The Papists

Anon,

Forgive me for assuming, but it seems like you might not have a real grasp of why the Church teaches against IVF methods. BadCatholic offers a nicer explanation than I could ever give, so I suggest you take a look at what he has to say. I just got a feeling that you saying “If it wasn’t against Catholic teaching…” might mean that you don’t know why the Church teaches against IVF. And that’s okay, of course. I myself have a long way to go when it comes to Church teaching.

Now, onto your question. In terms of concrete acts, I would highly recommend your friend to chart her cycles/start looking at NFP methods. Natural fertility methods are surprisingly good at helping women conceive children. Q or anyone else who’s familiar with NFP, would you want to offer a comment?

Finally, good on you for praying for her, Anon. Pray that whatever the circumstance, you and your friend will give glory to God. 

Your friend,

Olivier

He didn’t “allow” anything. There’s some commentary about it here.

Check out this post for the details. In short, those with health conditions are not held to the same fasting and abstinence standards as others. Giving up something else in place of what your health will not let you give up is a fantastic idea and strongly encouraged. For example, I’ve read from lots of “mommy bloggers” that when they’re pregnant during Lent and they’re not held to the fasting and abstinence laws that they try to find something that will not affect their pregnancy to substitute, in order to participate fully in Lent. 

The Church only requires us to do what we can based on our abilities and circumstances. The fasting and abstinence laws absolutely take that into account.

I also recommend talking to your parish priest, confessor, and/or spiritual director about this issue.

- Q

You are correct: it means that U.S. Catholics are not required to abstain from meat on Fridays outside of Lent.

This American rule is an exception to the law and life of the Church, not the norm.

The U.S. Bishops sought a special indult from Rome to allow Catholics to substitute “other penances” on Friday besides abstaining from meat, but even that “encouragement” does not bind us on pain of sin (so if you’ve never made Friday a day of penance, you haven’t sinned.)

However, the U.S. Bishops have also recently begun encouraging Catholics to return to the practice of Friday penance. They have also called for, during the Year of Faith, Catholics to dedicate year-round Friday penance and prayer for the protection of the family, religious liberty, and the unborn. 

Of course, now that we’re entering Lent, all Fridays are days of abstinence from meat. (There are no Friday Solemnities in 2013, so no exceptions this year.) The two required days of fasting (eating less than one full meal per day) are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Details on the Lenten fasts and abstinences here and here. Further resources here.

- Q

Spiritual attack is real, and often affects converts to the faith. →

Convert or not, if you have ever experienced doubts about the True Faith, you might find this article worth reading.

See also: spiritual dryness.

Yes.

It’s funny you should mention that, since it was secular policies (rehabilitation of abusers) that caused most of the problems (recidivism) in the first place. [x]

In fact:

The Catholic Church’s record of aggressive and proactive protective measures is unparalleled in any organization today. Since the beginning of the abuse crisis, the Catholic Church:

• has instituted a “zero tolerance” policy in which any credibly accused priest is immediately removed from ministry. Law enforcement is also notified;
• has trained over 5 million children in giving them skills to protect them from abuse;
• has trained over 2 million adults, including 99 percent of all priests, in recognizing signs of abuse;
• has conducted over 2 million background checks, including those in the intensified screening process for aspiring seminarians and priests;
• has installed “Victim Assistance Coordinators” in every diocese, “assuring victims that they will be heard”;
• has conducted annual audits of all dioceses to monitor compliance with the groundbreaking 2002 Charter for Protection of Children and Young People;
• has instituted in all dioceses abuse review boards – often composed of child welfare experts, child psychologists, and abuse experts – to examine claims of abuse against priests.

No other organization even comes close to implementing the measures the Catholic Church has taken to protect children in its care. In this regard, the Catholic Church in the 21st century is the model for other institutions to follow in the safeguarding of youth.

If only public schools could say the same.

Also: Olivier took time to quote Michael Coren’s Why Catholics Are Right:

The reaction of bishops and the Church hierarchy and establishment when abuse was alleged or proven varied, but when we look back at it all, we can say with some confidence that is was seldom successful and sometimes downright wrong. There were some men, albeit a small minority, in positions of authority in the Church who were themselves abusers or sexual allies of the abusers and allowed the crimes to continue. Other were simply incompetent or unqualified and tried to do their best in a situation they had not encountered before and found utterly shocking. 

Most bishops demanded the abuse stop immediately, insisted that the abuser undergo prolonged counselling, and moved the offender elsewhere in an attempt to break the abuse cycle and allow the victim to move on. Looking back on this approach, we cringe or shake our heads in disbelief. It seems so archaic, so naive, and so certain to fail and allow the abuser to continue his crimes. Yet this was typical of the era and was the standard given by experts not only to churches but to school boards, sports teams, and any other institution where such abuse occurred. 

It’s anachronistic and unfair to expect a modern, sophisticated approach to abuse cases from the Catholic Church of the 1970s when the sexual therapists and psychiatrists who were advising Church leaders where also advising similar policies to secular bodies where abuse rates were the same or higher and where teachers, coaches, and the like were also reprimanded, given counselling, and reassigned. 

It may fulfill an agenda to paint the Church as being appallingly behind the times and callow in the area sexuality, but it doesn’t help us to get any closer to the truth.

Not at all!

While we should make a sincere effort to remember everything, absolution is not invalid because we legitimately forgot something. (As the last confession post shows, there’s a difference between genuinely forgetting, and deliberately concealing.)

However, it is our duty to remember it for next time, and confess it then. (Some priests will tell you that’s unnecessary, but that is inconsistent with the teaching of the Church. If we are conscious of a sin we have never confessed, it is our duty to confess it.)

2. If I disagree with the Church on something because my conscience feels that the Church is wrong, am I not truly Catholic because I don’t agree with Everything the Catholic Church believes? I agree with the Church on a lot of other things and feel like it’s where I belong but some things me and the Church don’t see eye-to-eye on. Does not being a “straight-ticket” Catholic make me a bad person?

Great question. Huge issue. Let me try to take this one part at a time, and please bear in mind that this response is only intended to clarify what the Church teaches about conscience, not make personal judgments. Those are for God alone, and God forbid that any of us should ever forget, “as you judge, so you shall be judged.”

First, let’s clear up what the conscience actually is: 

“Moral conscience is a judgment of practical reason about the moral quality of a human action.” (Catechism glossary).

The Church teaches that conscience must be properly formed. Therefore it is not the same as personal opinion or “feeling.” Each person has a moral obligation to form their conscience properly—that is, in the truth of Christ (parents have the obligation to form the consciences of their children.)

This is also from the Catechism:

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.”⁵⁹In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

1792Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time “from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith.”⁶

In other words, a correct conscience, a properly formed conscience, agrees with Christ, whose truth and precepts are preserved in and taught by the Church. 

Second: So, let’s be clear about what Church teaching actually is. The Church teaches that she speaks the Truth of Christ, and that Christ speaks through her. Therefore, to disagree with what “the Church” teaches is to disagree with what Christ teaches. 

Everybody, no matter how devout, goes through times (maybe many, many times) in their life where they question, doubt, and struggle with that teaching. That is normal and a sign of a healthy, growing faith (even when it doesn’t feel like it.)

But what about someone who has questioned and doubted and come out on the other side, with full knowledge and deliberateness, that the Church is wrong? Can someone disagree with what Christ teaches and still be fully Christian? 

There’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot: whether someone is a “real Catholic.” I hate that phrase. It’s vague and misleading and emotionally charged. The real question is one of communion—appropriate, since the Eucharist is the center, source, and summit of Christian life. So what does it take to be in full communion with Christ, with the Church?

What the Church herself teaches is that to be fully in communion with the Body of Christ—with the Church, with Christ Himself, and literally, in the Eucharist—an individual must accept the whole Christ. All of Him. No “some of this, but none of that.” And that means all of His truth, both in matters of revelation and in morality. For a priest’s explanation of this, please click here. See also this, this, and this. 

And let me emphasize: God alone judges whether someone is a “bad person.” That’s between every individual soul and Christ. All we mere mortals can do is say, this is what the Church teaches, and here’s why; now, how do we accept it and live it out? And it is hard, sometimes. So hard. But that’s the struggle of being Christian. Some who appear to be in full communion may well not be, and some who appear not to be may be after all. We can and must judge the morality of actions, but we must not judge the state of another person’s soul.

In the same vein: as for whether certain thoughts or promptings are from God or the devil, I sincerely recommend you seek out a trusted priest to ask that question to.  

Finally, as for that quotation attributed to John Paul: it sounds fraudulent to me, at least as presented. It basically says, “my sense of right and wrong is superior to the Church’s,” and to say that is to deny the authority of Christ and his Vicar. Our “conscience,” used here as “our sense of right and wrong,” is influenced by lots of things, and God’s voice is frequently drowned out by a hundred other competing interests. In times like that, in those questions, who should we be more tempted to trust—ourselves, and our own limited understanding? Or the Church, in her millennia of wisdom, with her Magisterium guided infallibly by the Holy Spirit? The promise of doctrinal infallibility is granted only to the Church, not to individuals.

However, there is one sense in which that quotation may be taken as accurate: if someone comes inescapably to the conclusion that they cannot believe what the Catholic Church teaches, it is intellectually honest to say, then I can no longer consider myself a Catholic. That is what is meant by the Catechism saying “to act against oneself is to condemn oneself.” Ultimately, yes, we must do what we think is right. But if we are sincere Catholics, can we ever truly say that we have, absolutely and finally without possibility of of doubt, found a truth or a morality outside of Christ and the Church He established, which “the gates of hell shall not prevail against”? 

I have to emphasize that because, as a “cafeteria Catholic” or “fallen away Catholic” or whatever you want to call what I was at one point in my life, that’s the question that smacked me upside the head and got me to really pay attention—answering it is what brought me back to the True Faith.

I want to close with the words of another pope:

“Wherefore, let the faithful also be on their guard against the overrated independence of private judgment and that false autonomy of human reason. For it is quite foreign to everyone bearing the name of a Christian to trust his own mental powers with such pride as to agree only with those things which he can examine from their inner nature, and to imagine that the Church, sent by God to teach and guide all nations, is not conversant with present affairs and circumstances; or even that they must obey only in those matters which she has decreed by solemn definition as though her other decisions might be presumed to be false or putting forward insufficient motive for truth and honesty. Quite to the contrary, a characteristic of all true followers of Christ, lettered or unlettered, is to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff, who is himself guided by Jesus Christ Our Lord.”

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, 104

I hope this helps at all. If you have further questions, especially of a more personal nature, again I strongly recommend speaking to a priest.

that romantic aspect (that I still don’t quite understand)… but does it? There are lots of reasons to get married even if you don’t want to engage in sex, I think. Thoughts? Is it fair to restrict this situation?

My first question to that scenario is, Why is it necessary to define the celibate relationship you described as marriage? I guess I’m confused about your confusion. Do you really see no difference between a friend and a significant other? No difference between loving someone, and being in love? (Bear in mind I have no idea who you are, your circumstances, or where you’re coming from. That makes it hard for me to tell how to respond most helpfully.)

The question really is, “What is marriage?”

It’s true there’s such a thing as “Josephite marriage” whereby spouses voluntarily enter into a celibate union; the model for this (and all marriage) is that of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph.

But even without sexual intimacy, marriage is a certain kind of thing, a certain kind of relationship, that two people of the same sex cannot make. They can make other kinds of relationships—obviously, since there are same-sex couples in relationships—but not a marital one. (And, just so we’re clear, not all heterosexual people are capable of making a marital relationship, either, but that’s another story.) Think of it this way: If you want to make chocolate chip cookies, you need chocolate chips. If you don’t have chocolate chips, you can make another kind of cookie, but they’re not chocolate chip cookies.

Marriage is made from the mutual consent of one man and one woman to a lifelong, monogamous union that is open to children. On the natural level, this relationship is built into biology, and on the “supernatural” level, this relationship is an image of the relationship between God and humanity, between Christ, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His bride. 

(Sidebar: what this means it that heterosexual people getting “married” drunk at 2 a.m. at a drive-through Elvis window are not “getting married.” For one thing, drunk people don’t have the mental capacity to consent, and consent makes the marriage. To defend “traditional marriage” is not to defend its abuses and mockeries.)

It sounds like you’re defining marriage loosely as ‘a commitment between two people recognized by the state that comes with certain legal benefits.’ But that definition is so wide and vague—it could describe any interdependent relationship, romantic, friendly, or even familial. Do we have to define all those as marriage? 

Even though I do not agree with the worldview or choices of people in same-sex relationships, I absolutely understand the demand to certain legal benefits—for the sake of simplicity let’s stick with the two basic examples that have been brought up, health care sharing and access to hospitalized loved ones. But then my question is twofold: Why does a relationship that legally has those things have to be called marriage? and, Why, if the same-sex couple is non-Christian or non-religious (as many are,) do they want to call their relationship specifically a marriage, with all the religious history and meaning that idea has in our culture?

Part of the reason Catholics oppose same-sex marriage (by any name) is because we are defending the reality of marriage as itself: marriage as a particular kind of thing, with particular requirements, functions, and fruits. It’s wrong to call a relationship a marriage when it’s not. It confuses the relationship, it confuses the law, it clouds and obscured reality.

In short, we’re talking about two different things: you’re asking, why can’t someone choose their own health care beneficiary or their own decision maker/family when ill, and as I’ve said, I think people should be able to do. But I, with the Church, am also saying, but that doesn’t make a marriage. 

I hope that makes more sense.