Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Jenny
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Posted: March 21 2006 at 10:26pm | IP Logged Quote Jenny

Pope Pius XII wrote beautifully about the marital act & the blessing of children. The two I can recall are
Address to Midwives & the Nature of Their Profession and A Letter to Large Families (I can't find my link)

I am enjoying the discussions on marriage & family.

Jenny


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Posted: March 22 2006 at 4:58am | IP Logged Quote Elizabeth

Here's a link to Letter to Large Families. I think it's important to bear in mind that letters such as these are part of the living tradition of the Church and their validity remains unchanged.

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Posted: March 22 2006 at 10:39am | IP Logged Quote Willa

Just to add to the convenient link collection, here are:

Humanae Vitae
and
Casta Connubii

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Posted: March 30 2006 at 1:23pm | IP Logged Quote MicheleQ

Speaking of encyclicals and papal letters on the subject of marriage and family, I must tell you what I came across in my basement last week while preparing for my talk. Some years ago a local deacon (who has since moved away) gave dh and I a stack of books. Somehow in our last move several of them ended up in the basement and I found them while cleaning last week. One of the books is a volume of papal letters and encyclicals from Leo XIII's Casti Connubi to Paul VI's Address to the Congress of the Italian Women's Center Dec. 6, 1976. The book itself is copyright 1978 and it is titled "Official Catholic Teachings - Love & Se*uality".

Great I thought! Everything I need (save JPII's writings) all in one place. But as I went through it I was shocked to find something I had never seen before; right there between The 2nd Vatican Council's Message to Women and Paul VI's Humanae Vitae was the Theological Report of the Papal Commission on Birth Control! This is the commission that was formed by John XXIII and continued by Paul VI after John XXIII's death. This is THE (majority) report that says that it is moral and licit for contraception to be used by married couples in light of "responsible parenthood". And it is THE report that Paul VI refers to in Humanae Vitae. Now, perhaps this is old news to some people but I have never seen this document (and I searched online but couldn't find it) and let me tell you it was a HUGE eyeopener to me as to why there has been so much confusion over this issue. The report reads like an offical Church document and in the book I have at least is presented as such. Of course it ISN'T but if I didn't know what it was, frankly I would be REALLY confused right now.

I am not going to waste my time scanning and posting it here as I don't think it would be beneficial but I'll give you an example of how it begins and you'll see what I mean. . .

"The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern World (Gaudium et Spes) has not answered all aspects of the question of responsible parenthood. To those problems as yet unresolved, a response is to be given in what follows. This response, however, can only be understood if it is grasped in an integrated way within the universal concept of salvation history."

It's like that the whole way through and really makes you think it's a papal document when it isn't. And so I wonder. . . just how many seminarians (who are now priests) and married couples read this or were influenced by it and got a WRONG understanding of what Church teaching really is on love & se*uality? How many people were led astray because a report that was meant to advise the pope was presented as official Church teachings? And now 40 years later here we are living with the devasting results. How sad.

God bless,

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Posted: March 30 2006 at 6:30pm | IP Logged Quote Elizabeth

Michele,
I've gotten a couple of notes expressing confusion. Could you explain which documents are dogmatic and which are not even official Church teaching. Also, what is considered the binding teaching of the Church on this matter? You are far better at these explanations than I am. I'm not even going to attempt it

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Posted: March 30 2006 at 8:41pm | IP Logged Quote Genevieve

CHC sells a book that susposedly has all the Church's major documents on family here.

Michele, I do hope that you get around to clarifying the differences brought up by Elizabeth. I generally trust CHC but need some guidance.

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Posted: March 30 2006 at 9:07pm | IP Logged Quote MicheleQ

Elizabeth wrote:
Michele,
I've gotten a couple of notes expressing confusion. Could you explain which documents are dogmatic and which are not even official Church teaching. Also, what is considered the binding teaching of the Church on this matter? You are far better at these explanations than I am. I'm not even going to attempt it


Sure. Our Sunday Visitor has an article that explains well the history of these documents so I'm going to just cut and paste portions of it here.

"The story begins in the 1950s with the invention of the birth-control pill. By the early 1960s, the pill was being used widely, and, since it was so new, questions about its morality arose. Many experts like Catholic physician John Rock, who had worked on its development, argued that the pill was morally licit since it did not involve devices. Soon there appeared several articles and books making the same argument.

About the same time, international organizations like the United Nations were beginning to discuss population-control issues, and the feminist movement was gaining ground and making demands for easier access to birth control.

So, in 1963, Pope John XXIII set up a commission of theologians to study the family, population and the birth rate and to advise him on these topics. After Pope John died in 1963, Pope Paul VI expanded the commission to about 60 members, including physicians, sociologists and married couples. Americans on the commission included Pat and Patty Crowley, then leaders of the Christian Family Movement. The commission was to be advisory and had no authority of its own.

Germain Grisez, now Flynn Professor of Christian Ethics at Mount Saint Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Md., was an associate of Jesuit Father John Ford during the 1960s when Father Ford was a theological adviser to the commission. In an interview with Our Sunday Visitor, Grisez pointed out that Pope Paul mainly wanted to get the opinion of knowledgeable people about the pill, but never entertained the possibility of changing Church teaching on contraception.

"Paul VI told John Ford that he was absolutely convinced from the very beginning that what {Pope} Pius XI taught in Casti Connubii {the 1930 encyclical on Christian marriage which upheld the Church teaching against contraception} was true and couldn't change," Grisez explained. "But Paul also thought there might be something about the pill that was different. And, if there was, he wanted to find out about it, because he felt the Church couldn't ask people to do something that God doesn't require of them."

As the commission discussions dragged on into 1966, more and more articles and speeches surfaced. Some respected theologians declared the Church should and would change its teaching on contraception, which raised anticipation among many.

In February 1966, Pope Paul restructured the commission by appointing 16 bishops and cardinals as members and making the previous members periti, or advisers.

The commission gave its final report to the Pope in June 1966. The report was never published, but word soon leaked out that nine of the 16 bishops on the commission felt the Church should change its teaching on contraception.

However, on Oct. 29, 1966, Pope Paul made a statement indicating he did not accept the arguments for changing the teaching. From that day on, the issue became political, said Grisez.

Documents that really were only appendices to the commission report and had been prepared by advisers were leaked to the press and published on April 15, 1967, indicating that a large majority of the advisers believed contraception should be approved by the Church.

"Nobody thought these documents would be published, as the whole thing was supposed to be strictly confidential," Grisez said. "But once it became clear that the Pope wasn't going to go along {with the advice}, these things were leaked." But the leaking was very selective, Grisez said, and did not include arguments against approving contraception.

"The whole theory was put out that 'Well, here the Pope set up this commission and got the majority report, and he has to go along with them,' " he explained. "That was why the leaking was done. . . . The whole idea was to make it very difficult for the Pope not to go along."

Nevertheless, Pope Paul studied the commission's findings and all the reports of the advisers very carefully, Grisez said.

"Paul VI was probably a much more studious pope than any we've had in my lifetime - back to Pius XI and including the present pope, who is a scholar," Grisez said. "Paul really tried to get it right and figure it out, and he spent a lot of time on it. I think he worked through the pile of paper {from the commission and advisers} and found that it's clear the pill is the same as anything else {contraceptive}."

When Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae on July 29, 1968, reaffirming Church teaching on contraception, confusion and misinformation reigned. Scores of prominent theologians, including Father Charles Curran of The Catholic University of America, openly rejected the encyclical.

Even some bishops suggested contraception was a private matter that should be left up to the couple rather than the authoritative teaching of the Church. And many Catholics who had been led to expect a different outcome were bitterly disappointed.

In the ensuing years, Pope John Paul II has done a great deal to try to make the teachings of Humanae Vitae understandable and to clarify why its teachings are true, Grisez said.

Yet even today, many Catholics still feel that Pope Paul VI betrayed his own commission by rejecting its advice, and Humane Vitae remains one of the least understood and most controversial papal encyclicals of modern times."


Given this information I don't know exactly what I have. I am assuming it is only part of the report because it isn't very long. That doesn't matter anyway and the answer to the question of what weight or authority this document or the commission that wrote it has is NONE. My point in bringing it up was that I could see how it had caused confusion. It was never supposed to be released and for good reason. So what IS binding on this matter? Everything we have thought from the beginning. Gaudium et Spes, Casti Connubi, Humanae Vitae but NOT the commission report or any parts of it. It was a report meant for Paul IV only, simply to advise him.

The more I study this the angrier it makes me. The dissenters tried to force the Church to change on this issue but thanks be to God it is the Holy Spirit that protects the Church. Still, in the end Humanae Vitae has been widely ignored for 40 years and now we all live with the devastation. But thanks be to God for the voices that preach the truth and have lead so many of us to it.

It is worth noting that a minority report was also issued from that commission on why contraception was not nor ever could be moral and licit. The co-author of that report was Archbishop Karol Wojtyla.

To get a better understanding of just what Church authority is and how its excersied (and why something doesn't have to be declared "infalliable" to be binding) you can read the excellent article Teaching Authority in the Church, Morality and Dissent by William E. May.

I hope this clears the confusion but by all means if you still have a question ask. i am NOT an expert on this but I sure have read a lot on it lately!

God bless,

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Posted: March 30 2006 at 9:09pm | IP Logged Quote MicheleQ

Genevieve wrote:
CHC sells a book that susposedly has all the Church's major documents on family here.

Michele, I do hope that you get around to clarifying the differences brought up by Elizabeth. I generally trust CHC but need some guidance.


I haven't seen this book but I feel pretty certain we can trust CHC's judgment on this. This is NOT the book I have. The one I have is out of print.

God bless,

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Posted: March 31 2006 at 3:09am | IP Logged Quote MaryM

MicheleQ wrote:
The more I study this the angrier it makes me. The dissenters tried to force the Church to change on this issue but thanks be to God it is the Holy Spirit that protects the Church.


The article portions you quoted Michelle are really helpful for explaining what happened. A really good read on the topic of how these documents played into the whole picture of dissent within the Church can be found in the book What Went Wrong With Vatican II. This is one of the promotional quotes from the book's website:
"Humanae Vitae: the appalling story of how the birth-control encyclical was used to start a revolution in the Church — and overwhelm the real message of Vatican II."

I found this book very enlightening for explaining what Michelle is clarifying here on the topic. It started with Humanae Vitae but it created an atmosphere within the Church where dissenting theologians set themselves up as a teaching authority with equal weight to the Magisterium. And so many people beleive they are. It was all very deliberate as the above article shows. The birth of "Cafeteria Catholicism" on so many issues stems from what was done with Humanae Vitae

I did find that the first chapter of McInerny's book is on-line at EWTN.


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Posted: March 31 2006 at 8:25am | IP Logged Quote momwise

MicheleQ wrote:
And so I wonder. . . just how many seminarians (who are now priests) and married couples read this or were influenced by it and got a WRONG understanding of what Church teaching really is on love & se*uality? How many people were led astray because a report that was meant to advise the pope was presented as official Church teachings?


Frankly, I don't think as many read it as were influenced by it through bishops, CANA programs (where my parents and all their friends apparantly lost their way), Catholic and secular press (Mary, I'm going to have to borrow that book Whatever happened...--perhaps I can glean some wisdom there).

What amazes me is that so many Catholic priests and parents who apparantly went through 1940-50's style Catholic education and Latin Masses were so quick to believe they could walk away from a major Church teaching without consequences. Michelle, you've outlined those consequences: a vast majority of seminarians and engaged and married couples were taught absolute falsehoods and accepted them.

After I went to 3 priests (10 years into my marriage) to find out if the Catholic Church absolutely forbids BC, and I received answers like the pill is more moral than the barrier method, I was eventually educated by the Holy Spirit and newsletter articles by a holy priest named Fr. Marx.

When I look at the number of young families today who are being influenced by the Holy Spirit (and you wonderful Catholic families giving your witness) going back to the Church documents and following the Truth once they find it, I am amazed and encouraged by the power of God. May God have mercy on those priests and nuns who led us astray....to them much was given and....

I know I'm going way off topic here....you can PM me, but doesn't anyone else struggle with anger or envy over being so badly conned??

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Posted: March 31 2006 at 9:02am | IP Logged Quote MicheleQ

momwise wrote:
I know I'm going way off topic here....you can PM me, but doesn't anyone else struggle with anger or envy over being so badly conned??


I'm not PMing because I have a sense that maybe it's something we need to talk about.

I struggle with anger on this issue. Not all the time but yes it's there. Dh and I were told directly by our (then) pastor when we were 19 and had two chuldren that not only were we allowed to use birth control but that we really should use it and that the pill was indeed the best option. We really trusted that priest and to this day I deal with the anger and resentment I feel towards him. I pray for him and I assume he was simply ignorant (though a very holy priest pointed out to be that ignorance is never an excuse for a priest because it's his job to know and teach these things). We used the pill for several years and eventually I had to stop taking it because I was having almost constant "breakthrough bleeding". I am angusihed at the thought of what may have been happened during that time.

In the end we found birth control (various methods, not just the pill) to be frustrating and difficult. We stopped using it even before we heard the truth. For a long time I felt the longing to be open to life but also kept hearing the voices telling me to be "responsible". About that time we decided we should find out about that "rhythm" method we had heard about and God sent Kimberly Hahn into our path with the message of truth. Thanks be to God for the voices that have the courage to speak! The Holy Spirit worked through her talk and transformed both dh and my hearts at the very same time.

My story isn't uncommon and there is a real and genuine sadness among many couples who feel lied to and deceived.

BUT, I rejoice in the thought that our sons and daughters can know and live the truth from the start! Thanks be to God!!!



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Posted: March 31 2006 at 9:21am | IP Logged Quote LisaR

Mny priests feel "conned" too- and are in anguish about how many families they have led astray over the years. When the Pill first came out- it was looked at as "medicine". Barrier methods were looked at as an action- saying "no" to the union and language of love by physically preventing it from happening. Barrier methods are described as "mutually mas***bating" . At the time- it was unclear and harder to picture how a chemical could act in this same way.


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Posted: March 31 2006 at 9:36am | IP Logged Quote LisaR

another interesting note- many "orthodox" conservative Priests thought at the time that the Pill was better than "Rhythm" because the couple could engage in relations more often.
This then could lead me on a tangent- I have spoken with many women who say their dh's "need" them frequently- and so that by default they are "Provedentialists". That the dh would never "agree" to NFP because it might mean some abstaining. I know priests hear this often, too and that at the time maybe they mistakenly thought that taking a pill could eleviate that pressure.
And we all know now in hindsight how wrong that thinking was!

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Posted: March 31 2006 at 11:15am | IP Logged Quote Jenny

I know of a priest who counseled couples the decision to contracept was up to them. When he realised his error, really his sin, he contacted all those couples he could reach by mail, & phone & confessed his error, & explained the truth.

Jenny

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Posted: March 31 2006 at 12:02pm | IP Logged Quote LisaR

yes, I have heard many priests have done that- sadly- many have not! Please pray for all priests- especially one that is currently counseling couples that he can't "tell them what to do" with regards to sterilization- and just to "make sure and go to confession" if they do decide to sterilize.....

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Posted: March 31 2006 at 11:05pm | IP Logged Quote momwise

MicheleQ wrote:
BUT, I rejoice in the thought that our sons and daughters can know and live the truth from the start! Thanks be to God!!!


This is why I'd really like to put some closure to this issue in my own mind. I'm tired of feeling sad and angry about it. I know that the Holy Spirit is doing a wonderful thing among families and couples and that great graces and blessings have come out of it.

And I do pray for the priests in my past, but not enough. I even see one of them, who is retired and who is still giving goofy homilies when he fills in at Mass(which just makes me mad all over at him....sigh).

I didn't know Lisa about all the priests who have changed their view on this. Of course that's silly, why wouldn't priests repent just as married couples do? It's just that I havent heard of any. I'd love to see any in writing (books, magazines, tapes) if such a thing exists.

Thanks to all for posting!

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Posted: April 01 2006 at 9:01am | IP Logged Quote LisaR

well, I think the priests repenting or changing their teachings is a personnal thing- just like many women who have contracepted or sterilized and repented are not sharing about it. I know it is because of dh's close dealings with many priests in his work that he became aware.
There are also Priests who have been "repentant" in a different way. They were very conservative and really outspoken about being open to life- and using quotes from TAN books, Fr Hardon, and so on. It was only after they were priests for a while longer and really developed relationships with parishoners did they see how difficult it actually can be to raise a large family. They had no clue about finances, or even the practical dynamics about what living out what they were teaching would be like.
We have had many a Diocescan Priest scratch his head and ask my dh- "how do you do it?" They figured that with their housing, car , insurance and retirement taken care of- they made way more than dh did to support a family of 7! (and these Priests get many "gifts" from Parishoners as well!)
How does a Priest deal with the 97% of his Parish population that is contracepting? When he feels inadequate in the "follow through" of providing support or "good answers" for all of the practical, and sometimes valid questions that arise? Priests feel vulnerable when a couple tell him- well Father- you just have NO IDEA how hard this is.
I think it is vital that we develop strong relationships with new young priests and seminarians. (Our Diocese has an "adopt a seminarian" program that is really cool.) The "Older" priests may be too far gone- but now is the time to support and encourage the new guys!

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Posted: April 01 2006 at 4:51pm | IP Logged Quote momwise

LisaR wrote:
well, I think the priests repenting or changing their teachings is a personnal thing


Lisa,
I'm sorry I phrased my statement wrong. I meant to say I didn't know of any priests who had repented, it's not that I thought yours weren't true . You know, just as many couple and doctors have written about how they were wrong in the past, I think it would be a great help to the whole church if there were some stories by priests about their change of heart and why.
Thanks so much for the reply.

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Posted: April 01 2006 at 5:05pm | IP Logged Quote LisaR

I might just ask Steve Koob at One More Soul if they are "on this" yet! I did not think you phrased your statement wrong at all! I'll post here if I get a response!

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Posted: April 01 2006 at 8:48pm | IP Logged Quote Bridget

LisaR wrote:

I think it is vital that we develop strong relationships with new young priests and seminarians. (Our Diocese has an "adopt a seminarian" program that is really cool.) The "Older" priests may be too far gone- but now is the time to support and encourage the new guys!


I have had two priests tell me how encouraged they are, in their vocation, by the perseverance and faith of families they know. One explained to me how intricately linked our married vocations are to the success of their priestly vocations. He put it more beautifully and with more depth than that but the main point has always stuck with me.

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