Humanae Vitae (via the Holy Spirit) to the Rescue

The caption says: I TOLD YOU SO

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY PROTESTANT FAMILY WHO ARE CONVINCED CATHOLICISM IS WRONG AND ONLY THEIR CHURCH IS RIGHT.... even when they change churches because they don't like what their pastor was teaching.(*)

Dear Family,

I trust you are paying attention to this very important moral battle for the soul of our nation. You may be thinking that the Religious Liberty enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution is being trampled upon by Obama and his minions.

But there is a more important battle being waged. It is a battle for the souls of men and women, young and old, and those unborn as predicted by Pope Paul VI in 1968.

 

In 1968, the lone and very unpopular voice of Pope Paul VI wrote a REAFFIRMATION of Church teaching about artificial birth control and contraception in all its forms. The instrument was his Encyclical Letter OF HUMAN LIFE, (or in Latin the first words of the letter... Humanae Vitae.) No other Church agreed with the Pope, and EVERY other Church, especially those that had no respect for Catholicism) CHANGED their stance on birth control and allowed it. This was only one of many ways that moral relativism creeped into Christianity. But not so in Catholic teaching. Yes, many Catholics embraced Protestantism in practice. But the Church as a teaching institution protected by the promise of Christ in the Gospels,  never caved.

In 1968 Protestants and secularists laughed and ridiculed the Pope for his prophecies of the natural consequences that would beleaguer the world if artificial birth control was allowed. In section 17 of Humane Vitae he wrote (and I'm paraphrasing):

1. The road to infidelity in marriage will be opened wide.
2. There will be a general lowering of public morality.
3. Men would finally lose respect for the woman... and use "her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected an beloved companion."

Then the second paragraph of that section (17.2) reads this way, 44 years ago:

"Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power (contraception) passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law.... Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife."
 
At the time theologians (even Catholic theologians), physicians, sociologists, and all manner of other experts advised the pope to loosen the strings of the Church's teachings on contraception. But the Pope, being protected by the Holy Spirit (Christ's explicit promise) from promulgating doctrine in error, wrote Humane Vitae, and once again the Holy Spirit protected the Church from teaching error. (Mt 16:18-19, John 16:12-13, John 20:22-23)

And this past week we see it fulfilled, yet again.

And it is the only Church that has never reversed any teaching from the time of the Apostles. If you think it has changed, then you don't know the teachings of the Church but have listened to the misrepresentations of others who would marginalize the Church for their personal gain. 

This is why so many of us are Catholic. We'd rather be members of a Church that has proven its infallibility by NOT changing moral teachings, (even under intense pressure to do so), than to become moral relativists, like the rest of christian culture.... even the Orthodox. Truth does not change. Natural Law does not change. Christ does not change.    What is true is NOT up to us to decide.

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* Ray Guarendi is right. There is a new atheism in the U.S. It comes from Christians who say, "There is a God. And he's just like me."

Anne Rice's Blog is Hijacked

Anne Rice's blog's claim of her "deconvesion" from Christianity is one of the most stupid explanations of not being something I have ever read. She claims she's done being a Christian and at the same time saying she loves Christ. It would make sense if she'd disclaim and trash the hypocrites in Chrisianity, but that is not what these posts are saying.  It's as if someone has hijacked her blog.


I have read a great deal of her writings both before and after her reconversion to Catholicism. And nothing in these recent posts of hers makes any logical sense. It's almost as if she had someone close to her write these posts who is totally ignorant of Christian doctrine and most of all Catholic teaching and wants to lash out.   I heard recently that she was bedfast with illness. Perhaps her her delusion or incapacity someone is taking advantage of her blog. Time will tell.

For anyone of her "intelligence" to create such obviously inaccurate strawman arguments is childish if not adolescent. She's lauded for her research in the many books she's written. So, it's hard to figure that she's done no research into Christian or Catholic teaching before she came back to it.  Is she so dumb as to listen to "Christians' on the fringe and embrace their ideology as if it was an accurate reflection of Christian or Catholic theology?

If you claim to love Christ, Christ says "You will obey me." Christ also said to his Apostles, the first Church elders, "He who is against you, is against me." People have a choice, they can choose to follow God's will as expressed by the moral teachings of the Church Christ left in charge, or they can be their own little God. 

The quote most open to question, if it came from her at all is this:

I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life.

As a simple critique, let's stick with Catholic Christianity since Protestant theology is all over the map on these issues.

Christianity teaches us to love gays, but not their sexual perversion. We are to love those that hate us. Christianity is not "anti-anybody" but it is "anti-sin."

The most renowned feminist (moderate, not radical) was Jesus. He gave women their status of equal value to men before Western laws did. Christianity is "feminist" at its core, as long as you eliminate the fringe of the feminist movement that think women should use urinals.

Christianity isn't against birth control when used naturally, but it is against disrupting the natural working of marriage and life. It is a contraction to be FOR artificial birth control and FOR life. Why? Because artificial birth control can induce abortions of an embryo.

Christianity isn't anti-Democrat, although it is against some of the planks in the current Democrat platform, like the right to abortion. But Church teaching steers far clear of anything that is political. It's just that politics and state laws sometimes infringe on the God given human rights and the dignity of life.

Christianity may be against "secular humanism" if by that term she is referring to a philosophy that expressly excludes God.  The Church is an articulate support of humanism in it s Christian form.

Christianity invented science. The Vatican is the only faith with an astronomical observatory active in research. It's the "secular humanism scientists" and their egos that dislike God that claim Christianity excludes science.  All the great science discoveries of the past came from practicing Christians and most of those were Catholic. And don't get me into the Gallieo controversy; that was a person thing, not a doctrine thing--dig below the surface to understand that.  Truth comes by FAITH AND REASON the Church has proclaimed all its existence. REASON includes science by definition.

And her final salvo, "I refer to be anti-life".  Right. Who really wrote this? Not anyone with a brain larger than a walnut.

Anyway, I don't want to take anymore time to do again what my good friend Dave Armstrong has done wonderfully.  Check out his detailed analysis of this with all the links you could want. GREAT JOB DAVE.