Hi Mark,
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“The entire and sole point of the HHS Mandate is to make open and naked war against the Church and punish her for her beliefs about sexual morality.”
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A bit early on a Friday to crank the hyperbole up to 11? Is there a hidden upside to a president seeking re-election starting a war against the Church? Do you really believe this?
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Or isn’t it more likely, as health care experts and insurance providers agree, that the benefits of including contraceptives in health care plans greatly “outweighs” the moral qualms of a small percentage of Catholics that consider contraception sinful?

Zeke,

It’s not hyperbole.  The benefits of contraception are dubious to say the least.  They certainly haven’t reduced teen pregnancy, children born to unwed mothers or abortions.  Plus, there are medical reasons to avoid contraception.  (Those instances where contraception IS a medical “fix” are not contested by the Church and are already paid for through insurance)

Pregnancy is not, never has been and never will be a “disease” so lumping it in with cancer prevention, Aids prevention or any other preventative medicine is dishonest.  This is most certainly an attack on the Catholic Church as the Catholic Church is the last moral obstacle on sexual matters.  If she would just “go away”, contraception, abortion, gay marriage…would all be the “norm”. 

As for “a small percentage of Catholics”...why don’t you use the same logic for gay marriage?  Why should a “majority” of Christians be forced to accept a morally unacceptable change to the definition of marriage for the sake of a “small number of homosexuals?”.  Morality is not based on the number of people who accept it.  It doesn’t change based on the whims of a society.  Contraception, abortion, gay marriage…is wrong even if NO ONE, not one soul, accepts that it is.  So, no, the so called benefits do NOT outweigh the immorality of contraception, even if only a small percentage of Catholics believe that contraception is sinful.

What if every employer was forced to provide (the funds for a gun) for every one of his employees or be forced out of business?  Yes our taxes go to pay for the military, but that is not the same as putting a gun into every citizens hands.  This is what Mark means (I believe) by being complicit as opposed to rendering unto Caesar.

Mark, I love your accurate assessment of the secular trinity! 
I am also in complete agreement with your assessment of the situation.

Consider: Obama announced this mandate the week-end hundreds of thousands were on their way to Washington, DC to for the March for Life in support for the pre-born. This was not a coincidence.

Consider: Since 2003 the World Health Organization has classified oral contraceptives as a Class one carcinogen.  Anyone interested in the truth can find a wealth or research supporting this.  Even if one finds fault with the research (difficult to do with any honesty), one must still err on the side of safety.  No one should be taking these cancer pills.  The government is absolutely out of line to be pushing them.

Consider: The cost of oral contraceptive pills falls into the category of vitamins - $9.00/mo at Walmart.

Consider: If Obama truly cared about the people, he would be mandating free dental care for all, free vaccinations, free insulin, etc.instead of this “benefit” that serves such a very narrow group of citizens.  It’s actually discriminatory if one looks at it in truth.

I am firmly convinced that this is part of an overall plan to make the Catholic Church irrelevant by forcing us out of all of our ministries.  WE have the choice of closing down, or caving in.  The latter would make us nothing more than a Chinese “Catholic” Church, a Church of England, a Lutheran Church in a Scandinavian Country, all run by the state, not by God.

HHS specifically and socialized health care in general can be coercive on two fronts, the patient receiving the ‘care’ and the people being forced to pay for it. Check out “Top doctor’s chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year”: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161869/Top-doctors-chilling-claim-The-NHS-kills-130-000-elderly-patients-year.html

Zeke
Oral contraception triggered the triple negative breast cancer of two of my sisters. Both died; one at age 50 with two young teens, one at age 61 with two young adult children. Where do you find “the benefits of including contraceptives in health care plans (that) greatly “outweighs” the moral qualms of a small percentage of Catholics that consider contraception sinful?

Why do we always assume that people’s motivations are wrong if their conclusion is wrong? Unfortunately it’s not that simple. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say.

The simplest explanation is usually the right one and what is the simpler explanation here? That the HHS is trying to destroy the Catholic Church or that they wanted to provide coverage for a service used by the majority of American women, including those making the decision?

I am very troubled by the arguments against contraception based on the claim that pregnancy isn’t a disease. This is a common argument made by opponents of modern obstetrical care, something that has saved countless lives of both mothers and babies. If pregnancy isn’t a disease does that mean that coverage for prenatal care and labor and delivery shouldn’t be covered either?

New Catholic, read Zeke’s response more carefully. He does not write that he believes there are benefits to contraception for rather that the HHS reached that conclusion.

TW, actually under the ACA, vaccinations are “free” to patients because they are required to be covered at 100%.

I don’t put much faith in anything from WHO which is often an agenda driven organization. For example, they claimed that the ideal c-section rate was 15%. Finally they were forced to admit that they made it up and quietly removed the recommendation. See this from the National Cancer Institute for a better understanding of the links between oral contraceptives and cancer. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/oral-contraceptives

And before I’m accused of supporting the mandate or contraceptive use, I’m faithful to the Church’s teachings regarding contraception and oppose the HHS because I see it as an improper infringement of religious liberty. However, I am very troubled by the often dishonest arguments made against artificial contraception by its opponents. Do we really believe that the moral arguments against the use of artificial contraception are so worthless and unpersuasive that we need to invent other reasons?

Old Catholic,
I can appreciate your thoughtful response, but I can’t agree with your conclusions.  My own conclusions are research-based as well as anecdotal.  I have 32 years experience as a nurse in a high-risk university labor and delivery unit and the past twelve years I have taught high school science (certified). There is a wealth of research to support everything I say.  Where do you get your evidence that the WHO is less scientific and more agenda-driven than the UN, for example?  Have you bothered to go on-line and read the research by REAL doctors who have nothing to gain but ridicule for speaking the truth?  There are real, legitimate concerns about the safety of the pill.  It really wasn’t tested by any reasonable standard before given to humans.  Humans were the guinea pigs. 
I repeat, when there is legitimate controversy, a wise, caring person/government errs on the side of safety, not convenience or wishful thinking.

Here are two good starting points, though not the only sources for you to expand your knowledge:
http://thepillkills.com/
http://gerardnadal.com/
Now, why don’t you just look at statistics for the rise in breast cancer RATES since the advent of the pill.  That alone should make you want to investigate the legitimacy of the claims.

“His argument is that it is no different than him paying taxes for wars that he doesnt agree with and finds morally objectionable and contrary to his beliefs.”
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Does this man ever tell his representatives (it’s what they are there for), or does he just spend his time complaining to everyone else, who also nod solemnly but don’t do a thing about it beyond?  This ‘argument’ says to me, “I have given up, therefore you should too.”
While there are some things that arguably should never be paid for with anyone’s tax dollars, it is going to be darn near impossible to tell at the federal level whose money is being used for exactly what.  On the other hand, with insurance, it is entirely reasonable to conclude that relatively healthy, non-contracepting people are going to be subsidizing other people’s ‘free’ birth control, sterilizations, and abortifacients.

TW, you thank me for my thoughtful response and then you write “Have you bothered to go on-line and read the research by REAL doctors who have nothing to gain but ridicule for speaking the truth?”

This is when I stop dialoging.

mk,

I agree, of course pregnancy is not a “disease”, but the fact is that hormonal contraceptives are drugs and are dispensed through pharmacies like any other drug. The association of these drugs with those prescribed to treat medical conditions is simply because they are distributed through the same channels, there is no dishonesty here. Health care plans also cover costs for teeth cleaning and eyeglasses – these are not diseases in that sense either.
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Are there medical reasons to avoid contraception? Sure, but this is not the Church’s point. There are medical reasons to avoid a host of drugs, but typically the benefits outweigh the risks. The Church claims using birth control is evil, full stop. If there were hormonal birth control pills that had positive side-effects beyond preventing pregnancy, the Church would still oppose them. But for millions of married couples who wish to space children or choose not to have children, the pill is their preferred method. Let us not forget that condoms or surgical sterilization are free from all the health risks that concern you, yet you also consider these sinful and should not be covered by health care plans.
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My point about the “small percentage of Catholics” was merely that, in my opinion, the Obama administration knows full well that only a small percentage of Catholics adopt the Vatican’s view on birth control (as every survey shows) and made a calculated decision. Granted, some of these Catholics will refuse to vote for him because of this issue, but I think more will examine the contrasting views of his administration’s position on other issues dear to Catholics with those of the truly scary Mormon, such as care for the poor, the death penalty, and unjust war, just to name a few, and conclude that Obama is more in line with their values and beliefs. This is a far cry from a full scale war on the Church. If he wanted a full scale war, he could easily begin one by questioning the ongoing tax-exempt status of religious organizations that endorse particular political parties from the pulpit.
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Regarding gay marriage, I will indeed use the same logic. What you fail to note though, is that it is not merely the small percentage of homosexuals that support gay marriage in this country, it is the majority of the population. It is a civil rights issue. Contraception and gay marriage may be “wrong” to you, but only because the Church tells you so. And the government is not beholden to the particular interpretations of the Catholic Church when it comes to morals.

Local referenda indicate the majority does not support gay marriage

You can buy condoms from Amazon for about 25 cents apiece and have them shipped to your door. If you think this isn’t an attack on the Church and is all about making women’s reproductive health affordable, then you need to get out more.

BHG,
At the risk of going way off-topic:
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/First-Time-Majority-Americans-Favor-Legal-Gay-Marriage.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States#cite_note-1-

Of course, the fact that the majority of the population supports gay marriage is likely not to change the Church’s stance. But same-sex marriage is now legal in several states, with more inevitably to follow. The Church is going to find itself on the wrong side of history.

Zeke,

History will prove the church right.  I can scientifically prove to you that contraception does not serve the common good.

If you study sexual brain chemistry, in men and women.  It speaks a language. In women oxytocin which is released during child birth and nursing, creates a strong emotional bond with the men they sleep with.

In men Vassporin, is the hormone that kicks in the part of them that urges them to be responsible and parent like.  It says ” She might be carrying my child , I better get serious about life, and work to provide for them.”

This language exists regardless of whether conception takes place or not.

Sex speaks the language of bonding and procreation.

Marriage laws were created to affirm what already exists.

Contraception confuses this language between men and women.

It attempts to sabotage an act so it will speak a different language that what it speaks.

Now NFP is not great in itself, it just helps read this language. This explains why Catholics who use NFP have lower divorce rates than those who contracept.

The severing of sex from marriage and family, has been a big win win for the pansexualist movement and is able to support the fallacy called gay marriage.

I am sure you will agree that the breakdown of the male female relationship resulting in a host of societal problems does not serve the common good.

The church is not swayed by polls or conformity.

And if the govt, is really concerned about women’s health, should they not cover NFP which is healthier than hormonal contraception?

“the blasphemous trinity of Mammon, Moloch, and Dionysus”

Wow. Nailed it!

Zeke,

There is no such thing as gay marriage, as I have explained in my earlier post. You have a legal wedding, but it won’t be a marriage.

@zeke who said, “Or isn’t it more likely, as health care experts and insurance providers agree, that the benefits of including contraceptives in health care plans greatly “outweighs” the moral qualms of a small percentage of Catholics that consider contraception sinful?”

The point is, no health care expert or insurance provider—or government—should have the right to determine whether the “moral qualms of a small percentage of Catholics” are important or not (and as a side note, Catholics who don’t share these qualms are simply disobedient Catholics; they should never be looked to as the benchmark for Catholicism). That we are even discussing this shows that our First Amendment rights are truly in jeopardy.

Zeke:  History, maybe but that is not the way the Church measuers its action.

savvy,
Well, you got some things right. The roles and effects of oxtocin and vasopressin (not vassporin) are indeed well-known. However, you provide no evidence that contraception “confuses this language between men and women”, especially given that you state that “this language exists regardless of whether conception takes place or not”. Then the big leap to claim that this has led to the breakdown of the male-female relationship, which further has caused a host of societal problems. If you wish to link to some studies that support your “scientific proof”, I will gladly read them.
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Mollie,
The first amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion. Allowing insurance companies to provide free contraceptives to groups of employees at Catholic institutions does not interfere with exercising your religion. I understand that it violates your conscience, but that is not the wording or intent of the first amendment.

BHG,
Clearly.  And as the world moves on, the Church will scramble to find a way to reconcile reality with scripture and amend its teachings, just as it did with the torture of heretics, slavery, Jew hatred, cosmology, and evolution. Do you really doubt that the Church will one day condone gay marriage?

One thing I find particularly strange is that roughly the same group of people who are fanatically opposed to hormone laden foods insist, almost in the same breath, that women should stuff themselves full of hormones.  Incoherence on steroids.

Also, making conception impossible serves the particular interest of a man whose primary interest in a woman is the pleasurable use of her body.  Why would ANY woman agree to be converted into a sex toy?

Lastly, Zeke, it is not the Church which has a problem with reality.  Marriage between two persons of the same sex is no more possible than the production of a martini using orange soda and yogurt.  The proper ingredients just are not there.

Zeke,

“However, you provide no evidence that contraception “confuses this language between men and women”,
especially given that you state that “this language exists regardless of whether conception takes place or not””

It’s because contraception sabotages an act that speaks of one thing but does another.  It’s lying with your body. 

The language exists, you are working to sabotage it.

It’s like you want to raise money for a good cause, but forge a check to do so.

“Then the big leap to claim that this has led to the breakdown of the male-female relationship, which further has caused a host of societal problems.”

The book Adam and Eve after the Pill cites predictions made by experts across different fields on how the sexual revolution has affected male-female relationships.

ttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586176277/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thecurjes-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1586176277

Zeke,

The church has never had any “official” teachings on the subjects you bring up.  A variety of views, even conflicting, yes. This is why we have a magisterium, so no one unbalanced view can prevail.

But Zeke, these contraceptives wiill not be free. Someone is going to pay for them (do you really think the Pharmaceutical industry is going to give away contraceptives for free?), and in the end, that cost will be passed on to the employers—including the very same Catholic employers who objected in the first place!

The employer mandate applies only to those who employ more than 50 people.  It is not much of a mandate.  The employer of more than 50 people has the option of sponsoring the required coverage or paying a penalty.  The penalty is per employee per year.  The first 30 employees are excluded from the calculation.  The penalty may be either $2,000.00 or $3,000.00 per year per employee beyond the first 30 employees.  The penalty is substantially less than the annual cost of health insurance.  A prudent employer will comply with his conscience, cease sponsoring health insurance plans, pay the penalty, send his employees to the exchanges and be money ahead.  The author’s predicted destruction of Catholic institutions is either demagoguery or alarmism.

savvy,
You can dance around the semantics all you want, but the fact is that the Church position is fluid and changes as reality, science, and our own better ethical impulses drag it out of the medieval ages. The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel myth in its newspapers as late as 1914. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (aka The Inquisition) was on firm theological footing when they tortured heretics. Yet these are now viewed as shameful relics of Catholic history. So much for God-given objective morality.
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Mollie,
28 states had contraception mandates prior to the Obama decision (including Massachusetts, enacted by then Governor Romney). Where was the Catholic outrage then? It seems this recent “war” is started by the Church, not Obama. Even if there is an accomodation forthcoming (which I believe there will be), health care plan premiums will be collected by insurance company XYZ, which offers plans with and without coverage for contraception. The money all goes to the same coffers, so you are inevitably paying for someone’s contraceptives no matter how you parse the accounting.
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Finally, several insurers calculate that it is cheaper for them to provide contraceptive services to plan members that to not, since it reduces the overall cost of care for members. This is inconclusive at this point, but this is one reason why some insurance companies are willing to provide it freely. They feel the will enjoy lower costs and thus greater profits without raising premiums.

“Contraception and gay marriage may be “wrong” to you, but only because the Church tells you so.”
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That’s right Zeke, you are the only person here capable of independent thought—the rest of us are mindless zombies just doing what we are told.  (That was VERY heavy sarcasm just on the slim chance you missed it, but if you’re still inclined to hold that egocentric view, go for it.)

“I think more will examine the contrasting views of his administration’s position on other issues dear to Catholics with those of the truly scary Mormon, such as care for the poor, the death penalty, and unjust war, just to name a few, and conclude that Obama is more in line with their values and beliefs.”
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Bull.  You’re talking about a man who could not come up with a good reason to vote against infant murder, even on principle.  I can’t stand Romney.  Guess what?  Nobody is obligated to vote for either of them.
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“Allowing insurance companies to provide free contraceptives to groups of employees at Catholic institutions does not interfere with exercising your religion. I understand that it violates your conscience”
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No, I don’t believe you understand at all.  You’re splitting hairs.  Conscience and religion may be distinct things, but usually one informs the other to some extent.  And if you want a declaration of war, look no further than Kathleen Sebelius.  “We are in a war.”  Those were her exact words about it.  Mark isn’t making this up.
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“28 states had contraception mandates prior to the Obama decision (including Massachusetts, enacted by then Governor Romney). Where was the Catholic outrage then?”
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My understanding is that most if not all those states offered other ways to get around it, making it less restrictive.  Therefore it wasn’t a national issue.  This has been addressed in other fora that have been set up specifically to address such misconceptions, incidentally; I’m becoming a bit impatient with out-of-date talking points, so forgive me if it shows.
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“The roles and effects of oxtocin and vasopressin (not vassporin) are indeed well-known.”
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By the way, if you’re going to call someone out in a less-than-subtle way for spelling, you’d think you would want to be doubly careful to get it right.

Zeke,

You can keep advertising your ignorance. Catholicism has official teachings, regardless of what people do and say. You can try the 21 councils of the church.

Zeke,

You also have not refuted arguments on contraception or gay marriage given here. Just responded with insults.

You should know that there is nothing new about these things.

How, Mr Shea, can a war against Islam be unjust save in that Muhammed truly is a messenger of God.

Just a couple of questions came to mind in reading Mr. Shea’s hard-hitting article and veracity.  That the U.S. bishops are right in opposing the HHS mandate because it violates the religious rights of Catholics who affirm Church teachings that contraception is immoral is true, but then the bishops remain silent on the natural law argument on the intrinsic evil of contraception itself in the public forum.  Moreover, why does the USCCB and Catholic Relief Services give over 5 million dollars to the CARE relief organization that gives out contraception and provides abortions in the developing world?  Its seems contradictory to oppose the HHS mandate on the one hand but then to financially support organizations that provide contraception’s and abortions.

More to the point, gm, whenever a man and a woman (whether or not lawfully married) commence the generative act, they engage the sovereign liberty of the Creator to create, or not to create, a human being. Any intervention - either in anticipation of the act, or during its course, or afterwards - done with intent to render the act infertile, they appropriate something which God has reserved to Himself.

Contraception is, therefore, a species of idolatry.

Michael,

Sexual bio-chemistry already affirms that sex speaks the language of bonding and parenthood. Regardless of whether God exists or not.  Legal marriage affirms what already exists.

Gm,

The Catholic National Bio-ethics centre explains this issue.

http://www.ncbcenter.org/page.aspx?pid=1263

How, Mr Shea, can a war against Islam be unjust save in that Muhammed truly is a messenger of God.

Because murdering an innocent person is murder.  If a Muslim has not attacked you, you have no right whatsoever to kill him.  “Not murdering Muslims in cold blood” does not constitute saying “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.”

What *do* Radical Traditionalist Reactionary Dissenting Catholics teach their kids in their madrassahs these days?  It certainly doesn’t look like Just war or basic logic.

Let me elaborate. Mr Shea is presumably referring to the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, or to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, or both. As for the second case, the answer is easy. At the time of the invasion of Iraq the UN Security Council was lawfully intervening under Chapter VII in consequence of unfinished business left over from Iraq’s war of aggression against Kuwait. Its Resolution 1483, adopted after the invasion of March 2003, legitimated the Coalition’s occupation and rendered the use of force against Iraq unassailably lawful. The insurgency against the Coalition was waged as a religious war, a jihad, a war to establish the religion of Islam. Since Muhammad never existed (see Robert Spencer’s book on the subject) Islam is a false religion. It is therefore unjust to wage a jihad in arms, and those who do so are justly put to death both for murder and for blasphemy.

Please learn to read.  I’m not referring to any particular war in this discussion.  And, at any rate, your question, as phrased, not arguing for these wars, but for unlimited endless war against all Muslims everwhere and threatening those who dissent from this insane proposition with the charge of being secret Muslims. Go and ask the Reactionary Catholics who taught you at you madrassah for your money back.  You fail just war *and* basic logic.

Zeke, many of us Catholics are indeed outraged that our leaders have remained silent for so long. They have stood by and allowed the Culture of Death to flourish out of cowardice or a false sense of compassion and love—or both. Either way, the result is that a war has been waging around us while our leaders slept. At least Obama has succeeded in waking them!

I still believe, as Mark Shea pointed out, that there is a huge difference between my money being contributed to a pool of money that might include purchasing something I object to (which can’t really be avoided in our world today, as so many businesses I patronize might use my money in ways I don’t like, but am I simply supposed to stop shopping?); and my money (if I were the Catholic employer in question) being used directly to buy that objectionable item in which case I might as well write the check for it myself. Those who don’t have a conviction of who God is and what He demands of us just don’t get it. This isn’t about my opinion of right and wrong vs. yours, or what the Church may or may not have done in the past or is doing now. It’s about my (and every Christian’s) ability to someday stand before My God and hear Him pass sentence on my life. Did I do what I knew to be right, even if it wasn’t popular? Or did I capitulate to the whims of the world so that I wouldn’t be bullied and labeled as a right wing nutcase zealot and incur the wrath and hatred of unbelievers? That is what this “war” is all about, and your misrepresentations of Church history and arguments in favor of embracing sin will not sway me, or others like me, one bit.

@Michael and savvy- I’m in total agreement with you on why contraception is morally wrong- that it an anti-life action.  But, apropos to my last question is why aren’t (some) people at the USCCB and CSR, both Catholic organizations in agreement with it?  What in the world is going on there that they would take the donations of Catholics to the tune of 5 million dollars and give it to CARE an organization that provides contraception and abortion services?
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/us-bishops-org-defends-giving-25-of-2010-grants-to-pro-contraception-group

enness,
Yeah, I get the sarcasm, and good point on the typo, sloppy on my part. But to your point, how can someone professing to be Catholic hold any beliefs other than Church-approved dogma? It doesn’t necessarily follow that they are mindless zombies, but surely suggests that more than coincidence is at work when dogma changes and the flock falls in step. In Casti Connubii Pope Pius XI is clear about the sinful nature of frustrating the conjugal act by any means. After Humanae Vitae, NFP became acceptable. Was there some sort of hive mind effect at work such that Catholics independently reached the same conclusion as Pope Paul VI? How can something inherently sinful become acceptable overnight? It seems that polls and conformity do indeed impact Church teaching from time to time. Not that there is anything wrong with that – the Church must adapt to societal changes or become irrelevant.
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Please spare me the egocentric comments; surely you know that you are in the vast minority among all religions that claim to have a true bead on God’s truth regarding contraception, and it’s egocentric to assume that you are correct. In fact you are even a minority among Catholics, according to polls on Catholic use of contraception. I will prepare myself for the inevitable posts stating that these are not “true Catholics”.
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Yes, free exercise of religion vs. following one’s conscience is splitting hairs, but such is the nature of constitutional law. The religion clause in the first amendment has been tested many times, and the court decisions indeed often amount to hair-splitting. That aside, I doubt you are as concerned when Muslims complain about laws that violate their conscience.  Sebelius’ quote “we’re in a war” wasn’t about the Church, as you are no doubt are aware, but rather about Republican attempts to cut Medicaid and repeal the federal health reform law. Catholic Bishops were firmly on her side until the HHS mandate on contraception. It seems a bit disingenuous on your part to twist her words this way.
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savvy,
Your “arguments” about contraception and gay marriage cannot be refuted. Statements such as “it’s because contraception sabotages an act that speaks of one thing but does another” and “there is no such thing as gay marriage” are based on faith, not on biology, or even logic. They deserve no response.

Zeke:

If you wish to discuss the development of doctrine, I would recommend Newman’s _Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_. Doctrine can change in the sense that the Church can gain a deeper understanding of things she already believes.  So the Church has always believed that Jesus is God, but took several centuries to formulate that God is a Trinity.  She has always believed Mary is sinless and that all have sinned, but took till 1854 to formulate an understand how that can be.  She has always said you can not take innocent human life, but (obviously) never had to apply that to nuclear weapons or embryonic stem cells till those technologies arose.  So dogma can “change” in the sense that we understand it more deeply.  But it does not change in the sense that new developments will contradict old dogma.  One of the mistakes that Progressives make is the assertion of the confident belief that the Church is going to create new dogma to repeal old dogma.  Don’t work that way.  Read Newman if you actually want to know what’s going on.  Keep worshipping the imaginary future if your want to be surprised by what will *really* happen at the Third Vatican Council.

Zeke,

Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), did, however, affirm the morality of “making recourse to the infertile times of the woman’s menstrual cycle.”

Yes, NFP is much more advanced today than it previously was and is getting better. Naprotechnology is a breakthrough.

You have not offered any arguments of your own either. Just that we should prefer Thursday to Wednesday, because it’s Wednesday.

Zeke,

Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), did, however, affirm the morality of “making recourse to the infertile times of the woman’s menstrual cycle.”

Yes, NFP is much more advanced today than it previously was and is getting better. Naprotechnology is a breakthrough.

You have not offered any arguments of your own either. Just that we should prefer Thursday to Wednesday, because it’s Thursday.

Zeke -Catholics, who put their faith first, don’t care how popular sin is. If you happen to read the Bible, check out Genesis Chapter 19. Sin was in the majority in Sodom and Gomorrah. Did it make it right? Not for Lot. On “gay marriage”, it’s an oxymoron. God instituted marriage between a man and woman which has required intercourse between the husband and wife for the last ~5,000 years to sustain humanity. Sodomy (any non-intercourse sexual act) proponents really need to come up with something other than “gay marriage” - what’s wrong with “civil union”? Personally, I oppose Catholics, or any religious people for that matter, having to go to the state to get their marriage license. It’s not a state affair nor their business. I’m not sure why homosexuals are so anxious to do the same.

Mammon, Moloch, & Dionysus is MUCH better than Nietzsche, Marks, & Freud!  Everyone keeps forgetting that many Catholic institutions are self-insured and that the HHS is likely aware of this which makes the whole “open and naked war” scenario much more likely.  Good call.

In reply to Mark P Shea on Sunday, Jul 29, 2012 4:22 PM (EST). Unlimited endless war is upon us whether we like it or not. The enemy is everyone and anyone who affirms that every Muslim is obliged to install, and every nation required to adopt, Islamic law as the law of the land, failure to do so being a damnable offence agains God. Look at Nigeria, where Christians are being blown up every Sunday at church. They are dealing with monsters. If ever there was a case for the Crusade, it is this.

Thanks be to God that bellicose madmen like you have no power in either Church or state.  You stay right here in cyberspace spouting your beer and brass bands advocacy of cold-blooded murder of your neighbors.  Meanwhile, sane Catholics will continue to listen to the guidance of the Magisterium in the form of actual just war teaching, which forbids us to run around killing people just because they are Muslim.

And please: stop with the quotations from The Lord of the Rings as though that somehow legitimates you acting like an orc in the name of acting like Aragorn.

No one is advocating running around killing people just because they are Muslims, although I am in favour of imposing a Final Solution on Boko Haram, the terrorists who murder Christians time and time again. This might involve forcing them to change their religion. It might also involve something else. However, as long as a Muslim doesn’t engage in jihad or advocate it, his life is inviolable. Jihad is a species of aggressive war when committed by a state, and of treason in all other cases. A war against aggressors or traitors will usually meet the conditions of a just war according to Catholic teaching. We also have to consider whether Islam as a religion can justly be tolerated or given the benefit of religious liberty, and for the following reason in particular. When Muslim men and women establish unions in which to have children, these are not true marriages. Go on the Internet and look at the form in which they exchange consent. In general, the groom delegates to the bride his ‘right’ to divorce her. Since consent is presumed to follow the words and actions in which consent is manifested, it must be judged that what is consented to is something other than marriage. There is no intent to establish an exclusive union for life.

Gary: your opposition to the state’s involvement in marriage may need a bit more consideration. I’m a US citizen who married a Norwegian citizen, who had lived in both Norway and Sweden, and had a bank account in each country. When he died, I had to get quite a few official copies of our marriage certificate, but still a heck of a time with the Swedish bank. I cannot imagine how I would have fared without a state-issued document in support of an internationally well-understood institution - marriage - that affects not only ownership of financial assets, but also the rearing of children.

While the state has no business getting involved in “two people who love each other”, the state does have a right to be concerned for the health and well-being of the next generation. It is in the interest of the common good that children are healthy. This is why every state’s marriage laws include proscriptions against consanguinity (close relatives can’t marry): to protect the offspring. Marriage matters because it is about the children, and their rights.

As to why homosexuals are anxious to get “married”: maybe it’s because they know that they are missing out on something that real marriage grants: a mother-in-law.

You came here insisting that anybody who did not approve of any act of war against any Muslim was a secret Muslim.  Now you want to act like eugenist and tell Muslims they can’t marry.  With friends like you, the Church does not need enemies.  Go away.

Mark, why don’t you go away and learn English! Let me start again. A certain contingent of Muslims has declared war on the western nations, including the US. Their grievance is that our nations do not submit to Islamic law as God requires them to. Their case is that Allah has commanded them to use all means to make them do so, not excluding warfare. Their case, judged correctly, cannot succeed. The reason is that God has given them no such command, and we know so because Islam is a false religion. Therefore, anyone who wages armed jihad commits treason, as does anyone who gives him aid or comfort. Anyone who advocates it commits at least sedition. Traitors are to be fought in arms and, when subdued, are to be severely punished, as are seditionists. And please, Mark, don’t make yourself look like a liar by accusing me of saying that Muslims can’t marry. I said that the form in which they usually exchange vows is not consistent with the consent that makes a true marriage. When a man and a woman irrevocably give to and receive from each other the exclusive right to engage together in acts apt for the generation of offspring, then they marry. If not, they do something other than marry.

Gary,

Christians did not always have public weddings, they did have marriages.  Some day we might have to go back to just private marriages conferred on the couple to each other, without worrying about state recognition.

MaryS,

Yes, it’s an argument made that no church will want to give up the goodies or benefits attached. But, I think we need to sometimes take a stand for what is important to us, esp. in states where gay marriage is already legal.

Mollie,

I do agree that Obama has ignited a NFP revolution. People are talking about this a lot more than they used to.

I agree with your in general. However, I think the supreme court just got finished ruling that OBAMA Care is a tax and I guess by extension so is the HHS mandate. Your comments?

Mollie,
While we will have to agree to disagree, I don’t believe I was misrepresenting Church history. Please correct me where I was wrong.

Mark,
This is why an atheist like me loves reading your blog – “acting like an orc in the name of acting like Aragorn”. Beauty.  And kudos for calling out those promoting the hatred of other faiths.
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To me it seems that doctrinal changes resulting from a “deeper understanding” is merely the political way to preserve the notion of infallibility, lest the whole thing fall apart.  You’re going to have to trust me on this, I tried to get through Newman’s essay but just couldn’t. It’s more than a wee bit dry for those of us not in the choir who find it hard to take Scripture seriously and are mystified by those whom immerse themselves in it. So forgive me if his essay addresses anything I write next.
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The modern teachings that the Church maintains on slavery for example, appears much less a deeper understanding and more of a victory of our better ethical nature over the some serious moral deficiencies in the Bible. Deeper study of the Bible (including the NT) only provides more evidence that God was basically OK with slavery.  Muslim slaves were manning papal galleys until the 1800’s. Now it is an intrinsic evil. How is this anything but a direct contradiction? Yes, yes, I understand that there is a distinction between doctrine and dogma, but to quote George Carlin, are there not Catholics “doing eternity in hell on a meat rap”?
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Contraception seems to fall into the same category. I get the argument about abortifacient drugs and natural law and all that, but to deny a devoted married couple condoms or surgical sterilization, while allowing NFP for exact same purpose, is dogma run amuk. It doesn’t seem inconceivable to me that the Church could reverse its teachings on this.

Zeke,

The Bible talks about how to treat slaves. It does not say slavery is OK. This is a red-herring.
Slavery is also not a sacrament, marriage is.

NFP is not the same as artificial contraception. In the case of an act of NFP the couple is not doing anything to make themselves infertile. They are simply having marital congress when nature makes them infertile.

Zeke:  Thanks for the compliment.

RE: development of doctrine. I trust that you could not be bothered to try to understand how the Church’s self-understanding governs the way in which it actually develops doctrine.  But the fact remains that without understanding this, you really don’t understand how doctrine can and cannot develop, so you make wild assumption about the future based on misinformation about the past.  The history of the Church’s relationship with slavery is, for instance, massively more complicated than a standup comic’s one liners.  What a lot of moderns don’t grasp is that there simply is not a straight line from slavery in the Bible to the slavery you encounter in the 18th and 19th centuries, nor is the history of the Christian engagement with slavery simply one of “Christians saw no problem with it till Enlightenment minds pointed out it was bad.”

In fact, there is hostility to slavery in the New Testament and in the nature of the gospel.  That was more than mere theory.  Slavery disappears in Christian lands for several centuries and only begins to return with the rise of the nation state and, in particular, colonization.  The Church has no monolithic attitude toward it at this time (see the Curp piece) and there are some real moral failures.  But there are also people like Bartolme de las Casas doing the spade work for later Enlightenment developments.

Bottom line: Slavery was the immemorial fact of the human race.  Only one thing has ever succeeded in extirpating it: Christian civilization.  Even today, it remains the habit that human beings always tend toward and only Christianity and the habits of mind which remain in post-Christian civilization running on its fumes keep at bay.  The moment those fume run out, slavery will be back (and is already returning as our capitalist culture continues concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the few and reducing the population to wards of the state and the corporation.  The atheist congratulates himself on being naturally more enlightened about human dignity than his theistic ancestor.  In fact, the atheist is basically an ignorant thief who is oblivious to the fact that he sees farther only because he stands on the shoulders of giants.  The reason you believe in human equality is because you are the unthinking heir to a Christian mystical tradition that teaches you “all men are created equal”.  There is, in empirical science, not a jot of evidence for that claim.  There is in the confused Darwinism that dominates the atheist subculture, abundant evidence against that claim.  No pagan ever believed it.  It is purely a fruit of the Christian dogma that God is no respecter of persons and all are made in his image and likeness.

So, you should really learn about how the Church *actually* develops its doctrine instead of treating a standup comic as a reliable source of serious historical knowledge.  Then, take another look at how the Church’s teaching has and has not developed with respect to contraception.  The prophecies you are making simply have no bearing on reality.  Here’s the reality: The Church regards nature as having the same author as we do.  Therefore, the Church sees the order of nature as revelatory and not simply as something we can screw around with at will.  We can cooperate with and enhance nature (so God puts Adam in the garden to tend it).  But we cannot simply thwart nature.  That means, for instance, that eating food for its taste and then barfing it up to avoid the calories is unnatural, but refraining from eating in order to lose weight is not.  Artificial contraception is analogous to the former; NFP to the latter.  There is no “reversal” here.

Zeke, I can not possibly improve upon Mark’s explanations on both the development of doctrine and the issue of the Church’s stance on slavery. You also brought up the Inquisition, another common target used by detractors of the Catholic Church. One of the biggest mistakes people today make is that of judging the peoples and institutions of former periods of history by the values and hindsight of the 21st century. I challenge you to read about the Inquisition from the “other side”, and hear what the Church herself has to say about it. This excerpt from a chapter of a high school history textbook offers an excellent explanation: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0009.html . And every other so-called abuse by the Church has a similarly logical explanation, if only one chooses to listen to it.

Mark: OK, sensing we’re not a big Carlin fan…..
Easy there brother, clearly I’m not suggesting he’s a reliable source of historical knowledge, just thought it was a funny line and somewhat topical. And “wild assumptions” and “prophecies” is a more than a bit shrill given that I only wrote “it doesn’t seem inconceivable to me that the Church could reverse its teachings on this”. Tough day? And just what “misinformation about the past” are you talking about?
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On the topic of slavery, I agree that it’s massively more complicated, but it should be have been ridiculously simple. The complication arose only because the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity ever faced wrong. No matter how hard you squint your eyes at it, the Bible still condones slavery. Given that it condemns a huge number of real and imagined crimes against God, we can only wonder why slavery never made the list. Slaveholders of the South were on the correct theological side of the slavery argument, and were able to point to the Bible to prove it. Your “it’s complicated” argument, and Curp’s article, doesn’t attempt to hide this but also fails to address the real issue that (i) the Bible (and Jesus) never formally condemns it, and (ii) the Church went from owning slaves to calling the practice evil, which is by any fair measure, a direct moral contradiction. BTW, crediting Christian civilization with extirpating slavery is like giving Mormon culture credit for denouncing polygamy.
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Thanks for solving the mystery for me about the source of my belief in human equality and dignity. Yet without a trace of irony you will argue that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry and must remain celibate. Your beef seems to be that the mechanics of developing Church doctrine make it impossible that it could ever change its teachings on contraception. Fine, just explain it that way without being insulting to me and all atheists.

Mollie: Wow, this is the first time I’ve ever encountered someone actually defending the Inquisition, and literature to that effect. I only raised it as an example of how the Church doctrine on torture has changed, nothing more. Since you insist on being cranky with me, you mention that “every other so-called abuse by the Church has a similarly logical explanation”. What’s the logical explanation for the systemic sexual abuse of children and the failure of the Church leaders to act?

“the systemic sexual abuse of children and the failure of the Church leaders to act” ... I hope you didn’t mean to imply that that was Church doctrine.

The abuse scandal was caused by fallen human nature. We are all sinners. Some of us are trying to rise above our fallen nature, and the Church provides the help we need, thanks be to Jesus Christ. Yet we don’t always take full advantage of the helps available.

Note that similar abuse exists in the wider culture. In fact, in greater percentages than within the Church, esp. in the public schools: “The physical sexual abuse of students in [public] schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”—Charol Shakeshaft, author of “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature” a study done for the U.S. Department of Education
http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf

Of course, that does not excuse priests who abuse nor bishops who cover up such abuse. Nothing does. Every case of abuse is horrible and sinful, and we must do everything we can to prevent such abuse, and assist those who have suffered. But I mention the wider culture’s cases because it serves to put things in perspective. Fallen human nature - it’s everywhere.

Mark: OK, sensing we’re not a big Carlin fan…..

Actually, I think Carlin was, at his best, a genius and one of the most perceptive comics who ever lived.  He was also an angry ex-Catholic with some amazing blind spots who was stunningly unaware of how much of his outlook was a holdover of his upbringing since he was in such sharp reaction to it.  His distrust of both Caesar and Mammon was straight out of his Irish Catholic background and would have delighted a Chesterton.

Easy there brother, clearly I’m not suggesting he’s a reliable source of historical knowledge, just thought it was a funny line and somewhat topical. And “wild assumptions” and “prophecies” is a more than a bit shrill given that I only wrote “it doesn’t seem inconceivable to me that the Church could reverse its teachings on this”. Tough day? And just what “misinformation about the past” are you talking about?

Not angry.  Just writing in a rush.  Didn’t mean to be shrill, only to say that your assumptions about the Church’s development of doctrine in the past (what to think about slavery) simply don’t map to questions like contraception.  You don’t grasp what is essential and unchanging in Catholic thought vs. what is malleable. 

On the topic of slavery, I agree that it’s massively more complicated, but it should be have been ridiculously simple. The complication arose only because the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity ever faced wrong.

Not really.  The Catholic Church is not “Bible based.”  You are thinking of Protestantism.  I repeat, slavery disappeared for several centuries after the Christianization of Rome because the faith *was* hostile in its DNA to slavery.  The Church did not look at the slavery in the Old Testament and say, “Ah!  Slavery in the Bible.  So slavery is OK!”  What drove the re-emergence of slavery in the Renaissance was not the Bible but the economic demands of the rising nation states.  Ironically, the modern paradigm that looks most like it is the huge cultural push for contraception which the Church must struggle to adapt to without caving on her basic principles.  In her doctrine, the Church doesn’t’ change.  But her members live this out in ways that don’t always reflect the doctrine because the world insists on ignoring the Church.  Had the nation-state colonial powers not insisted on reviving slavery the death it had died after the Christianization of Rome would have been permanent.

No matter how hard you squint your eyes at it, the Bible still condones slavery. Given that it condemns a huge number of real and imagined crimes against God, we can only wonder why slavery never made the list.

I don’t wonder, because I don’t share the view of the Bible common to fundamentalist, both atheist and Christian.  I don’t regard the Bible as the Big Magic Book of Everything.  It is a fully human book as well as a divine one, just as Jesus is fully human and fully God.  It is written by people living under all the constraints of their culture, including slavery.

Slaveholders of the South were on the correct theological side of the slavery argument, and were able to point to the Bible to prove it.

Abolitionists also point to the Bible.  Apart from an interpretive community, you can prove anything from Scripture.

Your “it’s complicated” argument, and Curp’s article, doesn’t attempt to hide this but also fails to address the real issue that (i) the Bible (and Jesus) never formally condemns it, and (ii) the Church went from owning slaves to calling the practice evil, which is by any fair measure, a direct moral contradiction.

You seem to have ignored the point about the disappearance of slavery after the Christianization of Rome.  Blaming the Church for not being able to overcome the huge economic push for slavery by a culture resistant to the Church’s teaching is rather like blaming the Church for the prevalence of abortion in 21st century culture.  The reality is that the Church went from a Roman slave culture, to the disappearance of slavery, to its reemergence in the Renaissance, to a period of struggle with this sociological fact, to a reassertion of the Catholic conviction that all men are made in the image and likeness of God.  That’s the basica outline of the *real* history of the Church’s engagement with slavery.

BTW, crediting Christian civilization with extirpating slavery is like giving Mormon culture credit for denouncing polygamy.

Statements like this only reveal your ignorance.  The *only* place that has ever extirpated slavery has been lands under Christian influence.

Thanks for solving the mystery for me about the source of my belief in human equality and dignity.

You’re welcome.  I know you believe you just worked all this out on your own.  But the reality is you owe your culture a huge debt.

Yet without a trace of irony you will argue that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry and must remain celibate.

No. I will argue that gay “marriage”, like marriage to a the Eiffel Tower, a pet, yourself, or a warehouse (Google all these examples lest you think I am being silly) is an ontological impossibility.  Homosexuals can pretend to be married if they like.  But in so doing, all they really means is “marriage means forcing approval for a relationship that the Christian tradition says is sinful, at the cost of privileging real marriage, which is ordained for the protection of the family.”  In short, gay “marriage” means emptying the word “marriaqe” of meaning.  It’s a pyrrhic victory.

Your beef seems to be that the mechanics of developing Church doctrine make it impossible that it could ever change its teachings on contraception. Fine, just explain it that way without being insulting to me and all atheists.

It is not an insult to say that huge swaths of atheist morality is borrowed without credit from the mystical bundle of Judeo-christian doctrines.  As Chesterton says, if men are not created equally they are certainly evolved unequally.  Your conviction that human beings have equal dignity is an admirable tip of the hat to the Christian tradition.  It is certainly not a tip of the hat to atheistic materialism

Zeke, I apologize for being “cranky”. It was not my intention. I guess it’s just hard to talk about this subject without passion, so I am sorry if that came across as nastiness. On to my points… I think you throw the term “doctrine” around too liberally. Can you provide Church documents (not opinion pieces) showing that torture was ever officially OK according to Catholic doctrine? Practice is not the same as doctrine, as evidenced by the majority of Catholics who today use contraception in spite of the Church’s clear teaching (doctrine) that it is gravely sinful. And about the “systemic sexual abuse of children”. As MaryS pointed out, this was a problem of individuals doing evil, not a problem of Church doctrine. Why do so many insist on judging the Church by the behavior of those who are not faithful to Her teachings? Judge the Church by Her teachings and individual Catholics by their actions. Yes, it is scandalous and tragic that some priests behaved this way, and much damage was done to individuals and the the Church. And those priests will some day stand before God and answer to Him for this crime. However, you asked me for the “logical explanation” for this situation. I don’t expect you to agree, but I invite you to read this article for a perspective that many don’t want to even consider because of its unpopularity: http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/07/catholic_churchs_issue_is_homosexuality_not_pedophilia.html. I don’t offer this by way of excuse, but the reality is that this was not a problem of Church doctrine or teaching, it was a problem of individuals and sin. That the Church leaders covered it up was also sin and bad judgment, but again, not Church doctrine. Please, please don’t confuse the two.

To Old Catholic,
I think if you read Zeke’s comments throughout this discussion that my interpretation of Zeke’s comments are accurate.

Hi Mark,
Glad to hear that even a strident Catholic can appreciate the comedy of an apostate. But wait a minute, the Catholic Church is not Bible based? Since when? The difference between Catholic doctrine and the other zany literalist strains of Christianity are well understood, but this is just too much. Catholicism does not exist without the Bible, which is at the core of Catholic faith. If there is any disagreement between the Bible and Catholic beliefs, I think the Pope should hear about it.  Sure, inventing theological techniques to create distance between the embarrassing morality and medieval thought in the Bible and Church doctrine is much to the Church’s credit business-wise, but it’s a whole other animal to pretend the teachings of the Church are not Bible based. Blogger, please. Criticism of the Church about slavery is not that she didn’t use all her worldly resources to eradicate it, but rather that she didn’t condemn it specifically. That many Vicars of Jesus Christ kept slaves, where now it is an intrinsic evil to do so doesn’t call into question the worthiness of Church doctrine is hard to fathom.
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You once wrote a response to me that “the Church is not big on telling people what to believe”. Now that’s funny stuff that even Carlin would be proud of.

Zeke: you wrote “Catholicism does not exist without the Bible” - but it’s the other way around. The Bible would not exist without the Catholic Church. The Church existed before anyone began to pen anything in the New Testament, and it was the Church that decided to collect the books together and chose which books to include. And it was the Church - thanks to the monks - that maintained copies throughout the numerous invasions of Europe that always included burning and pilaging. But, thanks to the protection of the Holy Spirit, the Bible is now available to all of us, thanks to the Church (which came first).

So it isn’t that the teachings of the Church are bible-based, as you wrote. Rather, the Church’s teachings are in accord with the Bible because the Bible is her book - part of the deposit of faith handed down to us from the Apostles, along with Sacred Tradition and the Magesterium to teach us how to properly interpret.

I have no info on any popes keeping slaves, but I do know that the slavery of antiquity was nothing like the slavery of the Americas. Slaves in biblical times might better be called “servants” (in fact, some bible translations use that term), because they were generally treated with respect - often, not unlike family. And it was the social norm of the larger society, so God gave some guidelines on how to treat them (see Exodus, Leviticus, etc.). The Bible is also a historical book, and slaves were part of history.

But the kind of slavery that America participated in was truly a horror, where the slaves were treated like property - worse than animals, in some cases. This very different kind of slavery is, indeed, an intrinsic evil.

Here is a very well-written and well researched explanation of the slavery issue:
http://users.binary.net/polycarp/slave.html

Most black churches are opposed to gay marriage. Even they are not buying the spin.

This country was founded on religious freedom, not freedom of worship. If it is illegal to live the religious morals and values of the Catholic church which have not changed in 2000 years, then this is in fact persecuting Catholics and it is not allowing true religious freedom.  To allow the government to prohibit the living of one’s faith in the world is a scary step in this country that has never been allowed until Obama.  And this is because he repackages this debate as a war on women which could not be further from the truth.  This is a war on religious freedom, not only Catholics, but any religion is not subject to government control.