Monthly Archives: February 2016

What the Church Teaches About Contraception

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One of the most controversial Church teachings, at least according to the secular press, concerns the immorality of artificial contraception.  This is not a new or novel teaching of the Catholic Church.  Until around 1930, every Christian denomination had always taught the truth that artificial contraception is intrinsically immoral.  Since then, almost every protestant denomination has caved in to the pressure of its sinful members and changed the teaching on this subject.  The Bible predicted that something like this would happen:

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.

(2 Timothy 4:3)

The Catholic Church has not given in to the urging of its sinful members in this area and continues to teach the truth as handed down by God.  The Catholic Church has had great teachers like Blessed Pope Paul VI and Pope Saint John Paul II to guide Jesus’ flock in the truth.  This was also promised by the Bible:

And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.

(Jeremiah 3:15)

While some who want the Church to “stay out of their bedrooms” have sought teachers (little “t”) to suit their own likings and give them license to ignore this sound teaching, the Church, like Jesus, has stood firm in the Truth.  Further, this is certainly an area where the Church has great need to exercise its authority as Teacher (capital “T”).

In the field of conjugal morality the Church is Teacher and Mother and acts as such.

(Familiaris Consortio 33)

And the Church has repeatedly affirmed its definitive teaching in this area:

[T]here must be excluded as intrinsically immoral “every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible.”

(Familiaris Consortio 32, quoting from Humanae Vitae 14)

I plan to continue on this topic in future posts, focusing on one of the most beautiful and prophetic encyclicals ever written, Humanae Vitae.

Life

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There is no doubt that life begins at conception.  Anyone who claims to be a Christian but denies this truth is clearly ignorant of the Bible and the teaching of the Church.  God said in Jeremiah:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.

(Jeremiah 1:5).  If God knew you even before you were formed in the womb, that shows that a child in the womb is a child of God.  Further, it is a scientific fact that an embryo is a new, distinct life from its mother and its father from the moment of conception.

It’s one thing for liberal politicians to deny this truth.  It’s another for Christians to do so.  If you don’t believe and proclaim what God teaches in the Bible and through His Church, don’t claim to be a Christian.

It is imperative for Christians to believe, teach, and proclaim the truth about life.  Without the right to life, no other rights have any meaning.

The Remnant

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Faithful Catholics are the remnant of Jesus’ Church.  We are what St. Paul refers to in Romans 11:2-5:

Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have demolished thy alters, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.

It is not enough to say we are Catholics or Christians or “spiritual.”  It is our duty to carry forward the full Truth of Jesus Christ.  That means that we must learn the faith through studying, reading, learning, and teaching all that the Catholic Church declares to be part of the Deposit of Faith.  It is not enough to rely on what we may have learned as children in CCD (or “religious education” or in Catholic schools) or RCIA.  We need to pursue a lifelong journey to know the faith.  We must not be and not remain silent in the face of people who “used to be Catholic” or were “raised Catholic.”  We must proclaim the full teaching of Jesus and His Church – the hard teachings that require people to change their lives as much as any other teachings.