Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Under no circumstances does the Church condone the practice of surgical or pharmaceutical abortions (such as RU-486 or the morning-after-pill).  Abortion is tantamount to murder in the womb and cannot be justified by appealing to convenience, hardships, or “a woman’s right to choose”.  Here is what the Church officially teaches in the Catechism: Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person—among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life[1]. Scripture also indirectly attests to the personhood and humanity of the fetus in Jeremiah 1:5: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. The ancient Tradition of forbidding abortions is expressed in the Didache, a first century writing of the apostles: You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish[2]. The reasoning and arguments of the pro-choice movement have been addressed numerous times by Church authorities (such as John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae) who are much more eloquent and adept than the author, and I will not reiterate them here other than to say that a women’s right to choose abortion is not moral or licit because it interferes with and extinguishes the child’s right to live. A child has a soul from the moment of conception and therefore is a person (who has certain unalienable rights) who cannot be killed by the mother or doctor without making the participating parties murderers. In fact, the Church feels so strongly on the matter that she has issued an automatic excommunication for all those who have procured an abortion and are aware of the excommunication penalty[3].  The excommunication even extends to those who, “without whose help the crime would not have been committed”[4]. Thus abortion doctors, the father of the baby, and even parents of children who encourage an abortion, are held accountable. In order to prevent Catholics from deceiving themselves and arguing that the Church’s two thousand year condemnation of abortion is only an opinion and not a doctrinal teaching of the faith, Pope John Paul II formally defined the condemnation of abortion in Evangelium Vitae: Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors and in communion with the bishops . . . I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium. No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church"[5]. Fr. Agustin, Pastor.

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[1] CCC 2270

[2] Didache 2,2

[3] CIC, canon 1398

[4] Evangelium Vitae, 62.

[5] Evangelium Vitae 62

Twenty-Eigth Sunday in Ordinary Time

On all of all the Church’s moral teachings this is the one teaching that causes the most dissension, ridicule, and flagrant rebellion among modern Catholics. Modern technology has improved the reliability and effectiveness of condoms, spermicides, diaphragms, sterilizations, and other devices and methods to such a level that birth can now be cheaply, easily, and artificially regulated.  Many couples use birth control to avoid the hassles and obligations of child birth which they view as an obstacle to career motivations, rampant selfish sex, financial freedom and global population control. The Church teaches nothing new on the regulation of birth and the prohibition against artificial contraception (Council of Nicea, Canon 1).  It is her age old teaching that the procreative element cannot be removed from the act of sex without incurring grave sin and violating the sanctity of marriage.  Condoms and other artificial birth control are illicit under all circumstances; even married couples are forbidden to use artificial birth control to limit or control pregnancy.  Pope Paul VI attempted to clarify the Catholic Church’s ancient teaching on artificial contraception following the Protestant church’s reversal on the ancient prohibition of birth control (the Anglican church broke the floodgate by reversing their decision on birth control during the Lambeth conference of 1930).  Pope Paul VI wrote in the encyclical letter Humane Vitae: In conformity with these fundament elements of the human and Christian vision of marriage, we must once again declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of birth regulation.  Also to be excluded, as the Magisterium of the Church has on a number of occasions declared, is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman.  Similarly, excluded is every action that, either in anticipation of the conjugal act or in its accomplishment or in the development of its natural consequences, would have as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible[1]. However, because the Church recognizes that if there are serious motive for spacing births derived from psychological or external circumstance it is, permissible to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions and to make use of marriage during the infertile times only, and in this way to regulate births without offending the moral principles that we have just recalled[2].  The method of copulation during infertile periods of the woman is referred to as Natural Family Planning (NFP). NFP is condoned by the Church as long as the couple is open to the possibility of child birth and the couple has due reason to space or delay procreation.  The couple may never use Natural Family Planning with the intention of avoiding child birth entirely or indefinitely because it violates the marriage covenant[3] ■ Fr. Agustin, Pastor.

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[1] Humane Vitae, 14

[2] Humane Vitae, 20

[3] CCC 2366