BIRTH CONTROL is an offense

It's not the first time I heard of contraception being a sin. Way back Theology classes on Morals and Sins, the issue was already discussed and had been cleared as far as the Catholic faith is concerned. The Church identifies SINS in accordance to the Holy Bible and  on how they are based of  erroneous  and false MOTIVATIONS along with sin's  adverse EFFECTS that ultimately harm any human being.

The Catholic Faith puts high value and respect for Human Life. Her rules and commandments set the very FUNDAMENTALS on the love of God, self and neighbors. This means anything that  is unnatural which harms humanity is condemned.

 Real Catholics believe in Family Planning and proper spacing of kids, and in a simple note if there's this desire of controlling birth, consistently one has to control and stay away of doing a thing that may cause that thing one avoids. In simple terms, if one has no intention of pregnancy then just  refrain from sexual relations.

But then, this isn't what's happening with the modern society where many seems to fall an adherence and  rather cling to devices which  believe work as  ceasing  the natural body  system and functions.  And we all know that when anything  normal  is interfered with  anything synthetic,  they do produce side effects.  Unfortunately with contraceptions, this doesn't stop at harming the person but  these further do KILL  the unborn.

Many would have believed as the Pharmas or contraception companies  both advertise and  market  that artificial birth controls  "prevent" but actually work later in the stages of human development which  makes the supposedly "prevention" to "killing". Going back to the teachings and the Catholic dogma of  giving value to human  life, absolutely contraceptions  are unacceptable.

Motivation wise, if there's this desire of not getting pregnant then there's no reason of doing acts that make this so. What is the difference of engaging in sexual activities when one knows she can be pregnant yet still do it, or do the act when one is definitely safe? Having the intention of not getting pregnant but still DO the act yet  preventing it is different from having the intention of not getting pregnant and NOT DOING it.

Sexual intercourse is  a LIFE GIVING ACTION. If a couple simply chooses not to have sex then they are not preventing  any possible baby which is far different from a contracepting couple  that takes the steps to contracept sexual intercourse.  Choosing not to cause a baby and preventing  a possible baby are never identical. This is where the motivation issue comes in and SIN is identified.

Finally, good readings can provide how people's mentality - contraceptive mentality to be specific is definitely an  assault to genuine motivation. This  has created major breakdowns in people's lives, families, society, and relationships. It is also to blame for  murders on  the youngest member of the human family. Awfully, a self-infested carnage on life's intangibles and priceless.  These detrimental repercussions  are of domino effects which aren't within reach as far as damaged control is concerned. It's not of  losing hope, this just needs time to correct and recover.

Real birth control is self-control and this works well with  the NATURAL value of discipline, sacrifice, responsibility and faith. Certainly, not the pills nor any other artificial devices.

The Family and its WHOLENESS

I believe in fundamentals and how these affect a person's perspective in his concerns and doings. These fundamentals could be deadly or of love and respect for self and the rest a person deals with in his living.  And if this basic is rooted in the other direction which is of lacking strength and right knowledge, it's never a surprised when time comes one gets torn apart and totally messed up.

I'm not speaking of absolute perfection, just setting things light and it is a fact that this world has its degrees of circumstances which generally we are in control affecting our decisions and our ropes when some  things aren't working well.

We are born and raise in a family. Our family is the very first direction we go after and where we seek love and protection. When it is broken and crashed, it's never easy to replace these  essential basics that we do get from our respective families. So true, families have their shares of ups and downs, however the love and connection we get first from our very own parents and siblings are irretrievable. This love is the  foundation of our being which greatly affects how we see the world and so we accord with society (social norms) in general. It's a fact we get hurt when things go wrong yet it never concludes that these rare  issues  outdo the joy and  fulfillment  that  we achieve from the very fundamental subsistence of having a family.

A family is never made of a single person. It is of different persons of distinctive roles  and responsibilities. The variance makes it complete, ideal, natural and impeccable. When  ruled by selfishness and pride over the needs and protection of the other members, there the problems arise. But then, greed is never permanent, it appears in weakness and lacking fundamentals of love and morals adding education on after effects and strong sensitivity to whose lives and living  be affected. One can decide when these poisons of both greed and pride have to end. And the finality is never on setting people apart,  but of  UNITY despite the odds.

HIPPODROME – MASS ON THE OCCASION OF THE FIRST NATIONAL ENCOUNTER OF CROATIAN CATHOLIC FAMILIES Homily of the Holy Father Benedict XVI

ZAGREB - 05.06.2011 - 10:00

Hippodrome

Holy Mass

Official translation

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

In this Mass at which it is my joy to preside, concelebrating with numerous brothers in the Episcopate and with a great number of priests, I give thanks to the Lord for all the beloved families gathered here, and for all the others who are linked with us through radio and television.  I offer particular thanks to Cardinal Josip Bozanić, Archbishop of Zagreb, for his kind words at the beginning of this Mass.  I address my greetings to all and express my great affection with an embrace of peace!

We have recently celebrated the Ascension of the Lord and we prepare ourselves to receive the great gift of the Holy Spirit.  In the first reading, we saw how the apostolic community was united in prayer in the Upper Room with Mary, the mother of Jesus (cf. Acts 1:12-14).  This is a picture of the Church with deep roots in the paschal event: indeed, the Upper Room is the place where Jesus instituted the Eucharist and the priesthood during the Last Supper, and where, having risen from the dead, he poured out the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles on the evening of Easter Sunday (cf. Jn 20:19-23).  The Lord directed his disciples “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4); he asked that they might remain together to prepare themselves to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  And they gathered together in prayer with Mary in the Upper Room, waiting for the promised event (cf. Acts 1:14).  Remaining together was the condition given by Jesus for them to experience the coming of the Paraclete, and prolonged prayer served to maintain them in harmony with one another.  We find here a formidable lesson for every Christian community.  Sometimes it is thought that missionary efficacy depends primarily upon careful planning and its intelligent implementation by means of specific action.  Certainly, the Lord asks for our cooperation, but his initiative has to come first, before any response from us: his Spirit is the true protagonist of the Church, to be invoked and welcomed.

In the Gospel, we heard the first part of the so-called “high-priestly prayer” of Jesus (cf. Jn 17:1-11a) – at the

conclusion of his farewell discourses – full of trust, sweetness and love.  It is called “the high-priestly prayer” because in it Jesus is presented as a priest interceding for his people as he prepares to leave this world.  The passage is dominated by the double theme of the hour and the glory.  It deals with the hour of death (cf. Jn 2:4; 7:30; 8:20), the hour in which the Christ must pass from this world to the Father (13:1).  But at the same time it is also the hour of his glorification which is accomplished by means of the Cross, called by John the Evangelist “exaltation”, namely the raising up, the elevation to glory: the hour of the death of Jesus, the hour of supreme love, is the hour of his highest glory.  For the Church too, for every Christian, the highest glory is the Cross, which means living in charity, in total gift to God and to others.

Dear brothers and sisters!  I very willingly accepted the invitation given to me by the Bishops of Croatia to visit this country on the occasion of the first National Gathering of Croatian Catholic Families.  I express my sincere appreciation for this attention and commitment to the family, not only  because today this basic human reality, in your nation as elsewhere, has to face difficulties and threats, and thus has special need of evangelization and support, but also because Christian families are a decisive resource for education in the faith, for the up-building of the Church as a communion and for her missionary presence in the most diverse situations in life.  I know the generosity and the dedication with which you, dear Pastors, serve the Lord and the Church.  Your daily labour for the faith formation of future generations, as well as for marriage preparation and for the accompaniment of families, is the fundamental path for regenerating the Church anew and for giving life to the social fabric of the nation.  May you remain dedicated to this important pastoral commitment!

Everyone knows that the Christian family is a special sign of the presence and love of Christ and that it is called to give a specific and irreplaceable contribution to evangelization.  Blessed John Paul II, who visited this noble country three times, said that “the Christian family is called upon to take part actively and responsibly in the mission of the Church in a way that is original and specific, by placing itself, in what it is and what it does as an ‘intimate community of life and love’, at the service of the Church and of society” (Familiaris consortio, 50).  The Christian family has always been the first way of transmitting the faith and still today retains great possibilities for evangelization in many areas.

Dear parents, commit yourselves always to teach your children to pray, and pray with them; draw them close to the Sacraments, especially to the Eucharist, as we celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Eucharistic miracle of Ludbreg; and introduce them to the life of the Church; in the intimacy of the home do not be afraid to read the sacred Scriptures, illuminating family life with the light of faith and praising God as Father.  Be like a little Upper Room, like that of Mary and the disciples, in which to live unity, communion and prayer!

By the grace of God, many Christian families today are acquiring an ever deeper awareness of their missionary vocation, and are devoting themselves seriously to bearing witness to Christ the Lord.  Blessed John Paul II once said: “An authentic family, founded on marriage, is in itself ‘good news’ for the world.”  And he added: “In our time the families that collaborate actively in evangelization are ever more numerous [...] the hour of the family has arrived in the Church, which is also the hour of the missionary family” (Angelus, 21 October 2001).  In today’s society the presence of exemplary Christian families is more necessary and urgent than ever.  Unfortunately, we are forced to acknowledge the spread of a secularization which leads to the exclusion of God from life and the increasing disintegration of the family, especially in Europe.  Freedom without commitment to the truth is made into an absolute, and individual well-being through the consumption of material goods and transient experiences is cultivated as an ideal, obscuring the quality of interpersonal relations and deeper human values; love is reduced to sentimental emotion and to the gratification of instinctive impulses, without a commitment to build lasting bonds of reciprocal belonging and without openness to life.  We are called to oppose such a mentality!  Alongside what the Church says, the testimony and commitment of the Christian family – your concrete testimony – is very important, especially when you affirm the inviolability of human life from conception until natural death, the singular and irreplaceable value of the family founded upon matrimony and the need for legislation which supports families in the task of giving birth to children and educating them.  Dear families, be courageous!  Do not give in to that secularized mentality which proposes living together as a preparation, or even a substitute for marriage!  Show by the witness of your lives that it is possible, like Christ, to love without reserve, and do not be afraid to make a commitment to another person!  Dear families, rejoice in fatherhood and motherhood!  Openness to life is a sign of openness to the future, confidence in the future, just as respect for the natural moral law frees people, rather than demeaning them!  The good of the family is also the good of the Church.  I would like to repeat something I have said in the past: “the edification of each individual Christian family fits into the context of the larger family of the Church which supports it and carries it with her And the Church is reciprocally built up by the family, a ‘small domestic church’” (Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI  ... to the Participants in the Ecclesial Diocesan Convention of Rome, 6 June 2005).  Let us  pray to the Lord, that families may come more and more to be small churches and that ecclesial communities may take on more and more the quality of a family!

Dear Croatian families, living the communion of faith and charity, be ever more transparent witnesses to the

promise that the Lord, ascending into heaven, makes to each one of us: “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20).  Dear Croatian Christians, hear yourselves called to evangelize with the whole of your life; hear the powerful word of the Lord: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19).  May the Virgin Mary, Queen of Croatia, accompany you always on your way.  Amen!  Praised be Jesus and Mary! 

http://www.papa.hr/images/stories/PDF/Govori/04a-02.pdf

Pope Benedict XVI to FAMILIES: Be BRAVE and Open to LIFE.

In the homily during the Mass on the occasion of the First National Encounter of Croatian Catholic Families, celebrated on the second day of the apostolic visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Croatia, June 5, the Holy Father urged the family to resist the secular mentality "which leads to the exclusion of God from life and the increasing disintegration of the family." Observing that the family today "has to face difficulties and threats," the Pope urged families to commit themselves to teaching children to pray, and pray with them; draw them close to the Sacraments... and read the sacred Scriptures..., be like a little Upper Room, like that of Mary and the disciples, in which to live unity, communion and prayer!"

At the beginning of the homily, greeting all the families gathered at the Hippodrome, and all others linked through radio and television, the Pope said that he had very willingly accepted the invitation of the Croatian bishops to visit Croatia on the occasion of the National Encounter of Croatian Catholic Families. He added that he also expressed "sincere appreciation for this attention and commitment to the family." This "this basic human reality, in your nation as elsewhere, has to face difficulties and threats, and thus has special need of evangelization and support, but also because Christian families are a decisive resource for education in the faith, for the up-building of the Church as a communion and for her missionary presence in the most diverse situations in life."

"Everyone knows," continued the Pope, in his reflections on the family, during which on two occasions he cited his predecessor to the cathedra of Peter, the Blessed John Paul II, "that the Christian family is a special sign of the presence and love of Christ and that it is called to give a specific and irreplaceable contribution to evangelization…The Christian family has always been the first way of transmitting the faith and still today retains great possibilities for evangelization in many areas." The Pope then addressed a powerful appeal to families: "Dear parents, commit yourselves always to teach your children to pray, and pray with them; draw them close to the Sacraments, especially to the Eucharist… and introduce them to the life of the Church; in the intimacy of the home do not be afraid to read the sacred Scriptures, illuminating family life with the light of faith and praising God as Father. Be like a little Upper Room, like that of Mary and the disciples, in which to live unity, communion and prayer.

"By the grace of God, many Christian families today are acquiring an ever deeper awareness of their missionary vocation, and are devoting themselves seriously to bearing witness to Christ the Lord… In today's society the presence of exemplary Christian families is more necessary and urgent than ever. Unfortunately, we are forced to acknowledge the spread of a secularization, which leads to the exclusion of God from life and the increasing disintegration of the family, especially in Europe. Freedom without commitment to the truth is made into an absolute, and individual well-being through the consumption of material goods and transient experiences is cultivated as an ideal, obscuring the quality of interpersonal relations and deeper human values; love is reduced to sentimental emotion and to the gratification of instinctive impulses, without a commitment to build lasting bonds of reciprocal belonging and without openness to life. We are called to oppose such a mentality! Alongside what the Church says, the testimony and commitment of the Christian family – your concrete testimony – is very important, especially when you affirm the inviolability of human life from conception until natural death, the singular and irreplaceable value of the family founded upon matrimony and the need for legislation which supports families in the task of giving birth to children and educating them," said the Pope in his homily at the Mass on the occasion of the First Encounter of Croatian Catholic Families.

"Dear families, be courageous! Do not give in to that secularized mentality which proposes living together as a preparation, or even a substitute for marriage! Show by the witness of your lives that it is possible, like Christ, to love without reserve, and do not be afraid to make a commitment to another person! Dear families, rejoice in fatherhood and motherhood! Openness to life is a sign of openness to the future, confidence in the future, just as respect for the natural moral law frees people, rather than demeaning them! The good of the family is also the good of the Church.… Let us pray to the Lord, that families may come more and more to be small churches and that ecclesial communities may take on more and more the quality of a family!" said Pope Benedict XVI. In conclusion, the Holy Family urged Croatian families to live "the communion of faith and charity, and to hear themselves called to evangelize with the whole of their lives.

http://www.papa.hr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1589:pope-dear-families-be-courageous&catid=86:news&Itemid=660

CONTRACEPTION is a SIN

"The promotion of the culture of life should be the highest priority in our societies… If the right to life is not defended decisively as a condition for all other rights of the person, all other references to human rights remain deceitful and illusory."

Contraception as Sin

Contraception is also a grave or mortal sin with the sanction of spiritual death. In this the Church's teaching - speaking with Christ's authority - is constant. Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Casti connnubi of Dec. 31, 1930, proclaimed: "Our mouth proclaims anew: any use of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in it's natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of grave sin."

Numerous papal and episcopal statements underline the gravity of the sin of the contraceptive act. 

Here I quote only a few episcopal statements from the last century, before some bishops turned away from listening to the voice of Christ to the voice of dissenters:

(a) Contraception is "a vice against nature and a sin crying to Heaven" (Belgian bishops, June 2, 1909).

(b) Contraception is a "serious sin, a very serious sin, with whatever means and whatever way it occurs" (German bishops, Aug. 20, 1913).

(c) "The theories and practices which teach or encourage the restriction of birth are as disastrous as they are criminal"(French bishops, May 17, 1919).

(d) "The selfishness which leads to race suicide with or without the pretext of bettering the species, is in God's sight, a detestable thing. It is a crime for which, eventually, the nation must suffer" (Cardinal Gibbons on behalf of the U.S. hierarchy, Sept. 20, 1919)

(e) Contraception "whether within the married state or outside it, is an unnatural vice, sinning against the nature, which the Creator bestowed upon us, and therefore grievously displeasing in His sight" (Cardinal Bourne of Westminster, Oct. 9, 1930).

(f) "Contraceptive methods were, are and always will be a sin… it was reserved to our generation to glorify vice with the name of virtue" (Bishops of India, 1957).

In sum the Church has never deviated from the teaching that contraception is a grave violation of God's Fifth Commandment.

The Sanction for Contraception

In the matter of contraception, even "abortifacient contraception", although there is no specific ecclesiastical penalty, there remains the supreme penalty of the loss of God's grace. In some places and times there have been particular ecclesiastical penalties for contraception. In Spain in 1936,absolution from the sin of contraception was reserved to the bishop in eight dioceses (cf. Catholic Priests' Association Newsletter, Vol. III and IV, 1972, p.60). That there is an excommunication attached to abortion and not to contraception does not mean that the former is a greater crime. It means that the good order of the Church as a visible society is more obviously disturbed.

The Number of Contraceptive Acts

As large as are the numbers of those murdered by abortion, much more numerous are those deprived of human life and spiritual growth by contraception. One must number in these tragic statistics those millions who should have been and are not because of tubal ligations and vasectomies. Adding to the disgrace of this pandemic deprivation of human souls is that, in general, the contraceptive rate among Catholics is not lower that that of the general population.

The effects of Contraception

The primacy effect of contraception is the gross deformity of the marriage act- the act designed by God to people earth and Heaven. Contraception transforms the marriage act from an act of love into an act of hate, from self-giving to mutual abuse. Although some forms of contraception do not kill, they prevent life and so demonstrate a willingness to put self-gratification before life. Abortion is a single crime. Contraception is usually a habit which tends to harden the heart with the passage of time. Although the conscience may not suffer the trauma that normally accompanies abortion, contraceptive practice more likely sedates the conscience, with all the deadly consequences of the sinful state, including the loss of Faith. Contraception leaves all the great gaps listed under abortion, but multiplies them as the attack on life is multiplied.

The encyclical Humanae Vitae, under the heading of "Grave Consequences of Methods of Artificial Birth Control", lists the most notable effects of contraception: "the wide and easy road opened to conjugal infidelity and general lowering of morality"; the lowering of respect for the woman who becomes an" instrument of selfish enjoyment" and no longer a respected and beloved companion; the dangerous weapon placed in the hands of evil authorities (cf.n.17)

Following in the wake of contraceptive practice is the acceptance of that other sterile deformity of sex called homosexuality. Christians long recognized the relationship between the two. It is interesting to note that Martin Luther saw this in his condemnation of contraception. He said, "This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomistic sin" (Faith Facts, p.113). A contracepting society, with sex separated from love and life, leads to a society tolerant of homosexual conduct.

The Death Chain

Contraception is at the top of the chain. Contraception gives birth to abortion deaths and to the acceptance of sterile sodomy.  

Father John Hardon, S.J., a truly great theologian, summed up the effects of the contraceptive mentality: "It has been correctly said that Humane Vitae divides the Catholic Church into two periods of history. The Church will survive only among those who believe that contraception is deadly both to Christianity and the promise of a heavenly reward. Contraception is fatal to the true faith and to eternal life."

By Msgr. Vincent Foy, PhD.

Of Catholics against contraception. Monsignor Vincent Foy was born in Toronto on August 14, 1915. He was ordained on June 3, 1939; he received a doctorate in Canon Law in 1942. In 1957 he was named a Domestic Prelate by Pope Pius XII. Although officially "retired", Msgr. Foy still keeps up with current developments in the Church and maintains an active correspondence with many Bishops and Church leaders across Canada. He also continues to write booklets and contribute articles to many Catholic periodicals on issues affecting the Church. Among his writings are: "Tragedy at Winnipeg, parts I and II," "From Humanae Vitae to Veritatis Splendor," "From Winnipeg to Fully Alive," "The Arians of the Twentieth Century," "AIDS, Condoms and Catholic Education," and "Did Pope Paul VI Approve the Winnipeg Statement: A Search for the Truth.  

Reproductive Health Legislation: a CULTURAL INTRUSION

MANILA, June 1, 2011—While the formulation of Philippine laws is essentially based on the needs and conditions of the country’s citizens, the crafting of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill cannot be attributed to Filipino lawmakers but to foreign organizations, said Atty. Jo Aurea Imbong, Executive Secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Legal Office.

“It’s really introducing a different culture and replacing our own with something else. It is a cultural intrusion [in which] you supplant a beautiful thing with something that is alien,” Imbong explained.

“It’s quite disturbing because our culture, as it is, has very wholesome ideals, built on Christian values, and now they attack the very groundings of those values by attacking religion. When we talk of religion, we talk of values,” she added.

The RH bill continues to face growing opposition from civic groups, child development experts and concerned families who assert that the measure violates Constitutional and religious freedoms, and risks the well-being and proper formation of children and the youth.

House Bill 4244—or the Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011—is the latest version of a piece of legislation that mandates taxpayer-funded procurement and distribution of the “full range” of birth control drugs, devices and services, a six-year sex education program in all schools, and the provision to employees by their employers of these same family planning drugs, devices and services.

Also included in the bill, which proposes a P2 billion annual budget for its implementation, are a two-child ideal as regards family size, the classification of artificial contraceptives as “essential medicines,” and punitive actions for those who speak against the measure or who refuse to abide by its provisions.

Imbong pointed to the Sixth Country Programme to the Philippines formulated by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)—a document that details the agency’s goals and directives on population and reproductive health policies in the country—as indicative of the foreign origins of RH legislation.

Implications of the RH bill’s imperialist nature expressed by several lawmakers, social analysts and newspaper columnists, have often been met with skepticism by RH supporters, dismissing these as mere speculation or baseless opinions.

However, according to the lawyer, publicly available documents which reveal the UN’s directives for countries such as the Philippines support such assertions of cultural imperialism.

“Based on the documents, the laws and ordinances for the local government councils are already ready, so the officials wouldn’t have to bother drafting these from scratch. They are responsible for the template that was used,” Imbong pointed out.

International bodies United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and UNFPA are the ones primarily involved in this, the lawyer said.

“You can see that the definitions and the terms—the language—[in international and local documents] are the same. In essence, the substance of the RH bill is not Filipino.” (Diana Uichanco)

http://cbcpforlife.com/?p=1405