“Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the
handmaid of the Lord. May it be
done to me according to your
word.’”
Mary’s
response to God’s
will, as revealed to
her by the Angel
Gabriel, boils down
to this, “Thy will be
done!” It is the most beautiful response a
person can make to God’s will. It is the
response Mary taught her son Jesus to
make. It is the response Jesus taught us to
make in the Our Father. It is the response
Jesus Himself made during His agony in the
garden, “Not my will, but thy will be done.”
The response of Jesus and Mary to God’s
will invites me to evaluate my own
response to the divine will. How readily do I
embrace God’s will? When I pray, do I seek
to know the will of God or do I demand that
He approve of my will?
Difficult moral issues, “Why is
the Catholic Church opposed to
artificial means of
contraception?”
A family friend, who is Lutheran,
recently welcomed her sixth child into the
world. She is amused by the fact that
whenever people see her in public with all
of her children, the first question she is
asked is, “Are you Catholic?” On a positive
note, people are acknowledging that the
Catholic Church is pro-life and pro-family
and considers children to be a great
blessing from God. But, sadly, on a negative
note, big families are an anomaly in a
contraceptive society and what people
really mean by “Are you Catholic?” is,
“Don’t you know about birth control?” It
seems that the Catholic Church is a lone
voice preaching against the moral evils of
artificial means of contraception. Why can’t
the Church just get with the times? Simply
put . . . the Church can’t. She would be
violating Tradition (the continuity of Church
teaching), the divine law, and the nature of
marriage and family life. Artificial means of
contraception are evil and the Church must
be true to her mission to combat evil.
Many people
assume that with Blessed
Pope Paul VI’s papal
encyclical of Humane
Vitae (Concerning Human
Life) promulgated in
1968, the Church took a
stand against the growing usage of artificial
means of contraception and a new moral
teaching had been formulated. Actually,
Blessed Pope Paul VI was affirming the
Church’s teachings concerning
contraception; he was a servant of the
deposit of the Faith. Since the apostolic era,
the Church has consistently taught the evils
of artificial means of contraception. Saint
Augustine, a great doctor (teacher) of the
Faith taught that birth control violated the
goods of marriage, for it contributed to
infidelity, it diminished sacramental graces,
and it portrayed children as a curse instead
of a blessing. Saint Thomas Aquinas, in his
great theological treatise, the Summa
Theologica, echoed the same concerns of
Saint Augustine. In the modern era, Pope
Pius XI in his encyclical, Casti Connubbii (Of
Chaste Wedlock---1930) decried the evils of
artificial means of contraception, for it
violated the unitive and procreative aspects
of marriage, meaning it served as a barrier
to total self-giving love in marriage, with
children being the fruit of this love. His
successor, Pope Pius XII, affirmed the
teachings of Casti Connubbii and added that
there are times when the births of children
can be spaced in marriage if the reasons are
legitimate. Yet, the body’s natural rhythms
must be respected and utilized in the
spacing of children. These rhythms were
not always accurate or reliable, but God in
His loving providence allowed for the
discovery of Natural Family Planning (NFP)
in the 1950’s by Dr. John Billings of
Australia. He discovered the relationship
between the changing consistencies of
cervical mucus and fertility, thus allowing
married couples to space children naturally
and with greater accuracy. With NFP, the
Church has continued to oppose artificial
means of contraception, while offering a
moral, healthy, and natural alternative. The
Church has
remained
faithful to her
teachings
concerning
contraception
and she wasn’t
always the “lone voice”. The Protestant
reformers, namely Martin Luther, John
Calvin, and John Wesley also wrote about
the evils of contraception. In fact, all
Protestant denominations echoed the
teachings of the Catholic Church until 1930,
when the Anglican Church at the Lambeth
Conference allowed married couples to
utilize artificial means of contraception
within marriage. Since then, virtually every
Protestant denomination has followed suit.
Only the Catholic Church has remained firm
in her teachings on this subject, for she is
committed to the Truth. But, more
importantly, the Church is committed to
Charity, and she knows the great harm
contraception can inflict upon God’s
people.
First, artificial
means of contraception
allows a “using”
mentality to form
within marriage. The
complementarity of the
bodies of husband and
wife makes evident the
natural end of sexual intimacy . . . the
procreation of children (the procreative
act). Children are a gift from God in
marriage and family life and they are a
great gift to the Church and society as well.
They are a vote from God that the human
race should continue! This affirmed, when
married couples enter into the beautiful
intimacy of the sexual act, sexual pleasure is
a secondary blessing from God. This union
of husband and wife (the unitive act) builds
intimacy, respect, and love between
husband and wife. If the procreative and
the unitive acts are separated, the
openness to the beauty of human life is
rejected and a pleasure only mentality
quickly turns into a using mentality. We see
this in the language about sex, such as “I’m
getting it”, which turns sex into a
commodity and the other into an object.
Artificial means of contraception were
supposed to “liberate” women from the
burden of children, but a type of
enslavement has entered in, where women
lose their respect and are merely
instruments for their husbands’ selfish
enjoyment.
Second, artificial means of
contraception have led to the lowering of
morality. One way this has become evident
is in the upsurge of marital infidelity. Before
artificial means of contraception, sexual
relations outside of marriage had the threat
of pregnancy and a child out of wedlock
was a social stigma. But, this threat was
removed with the advent of contraception,
thus allowing husbands and wives to stray
from their marriages in extra-marital affairs.
In turn, this led to the weakening of the
stability of marriage and the dramatic
increase in the divorce rate. Moral
standards also declined among the youth,
for contraception allowed them to engage
in pre-marital sex without the effect of
children as well. Sadly, to ensure that teen
pregnancy was avoided, schools, parents,
and clinics freely dispensed contraceptives
to young people, but with devastating
effects. The rates of sexually transmitted
diseases rose dramatically among youth;
suicide rates rose as well; and surveys of
sexually active youth reported that the
majority of them regretted their decision
not to wait until marriage for sexual
intimacy. The usage of artificial means of
contraception by young people has scarred
many of them, who came to realize that sex
is more than a mere physical act. Adults lied
to them; they now know that something
beautiful was taken from them.
Third, artificial means of
contraception have had devastating effects
upon women. With the advent of
contraceptives, women have been the
victims of their tragic side effects. The
Dalkon Shield IUD of the 1970’s inflicted
many sufferings upon hundreds of
thousands of women: infertility, pelvic
inflammatory disease, spontaneous
abortion, ectopic pregnancy, and even
death. Study after study also shows a link
between the use of the pill and breast
cancer. Women’s bodies were simply not
created for the infusion of greater estrogen
and progestin levels. Abortion has been a
tragic result of the contraceptive mentality
as well, for it is the ultimate “back-up
contraception” when the other forms have
failed. Millions of women grieve the deaths
of their children by abortion, a grief
compounded by the fact that they were
victims of the contraception/abortion
industry (such as Planned Parenthood),
which makes great profit in peddling
contraceptives and abortion. To them,
women are reduced to mere profits.
Indeed, if there was ever a “war on women”
it was initiated by the contraceptive and
abortion industry.
With this litany of afflictions due to
artificial means of contraception, it is a
blessing to be a member of the Catholic
Church, which upholds the Truth, rooted in
Charity. Her teachings respect the
intelligent design of the human body and
sexual relations; they allow for mutual
cooperation in marriage for the conception
and spacing of children; they allow for
healthy and holy alternatives to the norms
of contraception; they deepen the
understanding of self-giving and intimacy in
marriage; and they respect the dignity of
women. The Church may be a lone voice on
this issue, but more and more people are
listening to her wisdom, for having
experienced the lies of the contraception
industry and its devastating effects, they
want to follow a different path . . . a path
that leads to the upholding of their inherent
dignity, rather than its ruin.
A Merry Christmas to one and all
Saint of the Week
Saint Peter Canisius (1521-1597)
Priest and Doctor of the Church
Feast day: December 21st
Saint Peter Canisius was born in
Nijmegan, Holland, in 1521. While studying
theology at Cologne, Germany, he
encountered the new religious order of the
Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. He was
ordained a Jesuit priest in 1546 and was
sent to Germany to bring Protestants back
to the Church . . . the Counterreformation.
He fulfilled this task through writing,
preaching, and formulating a Catechism of
the Catholic Faith. Many German Lutherans
came back to the Catholic Church because
of Saint Peter Canisius, thus earning him the
title The Second Apostle to the Germans
(Saint Boniface being the First Apostle to
the Germans). He died at Fribourg,
Switzerland on December 21st, 1597.
This week, we celebrate the birth of our
Savior, Jesus Christ. In the west, all of
human history is marked by that holy birth:
BC (before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, the
In the year of our Lord). The world and all of
humanity have been forever changed by
Christ’s coming in time and my life has also
been transformed, because the Lord of
heaven and earth came to earth in that
lowly manger with me in mind as well. That
same Lord grew up and continued to think
of me as He died on His holy Cross on
Mount Calvary. So dear am I to Him, that He
has gone before me and has prepared a
place for me in His Kingdom; He will return
for me, as He promised. All I must do is
imitate Him, He who came to earth as a
little child. In His words, “Unless you
become like children, you cannot enter the
Kingdom of God.” Christmas and the
humble origins of the Christ child remind
me to daily humble myself in His presence,
so that He may lift me up and hold me close
to His loving heart. In sum, the Lord of life
came down to earth to lift me up to the
glory of heaven. Indeed, we have need to
proclaim, “Come let us adore Him!”
God bless you and your families this
Christmas and throughout the Christmas
season as well. Be assured of my prayers for
you, especially before the Crèche in our
parish churches. For those who have lost a
loved one in the past year, know that you
have a special place in my prayers. May the
Lord be your comfort and your peace, as
you spend that first Christmas without the
one you loved so dearly. Know that when
sorrow brings you down, you will be
uplifted in prayer. A blessed Christmas to all
of our parishioners; may the Christ child
bless you with His great love.
Come to the Sacrament of divine mercy
The best story ever told
A reminder that we are in need of
children to be part of our parish Christmas
pageants: December 27th at Queen of the
Most Holy Rosary (after the 5:00 p.m. Mass)
and January 4th at Saint Ann’s after the
11:00 Mass. Sign-up sheets are in the back
of each church. And no, we will not allow
the kids to choose a role for their siblings;
we had way too many nominations last year
for the role of the donkey.
This Sunday evening, December 21st,
at 7:00 p.m. at Queen of the Most Holy
Rosary, we will have our parishes’
Advent Penance service. I and Fr.
On the Lighter Side
Benny Putharayil of Saint Thomas
Good King Wenceslaus called Domino’s Pizza and the
Parish of Tioga will be hearing
salesgirl asked, “Do you want the usual . . . deep pan,
confessions, serving as instruments of
crisp, and even?”
the Lord’s mercy. We will begin with a
brief penance service, followed by
individual confession. You are free to
A Point to Ponder
depart after your confession. Thank
He who has no Christmas in his heart will never find
you for taking part in this sacrament,
it under a tree.
the best spiritual preparation for the
celebration of Christmas.