My 101 Reasons for Leaving the Catholic Church:
Rhythm Method
What is it ?
Official Catholic teaching condemns all forms of contraception (other than the "rhythm" method) as a grave (MORTAL) sin. POPE PIUS IX ordered priests who hear CONFESSION "not to allow the faithful entrusted to them to err regarding this most grave law of God." According to Pope Paul VI, "Each and every marriage act must remain open to new life" and "every action which ...proposes, whether as an end or a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil. However, in 1951, the "rhythm" method was declared a natural form of family planning. This method controls conception by limiting the sex act to the time of the month that the woman is infertile.
How did it come about ?
In response to the Anglican Church allowing contraception, Pope Pius XII issued the papal encyclical Casti Connubii (1930), claiming that contraception violates natural law. As such, the writer of the encyclical for the Pope, Arthur Vermeersch, a JESUIT, said that Anglicans could no longer claim to be Christians at all. Since the prohibition of contraception is based on natural law, it should be binding even to non-Catholics. Catholic Gary Wills writes: That meant making or keeping the sale of contraceptives illegal. In America, bishops tried to prevent Margaret Sanger from speaking in favor of birth control. When an Irish policeman arrested her at a New York rally, he said it was at the bidding of Archbishop Patrick Hayes. Sanger tried to get President Franklin Roosevelt to back her attempts to legalize the sale of contraceptives, but she found her way blocked by Monsignor John A. Ryan, a man known as "the Right Reverend New Dealer" for his alliance with Roosevelt. As science developed new and effective means of contraception, John Rock, a Catholic doctor at Harvard who had helped develop the anovulant pill, published a book, The Time Has Come. In this book, He argues that nature itself suppresses ovulation to prevent conception; therefore, the use of the pill should not be considered unnatural. In response to these developments, Pope John XXIII convened a commission to study birth control during the Second Vatican Council. A survey of 3000 Catholic couples showed that 63 percent claimed that rhythm had harmed their marriage and 65 percent said that it did not actually prevent conception, even when the right procedures were followed exactly. In a survey, one husband wrote: Rhythm destroys the meaning of the sex act; it turns it from a spontaneous expression of spiritual and physical love into a mere bodily sexual relief; it makes me obsessed with sex throughout the month... it makes necessary my complete avoidance of all affection toward my wife for three weeks at a time. I have watched a magnificent spiritual and physical union dissipate and, due to rhythm, turn into a tense and mutually damaging relationship. Rhythm seems to be immoral and deeply unnatural. It seems to me diabolical. His wife wrote: I find myself sullen and resentful of my husband when the time of sexual relations arrives. I resent his necessarily guarded affection during the month and I find I cannot respond suddenly. [From the book Papal Sin] As a result of their study, the full commission voted thirty to five against the claim that contraception is intrinsically evil. Finally, the ultimate vote to change the Catholic Church's position on contraception by the 16 bishops on the commission was 9 for, 3 against, and 3 abstentions [bishop Karol Wojtyla, who became John Paul II, was one of those abstaining]. However, the findings of the commission ultimately were overridden at the insistence of Pope Paul VI, who felt that teaching authority of the papacy was at stake. Could the earlier Popes have been wrong in condemning Catholics to hell for practicing contraception? Could the Holy Spirit have been with the Anglican council in 1930 instead of with the Popes? In 1968, Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, upholding Casti Conubii and its ban on contraception, and requiring each marital act to "remain open to the transmission of life." Given the large majority of Catholics who disagreed with the ban on contraception, the bishops in many countries, to the amazement of Pope Paul VI, stated that although the encyclical was the official teaching of the church, Catholic couples with serious and informed consciences could disagree and not sin. Pope John Paul II, a stauch supporter of the ban on contraception, has issued Familiaris Consortio. John Paul II elevated the holiness of the marital act to such a degree that he even teaches that unless one is willing to perfect oneself by periodic abstinence, it is possible to commit adultery with one's own wife. Such a person has not achieved the purity and selflessness necessary for the perfect self-giving that intercourse must be. Garry Wills writes: "In sex, you see, it is all or nothing. Unless the act expresses all values possible to it all the time, it is immoral... In order to be entirely perfect, in the Pope's eyes, the sex act must express its apparent opposite -- continence and abstinence... John Paul makes the sex act so holy that only monks are really worthy of it." Why it is wrong: 1) ...because in allowing rhythm, the mechanics of sex are placed above the intention of the couple. There is no difference in intent between the couples that use the rhythm method of contraception than those that use other "unnatural" methods; 2) ...because the teaching on contraception binds the consciences of the Catholic where Scripture is silent, calling contraception "intrinsically evil"; 3) ...because of the harm done to Catholic marriages by the requirements; 4) ...because of the hypocrisy of the Church, in officially declaring that the use of contraceptives is a grave sin and then allowing its "serious and informed" members to use contraceptives anyway. Warnings from Scripture: See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ. Col. 2:8 For why is my freedom judged by another's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I slandered concerning that for which I give thanks? Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Cor. 10:29b-31 Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Heb. 13:4 The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 1 Cor. 7:3-5 ? - Point to Ponder The Bible declares that children are a blessing from the Lord. Nowhere, however, does it condemn contraception. Does the Catholic Church see marital sex as somehow unholy? Is this why Mary must remain a VIRGIN and not have marital relations with her husband, Joseph? Is this why its priests must be CELIBATE?
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