Forty years ago Pope Paul VI predicted that widespread use of the contraceptive pill would create social disaster. His prediction was presentient - you'd almost think he had some help from the man upstairs.
The irony with all of this is that so many people believe, despite all the evidence, that more contraception is needed to prevent many of the social ills we see around us now. Nevermind that since the pill has been commonplace the number of children born to single mothers has exploded and the number of breakups has likewise followed the same trend.
More contraception will solve the problem! Yeah, right.
The message here to women is if you want to find a lifelong husband, throw away the pill, take a vow of chastity until marriage and refuse to even date men that you don't think would die for you. And then don't go on the pill while married. If you want to space your children, learn Natural Family Planning and practise sexual self-control.
Here endeth the lesson.
Related Links:
The Pill may put you off smell of your man and ruin your relationship ~ The Times
The vindication of Humanae Vitae ~ First Things
Humanae Vitae’s specific predictions about what the world would look like if artificial contraception became widespread. The encyclical warned of four resulting trends: a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments. In the years since Humanae Vitae’s appearance, numerous distinguished Catholic thinkers have argued, using a variety of evidence, that each of these predictions has been borne out by the social facts.And the facts just keep on coming. Today I read in the Dominion Post that "The pill can lead to choice of wrong partner". Apparently the hormonal changes of the pill stuff up a woman's ability to choose a compatible mate, she is instead attracted to a male too similar to herself who typically not a good genetic match for her. When she comes off the pill she finds the man she is with is no longer attractive to her. This leads to far more breakups that could be expected if women had matched up with compatible men in the first place.
The irony with all of this is that so many people believe, despite all the evidence, that more contraception is needed to prevent many of the social ills we see around us now. Nevermind that since the pill has been commonplace the number of children born to single mothers has exploded and the number of breakups has likewise followed the same trend.
More contraception will solve the problem! Yeah, right.
The message here to women is if you want to find a lifelong husband, throw away the pill, take a vow of chastity until marriage and refuse to even date men that you don't think would die for you. And then don't go on the pill while married. If you want to space your children, learn Natural Family Planning and practise sexual self-control.
Here endeth the lesson.
Related Links:
The Pill may put you off smell of your man and ruin your relationship ~ The Times
The vindication of Humanae Vitae ~ First Things
Well each to their own of course. My mother spent most of her adult life on the pill and stayed with my father throughout. Her previous marriage ended because her previous husband lied about his predelictions, which at the time were illegal.
ReplyDeleteThe problem isn't sex at all, it is about people seeking esteem through other people and relationships, when esteem should be sought from within and from what one does, not who one does. Countless people have healthy happy relationships outside marriage using contraception hurting no one - the key is esteem.
Since when does a man who doesn't have sex, who doesn't have a natural intimate relationship with women have the slightest clue about what makes a relationship when he leads an organisation that until the rise of feminism and liberal secularism swept its repulsive record of child rape under the carpet?
The Catholic Church started to truly care about families and children when it was confronted with its legacy by feminists and secularists. It is one reason that when it does seek to advise, so many see a backyard that is too filthy and repulsive for the church to be throwing stones. I have an Uncle who had the pleasure of being such a victim, and of being told what a wicked liar he was when he tried to tell other esteemed members of the church. Curious the priority of Pope Paul VI forty years ago really.
Ah, LibertyScott, so it always comes back down to the sex abuse scandals for you, huh? It's almost as if no one else in society is guilty of the same.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, you have to at least try and distinguish in your mind the difference between the doctrine of the Church and the actions of individuals. The actions of many individuals over sex abuse was horrendous.
Many hundreds of years ago, the Church would have turned the priests involved over to the secular authorities for punishment, which, if you can imagine, generally involved death for the heinous nature of the crime.
Secular authorities in today's times are strangely squeemish in applying such a punishment and instead release such offenders back into the public sphere, leaving it up to individuals and communities to try to identify them and even turf them out of their areas. I'm thinking of the police leaflet drop a while back telling the community of a pedophile in their area - which got the police into big trouble. I think it was in Kilburnie, in Wellington from memory.
So when you say the Church has no right to advise on morality - neither does anyone else. All of society is guilty, and it's getting worse.
Yet, the Church is bigger than the crimes of individuals. She is a supernatural organisation that has lasted for 2000 years. Even though human beings fail time and time again with living up to her standards, she still persists in proclaiming those standards to the world.
And like it or not, Pope Paul VI was correct on contraception and it's effects.
Good on you lucyna, keep trying to push back the tide. It won't work, but at least it gives you something to do.
ReplyDeleteWas there no marriage breakdown prior to the pill?
As tou your comment to LS ...release such offenders back into the public sphere, leaving it up to individuals and communities to try to identify them and even turf them out of their areas. I'm thinking of the police leaflet drop a while back telling the community of a pedophile in their area - which got the police into big trouble. I think it was in Kilburnie, in Wellington from memory.
I love the way you so eager to support law breakers.
Maybe you're thinking of the case in Christchurch where two policemen's wives notified thee neighbours of the imminent release of a convicted sex offender, who would be housed with his sister. Sadly, it was the windows of an elederly widow that were smashed in the middle of the night. If I had my way, thsoe 2 women would have spent a long time in jail.
Or maybe you're thinking of the fuss stirred up in the UK by The Sun a couple of years back, where they "outed" a paedophle by printing the wrong photo and an innocent man was bashed by a mob.
Or was it the doctor, bashed on his doorstep because someone like you stirred up another mob who couldn't tell the difference between paedohile and paedeiatrician?
Don't try to defend the immorality of the catholic church by blaming a secular society. The church's immorality is systemic and encouraged by the un natural lifestyles it forces on its adherents.
Here's a question for you then, Fugley. What do you think should happen to convicted pedophiles? A slap on the wrist? Life sentence? Death? I haven't heard your opinion on the matter yet. When I do, I'll respond to your other points.
ReplyDeleteIts an odd thing that those who blast the Catholic church as immoral, offer nothing to fill the moral vacuum other than to say "if I think its right, then it must be".
ReplyDeleteI guess most of this comes from the inability to make the distinction between individuals, groups, and the person as opposed to the act.
Well, lucyna, I don't believe capital punishment is the answer, therefore I rule out death.
ReplyDeleteA slap on the wrist is more in the line of the catholic church when it comes to dealing with its own, and you already know my thoughts there.
A term in prison, with rehabilitation is the best way. Now, assuming the criminal has served his time, has been rehabilitated, and is ready to rejoin the community, what would you prefer - assistance to reintegrate or continual harrssment? Which do you think is less likely to lead to reoffending?
So, about my points ...
It is very interesting to read these further problems with the pill.
ReplyDeleteThe problems with society (unwanted pregnancies, breakups etc) are caused in a large part by sexual promiscuity, not by contraception per se. Contraception however allows this sexual promiscuity to occur a bit more widely than it would have in the past when contraception didn't exist.
We need to teach teens the benefits of abstinence. They won't all listen. But our schooling system doesn't even bother trying to teach abstinence, it just assumes they will have sex, gives out free contraception (encouraging it), and if anything makes the problem worse.
Although I don't agree with the complete "no contraception" message of the Catholic church, it looks like the Pope was pretty accurate with that prediction you have quoted.
I love the way you so eager to support law breakers.
ReplyDeleteWith that logic Fugley, it would be as accurate to say that you fully support pedophiles who become repeat offenders.
In short, you ignore the reality of people's needs to have regard to their personal safety and the safety of their children to make a cheap point by conflating what Lucyna actually said to say something different.
Without necessarily condoning breaking the law, it is still very understandable that some people have to seriously consider what they need to do to ensure the safety of their children, given the the state has proven to make many tragic errors in judgment by releasing pedophiles back into the community with inadequate supervision, faulty decision making processes by authorities in determining their risk to the community and releasing dangerous people without them having actually been rehabilitated.
Indeed, it might be that parents are prepared to endure punishment by the state for whatever laws they break ensuring the safety of their children, which is always going to be a smaller price to pay than the state saying "oops, we got that one wrong, but hey, you get your day in court and the culprit will be punished and let out to do it again".
Fugley, thank you for your reply. Zentiger has more than adequately addressed the problem with your position, as you exemplify the type of person who doesn't treat the crime of paedophilia with enough seriousness. Tell me, what is the success rate for rehabilitating paedophiles?
ReplyDeleteDon't try to defend the immorality of the catholic church by blaming a secular society. The church's immorality is systemic and encouraged by the un natural lifestyles it forces on its adherents.
You are correct. The immorality at work in the sex abuse scandals was systemic. The child that told his parents that nice Fr.X abused him and then was told off for telling lies shows up the first point of failure - the parents. I wonder how many people reading this blog would know for sure whether or not they would have been believed by their own when they were children had such a horrible thing happened to them? The problem is that paedophilia is so heinous that I'm sure it was hard for many people to imagine anyone but an obvious monster being capable of such a deed.
But just say, the parents did believe their child - there are numerous cases where the authorities did not. Not only Church authorities, but secular authorities. Two more points of failure.
But then, say the parents only told the Church authorities and the Bishop involved was worried about his own indiscretions (quite often of a homosexual nature), and moved the priest to another parish to keep him out of trouble. There is another point of failure, and I do not deny that that did not happen. It did.
This moving around of problem people is something that happens in the school system as well. You'd notice it if you've been taking note of the number of school teachers that are paedophiles as well. Yet you seem to have no problem with schools teaching their version of morality. Strange, really.
Anyway, it seems you are far more forgiving than I as you would have everyone believe that both the Bishop and the priest could be rehabilitated and released back into society. Maybe the bishop could, if he were not guilty of the same crime as well. But the priest would be better off locked up for life. As would any paedophile.
"A term in prison, with rehabilitation is the best way."
ReplyDeleteReally? Have you looked at the recidivism rates for convicted paedophiles Fugley?
I have--and it's waaay over 50%.
No Lucyna, you cannot evade this. Just because other individuals commit crimes does not excuse an organisation for covering up the crimes committed by its members in its name - there are legions of evidence of child rapists being quietly shifted from place to place when the allegations became numerous enough and NOT forwarded to the authorities. That is morally unconscionable. To say "oh other people did it" is a cop out. Yes these were actions by individuals, but the church actively evaded responsibility for the victims. It has thankfully started cleaning its own back yard, but it is an atrocious one - and there are other examples, like how the church stood by quietly as the Croatian Ustashes slaughtered its way through non-Catholics in the 1940s.
ReplyDeleteNow you'll struggle to find any organisation that old which has unimpeachable moral credentials - I'm realistic, but the church actually claims that it does, and this doesn't wash. To be fair you acknowledged its failure in a later comment as well.
On punishment, people should be imprisoned for heinous sexual crimes, preventive detention if necessary. However on the contraceptive pill my main point is that millions of people use it successfully, it hurts no one and I am intrigued how a celibate man who has no intimate relationships with women knows best how women should control their fertility - it appears absurd.
mrtips - there is a fairly straightforward moral position to take on people's bodies. Adults own their own bodies, can choose to do as they wish with them, as long as they do not hurt or harm other peoples bodies or property. Parents should provide adequate protection, love, attention and material provision for their children until they are old enough to fend for themselves. Not hard to have morality without religion.
The pill has risks with health, but as long as these are well known then it has done an immense amount of good in allowing women to control their fertility. That freedom of choice has undoubtedly saved millions of women (and men) from facing being a parent when they don't wish to be, and it has also as a result prevented them seeking abortions (legal or not). It is science interfering with nature, but if we were interested in human fertility following nature then there would be little problem with 12 year olds getting pregnant since, of course, many are quite fertile.
Libertyscott,
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to converse with someone who seems to hold to a position despite the evidence, namely your contention that:
"However on the contraceptive pill my main point is that millions of people use it successfully, it hurts no one and I am intrigued how a celibate man who has no intimate relationships with women knows best how women should control their fertility - it appears absurd."
Did you even read this post before you started quoting from the anti-Catholic handbook. It appears from your comments that you are using the Libertarian one - but there are others. If you were an anti-Catholic of a different type, you'd be in full swing on how the Catholic Church is the whore of babylon by now.
It's really very boring. And it seems even pointless to get into the sex-abuse scandals in any sort of reasonable way if you cannot read. Or as one I've found in one of my recent forays into learning, many modern educated folk read but they do not understand.
Read the post again. Then read the following comment:
Pope Paul VI predicted 4 things would come to pass if the contraceptive pill came into use by millions of people.
He was correct.
It is backed up by evidence.
Therefore your contention that a celibate man knows nothing in this field WHEN HIS PREDICTIONS WERE CORRECT IS WRONG.
If you cannot even understand this point, it is useless even trying to converse with you on the other points you are flinging around.
I've seen the "logic" that a celibate man cannot comment on the moral dimension of sex.
ReplyDeleteThis is patently ridiculous. When a priest talks about sex, it is a comment on a moral and spiritual perspective, not on the pleasure quotient. The first, anyone could have an opinion on; it is the second situation where direct experience would be required.
This is like a lawyer discussing the legal implications of rape, without an expectation they need to be rapists to discuss the law around rape. and they are not required to try rape to properly represent their client.
It's like a doctor discussing the medical implications of anal sex, whilst not having to actually have been buggered to be able to advance an opinion on the medical issues.
I could find other examples, but the point hopefully has been well made. An opinion on the moral and spiritual dimension of sex is different than speaking of the physical pleasure.
A further note; A key focus of what a priest talks about is not sex per se, but love. All people are capable of feeling great love, and priests are no exception. Indeed, their life is devoted to this ideal.
So when a priest discusses sex, it is not to talk about the kind of sex you have that is borne from lust and cares for little but physical pleasure and mutual exploitation, but of something deeper. That's a comment to expand another time.
LibertyScott: I admire your fighting spirit.
ReplyDeleteBut you have a problem. You say adults own their own bodies. Could you please post on your website your ownership papers? Can you PROVE that your father is who he says he is? Have you taken a test to verify that?
Did you actively choose your own body? Did your parents consult you?
These are not absurd questions. You own your body no more than you own someone elses. Your parents did not "gift" your body no more than they were gifted theirs. You had no knowledge of what body you would get, and neither did your parents.
If you said, I have been given this body, then we are getting somewhere.
Now, the other issue you haven't answered is: "what framework would you replace the so called horrid Christian one with". Because if it is secularism, then you can stick it, for it has wrought more anguish and misery than all other frameworks combined.