Christianity And Sexuality

"When the penitent shows a willingness to accept the moral teaching, especially in the case of one who habitually frequents the sacrament and demonstrates trust with regard to the spiritual help it offers, it is good to instill confidence in divine Providence and be supportive, in order to help the penitent to examine himself honestly before God. For this purpose it will be necessary to verify the solidity of the motives inducing a limitation of fatherhood or motherhood, and the liceity of the methods chosen to distance or avoid a new birth. Special difficulties are presented by cases of cooperation in the sin of a spouse who voluntarily renders the unitive act infecund. In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish cooperation in the proper sense, from violence or unjust imposition on the part of one of the spouses, which the other spouse in fact cannot resist. This cooperation can be licit when the three following conditions are jointly met: 1. when the action of the cooperating spouse is not already illicit in itself; 2. when proportionally grave reasons exist for cooperating in the sin of the other spouse; 3. when one is seeking to help the other spouse to desist from such conduct (patiently, with prayer, charity and dialogue; although not necessarily in that moment, nor on every single occasion). Furthermore, it is necessary to carefully evaluate the question of cooperation in evil when recourse is made to means which can have an abortifacient effect."

"The Roman Catholic Church allows certain “natural” birth control practices (rhythm method and coitus interruptus), but rejects as sinful the use of artificial contraceptives. This perspective did not develop in a vacuum, but has its origins in the theology of Augustine (354 – 403 A.D.) and Aquinas (1225 – 1274 A.D.). Even though neither theologian directly addressed the issue of birth control, both did much to influence the contemporary Catholic view of the meaning and purpose of sex within marriage."

"Put simply, “seeking venereal pleasure not in accordance with right reason [procreation]” is the essence of “the sin of lust.” Marital sex must be consistent “with the end of the venereal act” or one commits a “vice against nature, which attaches to every venereal act from which generation cannot follow.” If the sin of lust is present in marriage when the sex act is inconsistent with the goal of procreation, only sex performed with openness to the possibility of children is free of sin and divinely ordained."

"In the papal encyclical Casti Connubii (“On Christian Marriage”) by Pope Pius XI, birth control is described as a “criminal abuse” by those who “frustrate the marriage act” by committing “a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.” No excuse is valid including “difficulties… on the part of the mother or on the part of family circumstance.” Furthermore, “no reason, however grave, may be put forward” to justify the use of birth control. Those who feel overwhelmed by childrearing have no excuse and are guilty of sinful lust, “wish[ing] to gratify their desires without their consequent burden.”"

"Before the Reformation, the value of sexual intercourse was viewed almost exclusively through the lens of procreation. After the Reformation, the lens widened to embrace the unique joys and pleasures of the covenant companionship marriage provides. Thus, sex could be wholeheartedly enjoyed even if performed without the express intention of conceiving children. This view helped paved the way for acceptance of what are now known as “natural” birth control methods. Yet, neither the Catholics nor the Reformers could ever have fathomed the numerous other options that would arise in light of modern medical advances."

"Contemporary life has brought with it a new openness to birth control. Technological advances have produced newer, safer, and more reliable birth control options. As with all technological advances, this has been a mixed blessing. Obviously, the same birth control methods that can be used responsibly by married couples are also available to decrease the risk of pregnancy and disease for those who choose to live sexually immoral lives. At the same time, our “culture of death” seems fixated on undervaluing and cheapening human life through violence and abortion and human sexuality through the objectification of people into sex objects. This complex state of affairs is the backdrop for the current debate among Christians concerning “family planning” and the means of family planning—birth control methods."

"Natural family planning advocates argue that only “natural” birth control methods such as the rhythm method (avoiding intercourse when the chances of conception are high) and coitus interruptus (withdrawing the penis from the vagina prior to ejaculation) are acceptable to God. They contrast these methods to the “artificial” methods of contraceptives, such as condoms, foams, and the pill. The difference between these two positions rests on the distinction between “natural” and “artificial” forms of birth control—a distinction that is fuzzy, forced, and ultimately, unhelpful."

"All methods involve some unnatural element intruding into the course of marital union. What is natural about imprisoning “couples in a casuistry of methods, and forc[ing] them to discover tricks in order to dodge and escape the letter of the official doctrine”? Isn’t it obvious that the distinction between “natural” and “artificial” almost disappears, becoming very imprecise and blurred? “The act that becomes ‘safe’ by means of a computation of days or by mastery of the will is in every instance not natural, unless one plays with words.” Therefore, both practitioners of “natural family planning” and users of contraception are engaged in “planned procedures to avoid pregnancy that require communication between husband and wife.”"

"The Bible does not directly address the issue of birth control and family planning. Thus it is impossible to directly prove the propriety of responsible family planning by means of birth control from the Scriptures."

"Since the 1930s, the Catholic Church had been the leading-indeed the only-force working to preserve state laws against birth control in the face of a concerted campaign to repeal them. Two events that occurred in 1965-the conclusion of Vatican II and the Supreme Court's ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut- brought their efforts to an immediate halt. Catholics were astonished when, in 1959, [[Pope John XXIII] convened the Second Vatican Council, which no one had expected. Some were even more surprised by the dramatic changes the council wrought. In the political realm, that meant prodding Catholics to fight for social justice while prohibiting them from restricting the religious freedom of others. The Church, which had long sought to enforce personal morality through politics, now faced constraints. At the same time, Catholics who favored campaigns for social justice now had more than ever to engage in them. Campaigns for tougher obscenity laws, an area of traditional interest for the American Catholic Church, gave way to liberal priests' protests against the Vietnam War. Anti-vice campaigns were out civil rights were in."

"At the time, Protestants, like Catholics, opposed contraception, and they saw a connection between abortion and birth control. The anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock lumped birth control, sexual promiscuity, pornography, and abortion under the general category of obscenity, and the laws for which he campaigned in the 1870s attempted to limit all of these supposed vices by making it illegal to send advertisements for contraceptives or abortions through the mail. For fifty years, Comstock's prohibitions remained the law of the land. The first apparent challenge to this consensus came with the birth control campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s. The campaigns were not about abortion per se- they focused on contraception-but Catholics nevertheless viewed them as a dangerous assault on human life that would soon put the societal consensus against abortion in jeopardy. For decades, the two issues had been linked, in both Catholic teaching and public discussion. In addition to the national Comstock laws, there were state laws that restricted the sale or use of birth control devices. Neither Catholic nor Protestant churches approved of contraception; the Anglican Communion issued official condemnations of the practice in 1908 and 1920."

"In the early 1920s, Margaret Sanger and her American Birth Control League (which later became Planned Parenthood) challenged this taboo and quickly won widespread acceptance among middle-class Protestants for the use of contraceptive devices. The Anglican Communion reversed course in 1930 and declared that Christian married couples had a right to use artificial birth control, and other Protestant church bodies quickly followed suit. The Federal Council of Churches' on Marriage and the Home issued a report endorsing contraception in in 1931. By the late 1930, national committees of the American Episcopal, United Methodist, United Presbyterian, and Congregational Christian Churches had officially endorsed birth control. Several Jewish organizations, including the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the National Council of Jewish Women, did the same. Though many Protestant fundamentalists continued to oppose contraception for several decades, liberal Protestants and Jews embraces it as a progressive humanitarian measure. By 1946, 3,200 ministers were members of Planned Parenthood's Clergyman's Council."

"In 1947, 98 percent of American doctors approved of contraception for health reasons and 79 percent approved of it in cases when a family's economic situation required it. One Jesuit philosophy professor in Kansas lamented in the mid-1950s that it was almost impossible to find a non-Catholic doctor who would refuse to fit a patient with a birth control device in at least some circumstances. In less than a generation, a once-taboo (and often illegal) practice had become a positive good that was now used by most middle-class Protestant couples, prescribed by their doctor's and endorsed by their pastors. A few heavily Catholic states in the Northeast, including Massachusetts and [[Connecticut, continued to restrict the sale of birth control devices until the 1960s, but those states were in the minority. After the 1930s, the overwhelming body of Protestant opinion in the United States was in favor of birth control use, with 85 percent of Americans in 1943 believing that married women should have access to contraceptives, according to a Fortune magazine survey."

"With the exception of some Protestant fundamentalists, Catholics stood almost alone in their refusal to countenance artificial birth control and sterilization under any circumstances. While a sizeable minority of Catholics (a minority that included 30 percent of married, white Catholic women of childbearing age, according to a 1955 survey) quietly violated official Catholic teaching by using forbidden means of birth control and then abstaining from communion until they received absolution for their "sin" from a priest, the majority of Catholics continued to follow their church's teaching on this issue, and some launched public efforts to oppose the rapid liberalization of public attitudes toward contraception and sterilization. They believed that birth control was equally wrong for both Catholics and non-Catholics, because the use of contraception not only violated nearly two thousand years of Church teaching but was also an offense against natural law which should have been accessible to anyone-whether or not they were Catholic-by reason alone. In their view, abortion, contraception, and sterilization were violations of the same natural law principles, so they were dismayed when Protestants, who for the most part still opposed abortion, nevertheless rejected natural law arguments against contraception and sterilization, thus jettisoning the philosophical principles on which, for Catholics, opposition to abortion rested. Protestants saw the matter differently of course. Though nineteenth-century Protestants had often conflated contraception and abortion, Protestants of the mid-twentieth century separated the two issues, approving of one as a beneficial social good while condemning the other as the taking of a human life that should be performed only in extreme circumstances. But Catholics were convinced that a compromise on contraception would inevitably lead to an acceptance of abortion, and they became increasingly vocal in their defense of the natural law principles that condemned both practices. Indeed, in their successful campaign against a referendum to legalize birth control in Massachusetts in 1948, they claimed that birth control was "like abortion" and against "God's law.""

"Catholic theologians argued that contraception contravened natural law in several ways. First, it separated sex from its natural purpose of procreation. Second, by attempting to prevent the formation of new human life, it challenged God's authority as the Creator. Finally, it treated human life as something to be prevented rather than valued. Contraception introduced a "deadly...cheapening of human life," the Jesuit magazine America charged in 1924. Those who promoted contraception "would destory the [[law of God and the law of nature by interfering with human life at its inception. For they would teach the custodians of human life how to frustrate life before birth. In the views of Catholics, this was only a short step removed from abortion. "Does artificial prevention of life stand on any higher moral ground than the artificial taking of life?" Edward J. Heffron, executive secretary of the National Council of Catholic Men, asked in 1942."

"The birth control campaigns created a religious divide in American's approach to reproductive issues. After the 1930s, few Protestants outside of fundamentalist circles preached against birth control, and many clerics from more progressive denominations joined campaigns to promote its use. By rejecting Catholic natural law-based arguments against birth control, Protestants made it more difficult to use those arguments against abortion. By the time that abortion policy became a matter of political controversy, most Protestant denominations had no consistent theological position on the subject. Catholics, by contrast, became more vocal in their denunciations of both birth control and abortion after the 1920s. American Catholic priests were preaching against birth control long before Casti Connubii, but the encyclical encouraged their efforts and gave renewed vigor to their campaign. Warnings against the use of contraception appeared in Catholic diocesan papers and Sunday homilies, and premarital counseling sessions for Catholic couples invariably included instruction on the subject. The discussions of birth control in the mid-twentieth century laid the natural law groundwork for later arguments against abortion. Some priests even preached directly about abortion as early as the 1930s."

"The Church's intense focus on issues of reproduction at a time when the medical community was becoming increasingly open to the idea of birth control forces Catholic doctors to make the difficult choice between the teachings of their Church and the views of their profession. In reaction to this crisis, Brooklyn physician Richard Rendich began to organize guilds of Catholic physicians who chose to remain faithful to Church teachings while carrying out their professional duties. In 1931, he consolidated these local societies into a national organization called the National Federation for Catholic Physician's Guilds, whose chief purpose, according to the organization's Jesuit moderator Fr. Ignatius Cox, was to "form a powerful barrier of both science and Catholicism, against the loose morals and sex liberalism of the day." Nowhere were these "loose morals" more evident than in the areas of birth control, the Federation's leaders believed. The Federation's organizational meeting featured a keynote address against birth control, and the organization's official journal the Linacre Quarterly', devoted much of its space to contraception and sterilization, publishing detailed natural law arguments about why artificial birth control was not only "intrinsically evil" but also a violation of the Fifth Commandment's prohibition against the taking of human life. Conscientious catholic physicians were aghast that their Protestant colleagues-including, as the Jesuit medical ethicist Fr. Gerald Kelly lamented, "even very competent and conscientious doctors, whose general attitude toward the child-bearing function is both wholesome and reverent"-failed to view contraception as an assault on human life, and even gave contraceptive assistance to their patients who requested it."

"The Federation argued that American's willingness to use contraceptives signaled a dangerous disrespect for human life that could compromise the entire Western legal tradition of respect for human destiny. When the American Medical Association endorsed contraception in 1937, Fr. Ignatius Cox viewed the resolution as a setback for a much larger program of human rights. "This action is closely connected with a long denial of a truly living wage and of social justice in our present economic order," he declared. "Those who advocate contraception...have a philosophy which in its cynical disregard of the dignity of human life is equivalent to the philosophy which accounts for the massacred of history." If people began to view the formation of new human life an impediment to societal progress, economic prosperity, and social well-being-something that they should try to prevent if it inconvenience them in any way-then we should not be surprised, Catholics such as Fr. Cox thought, when they had little regard for the rights of workers, the poor, and other people whom they viewed as burdens on society."

"The debate over birth control in the 1930s was thus a conflict between two factions of political progressives who both saw their stance on reproductive issues as a logical extension of their support for social reform and a welfare state. On the one side was an eclectic coalition of Protestant, Jewish and secular progressives who believed that they could use state resources and the power of technology to improve society by reducing the number of unwanted children and hungry mouths to feed, especially impoverished households. Some of these progressives were New Deal administrators who saw the promotion of birth control as an extension of government efforts to reduce poverty and advance human happiness through social reform. On the other side were Catholics who were also avid supporters of the New Deal, but who believed that the attempt to improve society through the artificial limitation of human reproduction signaled a dangerous disregard for human life. Their commitment to poverty relief equaled or exceeded that of many of the birth control promoters and political liberals; indeed, the pope, the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and politically progressive clerics such as Fr. John Ryan had been calling for the recognition of worker's rights and a living wage for years before Franklin D. Roosevelt's election in 1932. They believed that they were advancing the principles of the New Deal by protecting human life. Ryan, for instance, who had been campaigning for a living wage for decades and who served on Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration Appeals Board, was also an outspoken leader in the campaign against contraception. Because the politics of reproduction had not yet become a partisan issue, Catholic opponents of contraception in the 1930s could happily join with birth control advocates in supporting the New Deal, unaware that their disagreement on the politics of reproduction would eventually split apart the liberal coalition."

"Ever more clearly there emerges the strict connection which, at the level of mentality, exists between the practice of contraception and that of abortion. This is demonstrated in an alarming way also by the development of chemical preparations, intrauterine devices and injections which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, in reality act as abortifacients in the initial stages of development of the new human being""

"…[F]rom the moral point of view contraception and abortion are specifically different evils the former Paul contradicts the full truth of the sexual act as the proper expression of conjugal love, while the latter destroys the life of a human being; the former is opposed to the virtue of chastity in marriage, the latter is opposed to the virtue of justice and directly violated the divine commandment ‘You shall not kill.’"

"The work of educating in the service of life involves the training of married couples in responsible procreation. In its true meaning, responsible procreation requires couples to be obedient to the Lord's call and to act as faithful interpreters of his plan. This happens when the family is generously open to new lives, and when couples maintain an attitude of openness and service to life, even if, for serious reasons and in respect for the moral law, they choose to avoid a new birth for the time being or indefinitely. The moral law obliges them in every case to control the impulse of instinct and passion, and to respect the biological laws inscribed in their person. It is precisely this respect which makes legitimate, at the service of responsible procreation, the use of natural methods of regulating fertility""

"By any measure the presence of sexual concerns in the penitentials is prominent. The variety of sexual behavior touched on in the more ample handbooks is striking, running the gamut from heterosexual delicts through homosexual infractions, bestiality to autoerotic acts. The number of canons dealing with sex as a percentage of the total is disproportionately large in comparison to those dealing with other types of offence. Finally, there is a clear continuity of such concern for sexual behavior during the centuries that the penitentials flourished. That much is undeniable. So penitentials would appear to be excellent sources for the study of sex in early medieval Europe. Indeed, they have been so recognized and used in accounts of contraception, the regulation of marital sexual relations, and the variety of sexual offences. These accounts are usually presented as pieces of serial history in which penitentials are listed in what is thought to be chronological order, accompanied by their sexual contents."

"Until the 1930s, the Catholic Church was not alone in its opposition to contraceptives. In the Christian tradition, birth control had long been associated with promiscuity and adultery, and resolutely condemned. However, after the Anglican Church passed a resolution in favor of birth control at its 1930 Lambeth Conference, other Protestant denominations began to relax their prohibitions as well. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church held fast to its opposition. The Vatican's stand against contraception was centuries old. For much of that time, however, birth control had remained a dormant issue. Since most birth control consisted of folk remedies and homemade cervical caps, there was little cause for the Church to respond. It was the mass production and availability of rubber condoms and diaphragms in the 1920s and 1930s, made possible by the 1839 invention of vulcanized rubber, which eventually forced the Church to take a public position on specific contraceptives. On New Year's Eve 1930, the Roman Catholic Church officially banned any "artificial" means of birth control. Condoms, diaphragms and cervical caps were defined as artificial, since they blocked the natural journey of sperm during intercourse. Douche, suppositories and spermicides all killed or impeded sperm, and were banned as well. According to Church doctrine, tampering with the "male seed" was tantamount to murder. A common admonition on the subject at the time was "so many conceptions prevented, so many homicides.""

"[N]o reason, however grave, may be put forward by anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose, sin against nature, and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. Small wonder, therefore, if Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime, and at times has punished it with death."

"Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its 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 a grave sin."

"Every attempt of either husband or wife in the performance of the conjugal act or in the development of its natural consequences which aims at depriving it of its inherent force and hinders the procreation of new life is immoral."

"Regular access to effective contraception, as in the developed world, is the best way to reduce unplanned pregnancies and the need for abortion. Unfortunately, current U.S. policies restrict family planning assistance to foreign non-governmental clinics and agencies that per-form or even discuss abortion or advocate liberalizing abortion laws. The result has been a loss of family planning services and less access to condoms in many developing countries — services that would help reduce the need for abortion."

"Family Planning is the mother of abortion. A generation had to be indoctrinated in the ideal of planning children around personal convenience before abortion could become popular."

"[T]he efforts now being made to secure for licensed physicians, hospitals and medical clinics, freedom to convey such infor-mation [on birth control] as is in accord with the highest principles of eugenics and a more wholesome family life wherein parenthood may be undertaken with due respect for the health of the mother and the welfare of the child."

"(The following statement was adopted by the Lutheran Churches of the Reformation) God is the Creator of all human life (Gen. 30:2; 1 Sam. 2:5f; 2 Kgs. 5:7; Acts 17:25,28) and desires to create spiritual life in all sinful human beings, that everyone come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved (1 Tim. 2:4). Married couples should reproduce in observance of the following Biblical principles: 1. The command of God to be "fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28; 9:1,17; 35:11; 1 Tim. 5:10,14; AC XXIII, #5 & 8, Triglot p. 612; AP XXIII, #7-8, Trigl. p. 365-73; LC 6th Comm., # 207, Trigl., p. 6394). 2. Children are a blessing from the Lord (Gen. 1:28; 15:2-5; 17:5f.; 24:60; 33:5; 48:9; 49:25; Lev. 26:9; Deut. 28:4; Josh. 24:3; Ruth 4:11f.; Psalm 107:38; 127:3-5; 128:3-6; 147:13; Prov. 5:18; 17:6; LC 4th Comm., # 105, Trigl. p. 6115). 3. It is God who opens or closes the womb (Gen 16:1-2; 17:15-19; 20:18; 21:1-2; 25:21; 29:31; 30:2-6, 23f; Deut. 32:18; Lev. 20:20f; Judg. 13:3; Ruth 4:13; 1 Sam. l:19f; 2:21; Job 10:8-12; Psalm 22:9-10; 113:9; 139:13-16; Eccles. 11:5; Isa. 8:18; 43:1,7; 44:2,24; 49:1,5; 66:9; Jer. 1:5; Lk. 1:36f, 57f; Heb. 11:11). 4. Having children is a good work for Christians (1 Tim. 2:15; AP XXIII, #32, Trigl. p. 3736). 5. Christians are to be mindful that they are not only to be fruitful and populate the earth, but they are to bring up their children as Christians and thus populate heaven (Prov. 3:21f.; 4:3f., 20-22; Mk. 10:13-16; Acts 2:38f.; Eph. 6:1,4; Heb. 2:10). 6. In Scripture barrenness is regarded as an affliction (Gen. 11:30; 15:2; 16:2; 18:11f.; 25:21; 30:1,22f.; 1 Sam. 1:2,5-7, l0f.; Prov. 30:15f; Luke 1:7,24f.,58). 7. There are many examples in Scripture of fruitful parents among the godly (Gen. 3:20; 4:1,25; 5:4; 24:60; 30:1-24; Judg. 13:2f; Job 1:2; 42:13-16). 8. The Word of God prohibits us to "put asunder" marriage (Matt. 19:4-6), including its purposes (1 Cor. 7:2,5; Gen. 2:24). 9. The Bible exhibits the wrath of God upon those who defy His will (Gen. 38:8-10; Exod. 21:22; Rom. 1:18). 10. God desires that we put our trust in Him in all matters, also in His will and ability to provide for the children that He gives us (Exod. 23:20,26; Psalm 30:7; 37:25f.; Phil 4:13; 1 Pet. 5:7). Pastors should counsel families both publicly and privately to observe these principles. The churches and ministers should not take it upon themselves to investigate the private practices of their members (Eighth Commandment). Refusal to reproduce should be treated first by patient instruction and counsel. Nevertheless, when a situation becomes a public scandal then evangelical discipline is in order (Matt. 18:17). While we allow for exegetical differences and exceptional cases (casuistry), we must also maintain and teach the principles relating to this issue (Matt. 28:20; Acts 20:27). Such was the united teaching of Dr. Martin Luther and the "Old Missouri" fathers (C.F.W. Walther, F. Pieper, A.L. Graebner, C.M. Zorn, W.H.T. Dau, J.T. Mueller, W. Dallman, F. Bente, E.W.A. Koehler, L. Fuerbringer, T. Engelder, Th. Laetsch, G. Luecke, W.A. Maier, M.J. Naumann, et al.) and LCR leaders such as P.E. Kretzmann and W.H. McLaughlin. The reasons given to justify the prevention of conception are often based upon myths, selfishness, materialism, hedonism (love of pleasure), convenience, usurpation of God's prerogative, or humanistic reasoning and generally indicate a distrust of the Almighty God and His Word."

"Across the country, a disturbing trend is emerging that, if unchecked, will deny women access to legal, doctor-prescribed birth control. Women are being confronted with “pro-life pharmacists” who say they will not dispense birth control and/or emergency contraception because it violates their religious beliefs. Some even refuse to transfer prescriptions to another pharmacy or ask a pharmacist in their own store to serve the customer. Several women have reported that the pharmacist would not return the written prescription, forcing them to return to their doctor for another prescription. The refusing pharmacists claim they are acting because of their convictions that birth control pills are tantamount to abortion, a notion that is disputed by every major w:Medical association medical association and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These unethical refusals jeopardize women’s health and safety by placing them at risk for unintended pregnancy."

"Father Francis J. Connell, who wrote "Birth Control: The Case for the Catholic," doesn't neces-sarily discount the public health argument. Rather, he basically ignores it, appealing only to religious reasoning. He begins his argument with a disclosure: "The discussion of this subject as I intend to present it will be fully appreciated only by those who admit that there is a Supreme Being, whom men are obliged to serve and to obey." His argument: Each organ has its proper purpose, each faculty its proper function... A human being can direct his faculties of soul and of body to the purposes intended by the Creator, or he can distort them to other ends. And on the way he chooses to employ them depends the morality of his actions... When husband and wife perform their marital functions in the natural manner, they are concurring in the designs of God toward the preservation and the propagation of the human race...To them parenthood means, not merely the procreation of another member of society, but primarily coöperation with the Almighty in the creation of an immortal soul that is destined to be happy with God forever. Father Connell's argument suffers from racial bias as well. He claims that "birth control as it is now practised in the United States is bound to bring about a notable decline in our white population in the near future." He then goes on to cite "a prominent member of the American Eugenics Society." As for a solution to unrestrained childbirth, Connell believes couples can, through the church, learn restraint if they cannot afford a child. But as Wharton points out, that restraint may not be realistic. As he cites one woman as saying, "'I'm for any way that will keep me from having another child,' the mother pleaded. 'Any way so long as I can keep from losing that man I got.'" This is the dichotomy that split us in the 1930s. And they are essentially the same issues that divide us now, despite legal and cultural acceptance of birth control. In the eyes of many religious Americans, contraception still appears to promote sin and interfere with the divine plan. To those who want contraception to be widely available, the religious opposition seems entirely irrelevant, especially in light of practical concerns about disease and poverty. The two positions remain entirely irreconcilable. Hence, 73 years later, we're still having this conversation."

"Most of clergymen condemn birth control None of them condemns the brutality of a husband who causes his wife to die of too frequent pregnancies. I knew a fashionable clergyman whose wife had nine children in nine years. The doctors told him that if she had another she would die. Next year she had another and died. No one condemned; he retained his benefice and married again."

"Historically, Christians always have condemned contraceptive sex. The two forms mentioned in the Bible, <coitus interruptus> and sterilization, are condemned without exception (Gen. 38:9-10, Deut. 23:1). The Fathers of the Church recognized that in natural law the purpose of sexual intercourse is procreation; contraceptive sex, which deliberately blocks that natural purpose, is therefore a violation of natural law. Every church in Christendom condemned contraception until 1930, when, at its decennial Lambeth Conference, Anglicanism gave permission for the use of contraception in a few extraordinary cases. Soon all Protestant denominations had adopted the secularist position on contraception. Today no one stands with the Catholic Church to maintain the ancient Christian faith on this issue. How badly things have decayed may be seen by comparing the current state of non-Catholic churches, where most pastors counsel young couples to decide before they are married what form of contraception they use, with these quotations from the Fathers, who condemned contraception in general as well as in particular forms of it (sterilization, oral contraceptives, <coitus interruptus>, and orally-consummated sex). Many Protestants, perhaps beginning to see the inevitable connection between contraception and divorce and between contraception and abortion, are now returning to the historic Christian position and are rejecting contraceptive sexual practices."

"Among the problems which need a religious and moral assessment is that of contracep-tion. Some contraceptives have an abortive effect, interrupting artificially the life of the embryo on the very first stages of his life. Therefore, the same judgments are applicable to the use of them as to abortion. But other means, which do not involve interrupting an already conceived life, cannot be equated with abortion in the least. In defining their attitude to the non-abortive contraceptives, Christian spouses should remember that human reproduction is one of the principal purposes of the divinely established marital union (see, X. 4). The deliberate refusal of childbirth on egoistic grounds devalues marriage and is a definite sin. At the same time, spouses are responsible before God for the comprehensive upbringing of their children. One of the ways to be responsible for their birth is to restrain themselves from sexual relations for a time. However, Christian spouses should remember the words of St. Paul addressed to them: «Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency» (1 Cor. 7:5). Clearly, spouses should make such decisions mutually on the counsel of their spiritual father. The latter should take into account, with pastoral prudence, the concrete living conditions of the couple, their age, health, degree of spiritual maturity and many other circumstances. In doing so, he should distinguish those who can hold the high demands of continence from those to whom it is not given (Mt. 19:11), taking care above all of the preservation and consolidation of the family. The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in its Decision of December 28, 1998, instructed the clergy serving as spiritual guides that «it is inadmissible to coerce or induce the flock to… refuse conjugal relations in marriage». It also reminded the pastors of the need «to show special chastity and special pastoral prudence in discussing with the flock the questions involved in particular aspects of their family life»."

"The contention that it is sin to have dominion over nature is simple nonsense. The Pope frustrates nature by getting shaved and having his hair cut, as well as by practicing continence. Whenever we catch a fish or shoot a wolf or a lamb, whenever we pull a weed or prune a tree, we frustrate nature. Disease germs are perfectly natural little fellows which must be frustrated before we can get well. Nature frustrates her own processes by the most astounding wastage, as we have already seen in the case of the sperms and ova, which she produces for the man and the woman by the million only to let them perish. When the Pope speaks about nature he seems to forget that the human mind is also part of nature. The thoughts we think and the emotions we feel are the work of nature. He does not seem to realize that the enjoyment in sexual intercourse is largely psychical. It is a mental and spiritual as well as a physical enjoyment. The stronger the love and the finer the characters of the married pair, the greater is this psychical enjoyment during intercourse. To impose continence is to prevent the finest union of love, to frustrate mental and spiritual nature in its urge toward perfection. Contraception in no way interferes with the oneness which is most necessary--even though the Pope calls it a secondary end--to the preservation of married happiness."

"Assuming that God does not want an increasing number of worshipers of the Catholic faith, does he also want an increasing number of feeble-minded, insane, criminal, and diseased worshipers? That is unavoidable if the Pope is obeyed, because, as we shall see, he forbids every single method of birth control except continence, a method which the feeble-minded, insane, and criminal will not use."

"It is also important to note that natural birth control methods which the Catholic Church promotes, and which seem to be the root of this ridiculous claim, were not developed for the Roman Catholic Church but for use in Third World countries. The reason is simple: A condom costs the equivalent of a day's pay for the average Indian rural workman and two days' pay for a working woman. Interestingly, a study of 19,843 Indian women in the British Medical Journal in September 1993 showed conclusively that for these women in their culture and circumstances, natural birth control methods are more effective than are artificial methods in the west."

"Of course, Obama has also said he wants to find middle ground on abortion-related issues. So far, two Protestant groups, one liberal and the other evangelical, agreed to work to reduce the number of abortions through policies such as comprehensive sex education that includes abstinence and improved access to contraception. The two groups, Third Way and Faith in Public Life, met last week in Washington to propose shared policy solutions. Access to contraception is a sticking issue for the Catholic Church, which opposes the practice. Catholics would welcome measures that encourage adoption, Burbidge said."

"The Church teaches that acts of contraception are always against the plan of God for human sexuality, since God intended that each and every act of spousal intercourse express both the intention to make a complete, unitive gift of one’s self to one’s spouse and the willingness to be a parent with one’s spouse. These meanings of the spousal act are, as Humanae Vitae stated, inseparable."

"It appears to be true that a significant strand of thought in the early Christian Church did not primarily address abortion in terms of the language of personhood, and the killing of persons. Indeed, in the early Church, there is sometimes no sharp distinction between contraception and sterilization, on the one hand, and abortion on the other. This was neither because the Church wished to downgrade the evil of abortion, nor necessarily to elide the distinction between contraception and murder in the sense in which the fifth commandment prohibits it. Rather, both contraception and early abortion were looked upon as grave contra-life sins. Practically speaking, however, there could have been little profit, as the work of Aristotle and Aquinas inadvertently reveals, in speculation about the nature of the early embryo or even fetus, given the paltry biology at hand."

"A time will come when humankind will be ashamed of how it introduced a false lifestyle, just as today we are ashamed of apartheid, of racial discrimination and of other forms of discrimination. In future times we will be ashamed of something we managed to defend as if it were a truth, a political truth, a truth imposed in Parliament regarding the family, regarding human life, sex, where everything is permitted, where everything is possible."

"[A]rtificial contraception appears to alter the language of the body."

"We affirm the principle of responsible parenthood. The family, in its varying forms, consti-tutes the primary focus of love, acceptance, and nurture, bringing fulfillment to parents and child. Healthful and whole personhood develops as one is loved, responds to love, and in that relationship comes to wholeness as a child of God. Each couple has the right and the duty prayerfully and responsibly to control conception according to their circumstances. They are, in our view, free to use those means of birth control considered medically safe. As developing technologies have moved conception and reproduction more and more out of the category of a chance happening and more closely to the realm of responsible choice, the decision whether or not to give birth to children must include acceptance of the responsibility to provide for their mental, physical, and spiritual growth, as well as consideration of the possible effect on quality of life for family and society."

"[T]here is a difference between birth control and contraception. "Birth control" can be applied to several different practices. It can indicate anything from the observance of continence, to conjugal acts during a woman's infertile period, to the use of contraceptive devices such as condoms or the pill. In certain circumstances the Church permits the regulation of births, yet in every circumstance the Church forbids contraception."

"It is true that we should depend on God's providence; it is also true that married couples are called to be generous in raising their children without arbitrarily limit-ing their family size to one or two children because of a desire to maintain a certain ‘standard of living.' Yet, the Church teaches that the gift of self in conjugal union is a human act, which means that it involves the use of our reason. Paul VI teaches that "the Church is the first to praise and recommend the intervention of intelligence in a function which so closely associates the rational creature with His Creator; but she affirms that this must be done with respect for the order established by God."

"If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms im-manent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate birth without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier."

"Artificial methods of birth control are forbidden in the Orthodox Church."

"The use of contraceptives and other devices for birth control is on the whole strongly discour-aged in the Orthodox Church. Some bishops and theologians altogether condemn the employment of such methods. Others, however, have recently begun to adopt a less strict position, and urge that the question is best left to the discretion of each individual couple, in consultation with the spiritual father."