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I must say, at the outset, that Mr. Winters and the newsletter, RealCatholicism, generally represent views on a number of issues that are ... ... I'm searching for a kind characterization ... ... totally unorthodox by any standards used by Catholics, whether conservative or progressive.
Nonetheless, in keeping with that notion that credentials are sometimes difficult to establish and that, therefore, our forum will engage ideas on their own merits (especially for such nuanced considerations that lack authoritative citations and good peer-reviewed academic scholarship) --- let me introduce more of Mr. Winters' ideas. Judge those ideas for logical consistency and internal coherency and see what your own take is on his positions (without applying any ad hominem fallacies, yourselves).
People can follow the above-link to the entire article. Below, in keeping with fair use and reasonable posting bandwidth constraints, I will list Mr. Winters' major counterclaims, followed by two or three salient sentences from the paragraphs that follow them in that article. They will make for many great departure points in our ongoing discussion, dialogue and debate, I think.
Answering the claims of NFP
Claim #1: "NFP is natural."
quote:
There is nothing natural about intentionally divorcing an action from its intended purpose. Father Lavaud, OP, has said "we cannot see an adaptation to nature in something which is, in effect, a trick to frustrate nature."
What NFP proponents really mean by "natural" is that their method is "aesthetic"; it does not require the insertion of foreign objects or chemicals into the human body.
Claim #2: "NFP is open to life."
quote:
This argument is repeatedly advanced by NFP proponents, who fail to explain how a contraceptive method with a "success rate" of 98% can be considered "open."
NFPers maintain that part of their "openness to life" consists of their willingness to parent their contraceptive errors.
Claim #3: "NFP strengthens the marriage."
quote:
According to the American Life League’s Pro-Life Encyclopedia, NFP strengthens marriage because it "increases the husband’s respect for his wife’s fertility." What that article does not explain is how the fixation on the mechanical aspects, or the dissection of the connubial intimacies in group discussion (as suggested in Humanae Vitae, paragraph 26) fosters respect.
Claim #4: "NFP requires self-denial."
quote:
Deploring our cultural tendency to favor the easy over the difficult, the fast over the time-consuming, NFP supporters impute virtue to their contraceptive method on the basis of the effort involved in it. There is no satisfactory logic behind their claim; 20 hours of study does not in and of itself confer virtue upon an undertaking.
"Let’s have no talk about ‘virtuous continence,’ " wrote Fr. Calkins. "That’s a red herring often dragged in to confuse the issue. The people who use rhythm are not primarily concerned about continence. They seek to avoid conception."
Claim #5 "NFP facilitates responsible parenthood."
quote:
The argument that children should be conceived only when the family, or the planet, can comfortably accommodate them was implicitly advanced by the majority "Pill Commission" report, and continues to be a staple in the pro-NFP argument arsenal. Surely, it is argued, we are expected to use our God-given rationality to control the biological processes for optimal results. The prideful assumption of responsibility for a task that is not within one’s purview, however, was at the core of the original sin.
Claim #6 "The Pope said that we should use NFP."
quote:
Encyclicals, we are told, carry the weight of doctrine when they are consistent with Church Tradition. Dvorak points out that Casti Connubii is such an encyclical. Casti Connubii tells us, as have the Fathers and Doctors of the Church before it, that "Any use of the marriage act, in the exercise of which it is designedly deprived of its natural power of procreating life, infringes on the law of God and of nature, and those who have committed any such act are stained with the guilt of serious sin." Humanae Vitae, however, introduces and endorses the novelty of NFP. Since the two encyclicals contradict each other, one must be wrong.
Finally, he writes:
quote:
It is licit, according to St. Robert Bellarmine, to resist a Pontiff who errs, "by not doing what he orders and preventing his will from being executed; it is not licit, however, to judge, punish or depose him, since these are acts proper to a superior."
Gosh, I can't wait to hear what James has to say about all of this. I'll desist, defer and demur.
Thanks, again, Mo3.
Looking forward to a nice substantive thread
Happy Holidays in Him,
momZ
).
As for ABC viewing pregnancy as a disease, this is the kind of
judgmental nonsense that shows how desperate anti-ABC people are to
finally make a point. If checking the temperature of the vagina and
examining cervical mucous before sex isn't treating pregnancy like a
disease, then I don't know what is. Of course, that depends on the
attitude one takes to the practice, doesn't it? Anti-ABCer always
gratuitously impute "respect for fertility" to those NFP practitioners
while judging ABC practitioners as acting out of an anti-life,
contraceptive mentality. See the spin?
