To the Editor:Re “The Pope vs. the Pill,” by John L. Allen Jr. (Op-Ed, July 27), on the Roman Catholic Church’s continued commitment to the papal ban on birth control:The encyclical “Humanae Vitae” suffers from a profound lack of humanity. Forty years ago, Pope Paul VI could and did choose to disregard the recommendations he solicited from Catholic couples and physicians — recommendations based on the real, human experience of marital love — in issuing his mechanistic prohibition.That a group of celibate men can continue to leverage the faith to enforce this ban, and continue to cause needless anguish among decent people throughout the world who want to do right by their religious belief, is no accomplishment.Terrence R. Connelly
Palo Alto, Calif., July 27, 2008
If the "decent people" described above "want to do right by their religious belief", then they would embrace the teachings of that religious belief and so there would be no "needless anguish." Unless, of course, he speaks of those folks who want to "be" Catholic but only as it is defined by them as to what it means to be "Catholic."
By the way, the prohibition is behavioral, and not mechanistic. You see, because absent conditions like insanity, St. Vitus dance, and sleepwalking, a person makes a choice whether or not to follow certain guidelines, and therein lies the fuller picture of a person's behavior.
Let me put it bluntly, Terry - it's mechanistic to piss out your willy, 'cause there ain't no other way. When His Holiness issues a prohibition, you still have the choice to follow it . . . or not.
6 comments:
Only two words I needed to see: PALO ALTO
(Tagged you for a short meme, just returning the favor!)
That's just sad.
Dig:
Apparently he is under the dillusion that the Church is a democracy. Aside from the concept of vox populi and all of its limitations, he has no concept of the fact that, as Catholics, we submit our will to the teaching authority of the Church because we recognize that that authority is the voice of God, Himself.
Connelly accuses Pope Paul of exercising a "lack of humanity" when, in fact Connelly - by supporting the use of birth control - denies humanity all together on multiple levels! Talk about hipocrisy in action - what a putz.
Peter, exactly - this is a matter of personal choice and the Church is quite clear on what conduct is acceptable and what is not.
It is as stupid as a few years ago when Elton John blamed the spread of AIDS, in part, on the Catholic Church for prohibiting condoms. WTF? I tend to think that many of the men in the bath houses engaging in gay sex thought very little of the precepts of the Catholic Church whilst doing so.
Absolutely. Funny how the answer to the world's ills is always birth control....how do you limit the spread of AIDS? How do you stop teen pregnancy? How do you reduce abortion? How do you make your love life more exciting? How do you stop the shortage of food in the world? Why, use birth control of course! Strange that none of those promises have come true.
Personally I like Dr. Janet Smith's solution: "If you're not going to Philadelphia, what are you doing on the train?"
Agreed.
100% of the time, a dissenter - whether mild or rabid - always has a problem with the Church's teaching on sexuality.
Talk to couples who fully embrace the teachings. Guess what? They're happy. They're fulfilled. They enjoy marital relations more and have a far lower divorce rate than the general, contracepting population.
Post a Comment