Pope; the same Catholic who continues to kneel when receiving his living God in Holy Communion; who still prays the Rosary to his Mother in Heaven; who still genuflects at the words “And the Word was made flesh by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary: and was made man”; who still reads the Last Gospel of St. John in his or her worn-out missal; who still says the Leonine prayers after Mass for the conversion of Russia; who still abstains from meat on Fridays; who still goes to church on Sundays instead of Saturdays; in one word, the traditionalist Catholics who refuse to turn their backs on the Son of God for any son of man, despite the red or purple he proudly preens ….

Your Holiness! In the name of Jesus Christ, your and our Lord and Saviour, have the courage to disperse the false shepherds and listen to your own conscience! Prove once again to friend and foe alike that the gates of Hell did indeed not prevail. Stir the embers of a dying Church and, with gallant despair, make her once more a House of Refuge in lieu of a house of refuse. Bind instead of grind the gnawing wounds of Christ's Mystical Body ….

Your Holiness! If we do not receive a satisfactory answer from Your Holiness or at least are given an opportunity to discuss our requests and proposals with Your Holiness personally - within the next month, we shall consider our requests denied and our proposals rejected, and draw the sad and tragic conclusion that Our Mother the Church has temporarily abandoned the best ones of her children.

I pray to God and to His blessed Mother whose Assumption we commemorate today – and millions all over the world are joining me in this prayer – that such a dark and tragic day will never come. But, if we have no other choice, we will jealously protect the small but still burning candle of our traditional Catholic Faith, and patiently carry on our spiritual “Resistance” movement without the hoped-for papal approval ….

Holy Father! Do no reject the best and most loyal ones of your sons and daughters! But, even if Paul VI would close his soul and heart to us – Quod Deus avertat! – we will not reject the Papacy!

Abandoned by you, we would sorrowfully pray and wait for the day a new successor of St. Peter would open his arms again to those of his children whose only crime it was to live up to the admonition of your patron saint: “Even if an angel from Heaven should preach a gospel to you other than that which we have preached to you, let him be cursed.” (Gal 1: 8), or of those other early Church leaders who taught us: “We ought to obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5: 29) ….

Prayerfully expecting Your Holiness' fatherly reply to this final anguished cry of today's “Suffering Church,” I beg to remain.

Your loyal and devoted son in Jesus Christ,

Fr. Gommar A. DePauw

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Protest the Birth Control Pill

Please learn why the Catholic Church is opposed to artificial contraception.

Consequences of Artificial Methods

17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Source: Humane Vitae

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Uganda's Abstinence Programs Work

From LifeSiteNews:

Janet Museveni, First Lady of Uganda, has continued her strong support for the country’s successful abstinence campaign against HIV/AIDS with a statement encouraging youth to live lives of “love, faith and purity,” New Vision reported December 2.

"I would not be caught advising you to take any shortcuts or compromise your lives by using any device invented by man, such as condoms, in order to facilitate any desire to go against God's clear plan for your life,” Mrs. Museveni told students at the Uganda Christian University, Mukono, for World AIDS Day.

“God's plan for your life is that you should honour your body because it is His temple."

Warning the young people that they should not be complacent as HIV infection rates rise, Mrs. Museveni asked them to encourage other students to abstain from premarital sex.

Ugandan President Museveni and his wife introduced a program encouraging sexual abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterwards, in an attempt to combat the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

The program has been harshly condemned by international organizations promoting condom use, but in fact Ugandan HIV transmission rates dropped by as much as 75% in some regions after the program was introduced, down to 5-7% from a high of 18%.

Uganda is a symbol. Condoms don't work. Abstinence remains the only effective way for countering the AIDS Crisis. Plus, artificial contraception and pre-marital sex are mortal sins anyway.

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Plan B Will NOT Stop Abortions

From LifeNews:

A Utah doctor who was a member of a Food and Drug Administration's advisory panel says the morning after pill will not reduce the number of abortions and pregnancies that its supports claim it will do. He also indicated that the Plan B drug can work as an abortion agent in certain circumstances.

Dr. Joseph Stanford, associate professor of family and preventative medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine, said the morning after pill won't be as effective as its maker claims.

He told the Deseret News that studies he and fellow researchers have done show a lower effectiveness rate than the 89 percent Barr Laboratories claims.

"We did more a precise meta-analysis that shows it's effective only 72 percent of the time, and even that number is optimistic," he indicated.

Stanford explained that earlier studies, which gave Barr its 89 percent figure, did not take into account normal variations in the timing of ovulation.

He also told the newspaper that studies from Europe, China and the United States show that the morning after pill does not reduce abortions. In fact, new abortion figures in England and Scotland show that abortions have reached their highest point ever despite over the counter sales of Plan B.

Let us pray AND work towards the end of artificial contraception and abortion! It can be done through peaceful activism.  Remember, the Pill Causes Cancer!  Let us work to save lives!

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FDA Approves Morning After Pill

Unfortunately, contraception is now easier to get for women that show proof that they are 18 years of age or older. The FDA has approved Plan B, called emergency contraception, for over-the-counter status in pharmacies for people over the age of 18! Plan B was originally approved for usage as a prescription back in 1999.

According to Wisconsin Right to Life Executive Director Barbara Lyons, "The drug is known to cause devastating consequences such as blot clots and stroke. It is simply irresponsible to sell it to women without any physician oversight whatsoever." Kimberly Zenarolla, executive vice president of the National Pro-Life Action Center said the following:

“Today’s decision by the FDA shows a flagrant disregard for the health and safety of women, young girls and their innocent, unborn children. This decision smacks of the same politically-driven mentality that brought about the questionable approval of RU-486 during the Clinton administration. That decision has cost the lives on countless unborn children and the lives of several unsuspecting women who used the drug. Tragically, the Bush administration appears poised to follow in the same destructive footsteps as its predecessor.

The Catholic Church is opposed to all forms of artificial birth control!  For my position on contraception, which echoes the teachings and writings of the Church, please see my post On Artificial Contraception and Its Errors

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Diocese of Amarillo teaches NFP

Bishop Yanta of the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas writes the following:

As announced in my pastoral letter January 28, 2006: “The Diocese of Amarillo will be a natural family planning diocese: henceforth, all marriages (except for couples past the child bearing age) will be required to attend and complete an approved Natural Family Planning course in conjunction with an approved marriage preparation program. Effective date: July 25, 2006.

“July 25th is the date selected for implementation: July 25th is four (4) months after the Annunciation (March 25th) and five (5) months before the Nativity of Jesus. July 25th is also the feast of St. James, first bishop of Jerusalem.

“July 25th is also the 38th anniversary of Humanae Vitae (on artificial contraception) by Pope Paul VI. Copies of a simplified version by Msgr. Vincent Walsh are available from Key of David Publications, 204 Haverford Road, Wynnewood, PA 19006, 610-896-1970.

“Omnia parata” (All is ready) as Jesus said in the parable of the wedding feast. In all parts of the diocese we have teachers trained to give the Natural Family Planning instruction in both English and Spanish.

“I ask Almighty God to forgive me for waiting so long to implement Natural Family Planning as normative and as a requirement for a marriage to be witnessed by our priests and deacons in the Diocese of Amarillo.

“Every married couple has the right from the Church to continue on the road to sainthood begun in baptism by living as one joined to Christ: Natural Family Planning is God’s way to live responsible parenthood. Marriage and family are the pillars of the Church and society”.

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The Church Will Never Recommend Condoms

I've noticed that over the past few weeks several groups are claiming the Church will allow condoms. This is preposterous. As the Pontifical Council for Health Care has recently emphasized, the Church will never do such a thing. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, also said the Catholic Church would not back down from its long-standing teaching against condoms.

Why you ask are we against condoms?

Artificial contraception damages the gift of self. It destroys martial bonds because it prevents the transmission of life. For those who argue condoms should be supported because they will save lives in the fight against AIDS, condoms will not save lives. What is needed is education to change the lifestyles of these people. They must be taught that chastity is to be valued and sexual relations outside of marriage is wrong. This is a must and if we can teach this we can save more lives.

If condoms are allowed then many countries will begin to support sex outside of marriage and I guarantee that AIDS will skyrocket. People do not realize that the AIDS virus is so small that it can be transmitted through a condom.

From a comment in the article linked above:

We can see from results in Africa that the use of condoms spreads AIDS rather than stopping it. Tanzia went from 3 cases to over 2 million with condom use, while Uganda went from a 30% AIDS rate to only 6%, after it stopped condom use. Clearly condoms spread rather than stop AIDS transmission. The Church is right in rejecting them.

And again it comes down to our faith. We are not to question God's Church. We should seek to understand everything and not just believing statements immediately, but we must never go against the Church's teachings on faith and morals. As Pope Paul VI proclaimed in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae, artificial contraception is contrary to the will of God.

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Walmart Bows to Pressure, Fills Morning After Pill

The company has announced that as of March 20, 2006, its 3,700 pharmacies will begin filling prescriptions for the morning after pill. This form of artificial contraception is opposed to the Catholic faith, and we as Catholics can not support its use.

I ask you to join me in writing to Walmart and voicing your opposition. Lent is a great time of year to stand up for our faith. Just write a short comment voicing your opposition to their decision.

Write to Walmart

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Required Contraception Classes

"Once the diocese has enough trained teachers, [Bishop] Olmsted will become one of only three bishops in the country to require a full course of natural family planning for anyone who wants a church wedding, joining his counterparts in Denver and Fargo, N.D. Natural family planning is the only church-approved method of birth control." (Source)

I'm all for the idea. I've met too many Catholics that either don't know the truth with the Church's position on contraception or either don't follow it. I think classes for married couples would be infinitely beneficial to the Church's mission - to sanctify the world.

Remember, artificial contraception is always a mortal sin. First, if you are not married then you shouldn't have sex - that's a sin. So, if you don't put yourself in that position you won't even be tempted to use artificial contraception. Second, married couples should always be open to the creation of life. If God's wills a child, then a child will be conceived. 

The article claims, "... Nine out of 10 Catholic women have used it and that 65 percent of Catholics and 40 percent of priests do not believe use of contraception is always a sin. " I pray that is the wrong and will be just the opposite.

For online classes on the errors of contraception and to satisfy NFP requirements, please click here.

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My thoughts on Cafeteria Catholics

The other day I participated in a discussion on why Rwanda's population is predicted to triple in the future, and they brought up their "facts" that contraception would really help. Needless to say since I was there, a discussion on the Catholic Church and contraception came with some Catholics not knowing that all artificial contraception is not allowed and some that didn't think it was relevant (Cafeteria Catholics) Why can the Pope tell us what to do?

I'll tell you the answer: the Pope is God's chosen representative on earth who takes the place of St. Peter and guides the Body of Christ (us) through the challenges in morality and faith. Nothing said on contraception though is new; it all goes back to the Gospels and placing God first. We all must have a relationship in prayer with Him and that is the ONLY way to know Him.

God gave us His Church to lead us closer to Him and any disregard for the Church as an institution can only show a disregard to Christ.

Image Source: Believed to be in the Public Domain

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The Evils of Artifical Contraception

First off, the Catholic Church is opposed to all forms of artificial contraception.

In 1968, Paul VI issued his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin for "Human Life") which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically evil to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence. Simply put, artificial contraception is contrary to the will of God.

Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such methods.

Artificial contraception is wrong because it is opposed to the natural law of God. Some argue we need contraception to cut down on unwanted pregnancy and abortion. But, there should be no sex outside of marriage - fornication - because it is a mortal sin. Even looking at a woman/man lustfully is a sin (Matthew 5:29). Sex outside of marriage is mortally sinful. Only sexual activity between a husband and wife is permissible, and a husband and wife must be open to the transmission of human life. Artificial contraception destroys marital bonds.

Some forms of contraception (such as the morning after pill) can even produce an abortion. These forms of contraception kill upwards of 12 million lives in the US each year. (Source)

St. Thomas Aquinas, who is considered the greatest theologian in the history of the Church, ranks the evil of contraception immediately after that of homicide, in that the first destroys human nature and the second prevents it from coming into being.  (Source: Contra Gentes 1.3, c. 122)

Scripture also condemns contraception:

Gen 1:28, 9:1,7; 35:11 - from the beginning, the Lord commands us to be fruitful ("fertile") and multiply. A husband and wife fulfill God's plan for marriage in the bringing forth of new life, for God is life itself.

Gen. 28:3 - Isaac's prayer over Jacob shows that fertility and procreation are considered blessings from God.

(See More examples)

What about using condoms to stop AIDS?

We still must not use artificial contraception like condoms.

Artificial contraception damages the gift of self. It destroys marital bonds because it prevents the transmission of life. For those who argue condoms should be supported because they will save lives in the fight against AIDS, condoms will not save lives. What is needed is education to change the lifestyles of these people. They must be taught that chastity is to be valued and sexual relations outside of marriage are wrong. This is a must and if we can teach this we can save more lives.

If condoms are allowed then many countries will begin to support sex outside of marriage and I guarantee that AIDS will skyrocket. People do not realize that the AIDS virus is so small that it can be transmitted through a condom. Condoms are not effective.

From a comment in Catholic News Agency article:

We can see from results in Africa that the use of condoms spreads AIDS rather than stopping it. Tanzia went from 3 cases to over 2 million with condom use, while Uganda went from a 30% AIDS rate to only 6%, after it stopped condom use. Clearly condoms spread rather than stop AIDS transmission. The Church is right in rejecting them.

And again it comes down to our faith in the True Church of Jesus Christ. We should seek to understand everything and we must never go against the Church's teachings on faith and morals. As Paul VI proclaimed in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae, artificial contraception is contrary to the will of God.

Read more >>