There are 95 comments.

1. Coolidge
   CarolJoy

   @CarolJoy

   4:40 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 23, 2018

   Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

   CarolJoy (View Comment):

   MarciN (View Comment):

   There is no Protestant denomination that can pick up the slack as a moral leader in the world, and I write that as a Protestant.

   My mother always said that the celibacy requirement was a huge driver of Protestantism. It’s one of those trends often missed by historians because it’s done rather than written about.

   Someone who is a recovering Catholic once told me that the real reason the Holy Roman Catholic Church insisted that its clergy and nuns be celibate is that made their upkeep much less expensive. If each religious person had a family and there were upwards of five children in each household, the costs of having religious orders would have been much higher.

   Of course, the Church gussied up the reason for celibacy as relating to how celibate people are so much more likely to attain holiness. For the odd individual, that might be true. (And good for them.) But for many, it seems to have made them cranky and mean, or else as we now know, pedophiles or secretly gay.

   This is incredibly ignorant CarolJoy. You can hate the Church if you want, but at least have a clue what She teaches.

   http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/august-19th-2016/the-true-history-of-celibacy/

   We will have to agree to disagree.

   And if I have hatred for the Church, it was caused by years of witnessing nuns slamming around  one or two kids, always boys from poor families, for sloppy handwriting. Really disgusting physical abuse.

   The year in fifth grade when the best teacher I had in grammar school was routinely chastised, in front of the classroom, by an out of control nun for her having  divorced and remarried. For mind blowing concepts like annulment, whereby anyone with the proper connections can have a marriage annulled, even if the marriage was in place for years and produced children,  but those without such a connection will live with the fear that when they die they will go to hell for having divorced and remarried. And the absolute craziness of the teachings on contraception.

2. Member
   Scott Wilmot

   @ScottWilmot

   3:57 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 27, 2018

   CarolJoy (View Comment):
   And the absolute craziness of the teachings on contraception.

   Well, this is where the hell on earth starts innit?

   To those who have eyes to see, it is not hard to see that the widespread embrace of contraception leads to approval of homosexuality. After all, those who accept contraception hold that respecting the procreative possibility of the sexual act is not essential to the moral performance of that action. Thus why not homosexuality and a whole host of deviant sexual actions? The sexual abuse crisis in the Church was largely a crisis of homosexual priests exploiting young men. How many others did not prey on young men, but have lived double lives? Their ways of thinking and behaving surely permeated their priesthood in many ways.

   What happened with McCarrick explains a lot. Over the last 50 years those priests and laity who have tried to promote Humanae vitae and to teach methods of Natural Family Planning have regularly been astonished and demoralized by how little support they have received from bishops. For decades the family life offices were dominated by dissenters, by those who taught couples in marriage preparation that using contraception was not a sin if their consciences were not troubled.

   <snip>

   The price the Church has paid for neglecting to preach the truths of Humanae vitae and to promote Natural Family Planning is incalculable.  Lives have been ruined, vocations have been lost, priests have left the priesthood, families have been destroyed, conversions have been stymied, and the culture has been deprived of the bold witness that the Church could and should give to the spectacular vision God has for human sexuality.

3. Coolidge
   CarolJoy

   @CarolJoy

   4:42 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 27, 2018

   Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

   CarolJoy (View Comment):
   And the absolute craziness of the teachings on contraception.

   Well, this is where the hell on earth starts innit?

   To those who have eyes to see, it is not hard to see that the widespread embrace of contraception leads to approval of homosexuality. After all, those who accept contraception hold that respecting the procreative possibility of the sexual act is not essential to the moral performance of that action. Thus why not homosexuality and a whole host of deviant sexual actions? The sexual abuse crisis in the Church was largely a crisis of homosexual priests exploiting young men. How many others did not prey on young men, but have lived double lives? Their ways of thinking and behaving surely permeated their priesthood in many ways.

   What happened with McCarrick explains a lot. Over the last 50 years those priests and laity who have tried to promote Humanae vitae and to teach methods of Natural Family Planning have regularly been astonished and demoralized by how little support they have received from bishops. For decades the family life offices were dominated by dissenters, by those who taught couples in marriage preparation that using contraception was not a sin if their consciences were not troubled.

   <snip>

   The price the Church has paid for neglecting to preach the truths of Humanae vitae and to promote Natural Family Planning is incalculable. Lives have been ruined, vocations have been lost, priests have left the priesthood, families have been destroyed, conversions have been stymied, and the culture has been deprived of the bold witness that the Church could and should give to the spectacular vision God has for human sexuality.

   It is a shame that more people are not aware that during the time Christ walked on earth, a salvia was found to be effective at contraception and that the one problem with it  was that it was over-gathered into near extinction.

   The causal effect of “belief in contraception means increased homosexuality” is absurd on the face of laws of logic. I fail to see any connection. Especially given that many of the Church’s homosexual priests preached contraception!

    

4. Member
   Scott Wilmot

   @ScottWilmot

   4:49 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 27, 2018

   CarolJoy (View Comment):
   The causal effect of “belief in contraception means increased homosexuality” is absurd on the face of laws of logic.

   Have you read Humane Vitae? Did you read the article I referenced?

   Go ahead and keep your head in the sand. When one removes the procreative act from the sexual act, anything goes. It is definitely not absurd on the face of laws and logic. Just look around.

5. Member
   Midget Faded Rattlesnake

   @Midge

   5:12 PM EDT ⋅ Aug 27, 2018

   CarolJoy (View Comment):
   It is a shame that more people are not aware that during the time Christ walked on earth, a salvia was found to be effective at contraception and that the one problem with it was that it was over-gathered into near extinction.

   Are you thinking of silphium? Even if not, and you’re thinking of another herb, herbs used as contraceptives typically work as early abortifacients, too. Doctors at the time apparently knew that, and phrased their advice accordingly,

   “Anecdotal and medical evidence from classical antiquity tells us that the drug of choice for contraception was silphium,” writes the historian John Riddle in Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West. He points to the ancient physician Soranus, who suggested taking a dose of silphium “the size of a chick-pea” once a month, both to prevent conception and “destroy any already existing.”

   Silphium was also widely used simply as a seasoning.