"Nuns Can Choose?" Yes, They've Chosen A Tide Of Abortions After Dotard's Repeal Of Contraceptive Requirement For ACA

Gleeful nuns outside of Supreme Court bldgs. last year anticipating strike down of the ACA contraceptive requirements for employers. They should also be happy - after Trump pulled the requirements- as abortions soar.

The WSJ editorial yesterday ('A Nun's Right To Choose') claimed that the ACA contraceptive mandate was an "infamous regulation" that forced religious extremists like the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their beliefs.  Of course, this is utter codswallop. Let us agree here  that logically, you can't have it "both ways". The Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious zealots have argued constantly and vocally that their precious beliefs are being "disrespected" by being forced to pay for contraception for their employees. This is even after President Obama loosened the rules, i.e. so the religious institutions didn't have to pay for the contraceptives directly (their insurance companies did), and they still squawked.

But given that artificial contraception is the optimal way to family plan, and also avoid unnecessary abortions, if you cut out affordable access to  the first you will have to expect the second. You can't have it both ways: No contraception and no abortion. To me and many others, if abortion is the last thing we want then we permit control of family planning via artificial contraception. It is deliriously unrealistic to expect poor or even moderate income families to simply make 'baby roulette' bets with their lives. Yet that is what these Catholic false dogmatists expect.

Recall that contraception is among a range of preventive services that must be provided at no extra charge under the ACA health care law.  (It is also a basic matter of human dignity in enabling poorer women, families to control the number of mouths to feed and clothe.) At the time, the Obama administration pointed to research showing that the high cost of some methods of contraception discourages women from using them. (A very effective means of birth control, the intrauterine device, can cost up to $1,000.)

Birth control pills are also not exactly cheap and to be effective they have to be taken over a lengthy period, not stopped on weekends, for example.  It is estimated currently that Trump's new order will cost poor women - who need family planning the most - an added $1,000 a year. Some may sneer at that amount but consider what it may mean for a single mom earning barely $22,000 a year at Walmart to support 2 or 3 kids - and risk having another.

The Little Sisters' argument  that their religious convictions and rights are being violated by providing contraception for SECULAR employees is totally bogus. If indeed, they’re all about preventing SECULAR employees – say atheists like me – from accessing artificial  birth control- then they are indeed imposing their faith. It also demolishes the WSJ editorial argument yesterday that the ACA contraceptive mandate us an "infamous regulation".   It also rips the added WSJ claim that the Little Sisters "still need relief in court". No, they do not. They need to get their heads screwed on straight as to what's being required of them vis-a -vis secular employees.

Hence, in the latter case the withholding of the ACA- allowed measures violates secular workers'  rights as taxpayers!  The point missed by the WSJ editors and others is that given the Church is funded by default via MY taxpayer dollars (since they don't have to pay taxes that I must) then I have to expect that if my wife or myself attends THEIR hospitals they will deliver the services WE need, not forbid us access to some subset they prohibit for their own flock!  (And note, these religious groups are perfectly free to prevent their own members from obtaining the contraceptives, or abortions.)

This is also why an array of organizations plan to argue in court that the Trump-Dotard mandated change in policy  unfairly imposes employers' beliefs on their workers. Which it does.  A worker's contraceptive coverage ought not depend on her employer's beliefs. An additional argument brought by three states' attorneys general is that the Dotard ruling amounts to sexual discrimination, as well as religious discrimination.  In the words of Hal Lawrence, chief executive of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:

"To take this away from women does nothing to improve the health of the United States and actually increases the risk of maternal mortality and some kinds of cancers."

As Brigitte Amiri, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU has put it:

"This is an affront to women's rights and women's health and we are prepared to see the government in court."

When one gets right down to it this whole brouhaha is a cultural storm in a teacup that originates because the Catholic religious extremists either: a) don't understand their own basic principles or doctrines or b) do understand but wish to exploit public ignorance of them to get their way in the courts.

As pointed out by Theologian Hans Kung ('Infallible?') the birth control proscription comes from the Church's TEACHING OFFICE or Magisterium, not ex cathedra or "from the chair of St. Peter".

If a ruling comes from the Magisterium or teaching office, then it isn't binding! It isn't binding on Catholics and it isn't binding on those they would serve, say in their hospitals (patients who need contraceptives) or institutions (workers there, who aren't even Catholics!).

There are even more suspect moral overtones on this than meet the eye. For example, the majority of Catholics are probably totally unaware that the Church DID ALLOW abortions to be performed up until the third trimester, and until 1869. John Connery, S.J. a leading historian of the Church’s teaching on abortion, has been quoted as citing a long standing collection of Canon Law that “it was not until 1869 that abortion for any reason became grounds for excommunication” (See, e.g. Druyan and Sagan, PARADE, April 22, 1990). At the time the lack of dogmatic ruling created such furore that conservatives in the Church pushed for a higher dogma that would transcend the wishy-washy Magisterium ruling. They thereby succeeded in foisting the very late (1870) doctrine of "infallibility" which was more a rear guard action -addition to protect the Church from any possible subsequent alterations of moral teaching

Thus, if a ruling came "ex cathedra" and applied to faith or morals, the Pope couldn't make a mistake. (Of course, as the “papal infallibility” doctrine was only first proclaimed in 1870, it conveniently didn't apply to rulings made earlier such as the ones on abortions allowed up to the 3rd trimester). But the larger point here is that clearly, the fact the Church already changed its doctrine on abortion shows its moral positions are malleable and not set in stone!

What this means is that the Church itself cannot be free of errors in faith or morals if it has already made one that was since covered up. Obviously, if you can alter a position, it is hardly "absolute". In his marvelous book, Infallible?, Hans Kung observes (p. 143):

" no one, neither Vatican I, nor Vatican II, nor the textbook theologians, has shown that the Church - its leadership or its theology - is able to put forward propositions which inherently cannot be erroneous."

This is a serious statement which basically shows the "dogmas" being cited by the religious extremists like the Little Sisters have no gravitas or genuine spiritual import. If propositions posed as dogmas inherently "cannot be erroneous" then ultimately they rest on relative foundations. If the latter is the case, then employers and their employees can choose to ignore them.  The Little Sisters and their ilk aren't even being asked to do that - by way of the Obama original exemption. Merely to allow their insurance company to pay for them.

As I've posted before if these religious zealots are truly against the scourge of abortion then they should have no qualms about allowing the most effective means of contraception (note: the Catholics 'rhythm method' doesn't count). The fact they oppose effective contraception paid for by their insurance companies tells me they are okay with a tide of abortions- which will become the default method of birth control now for most poor women.

WSJ's William McGurn's Criticism of Notre Dame Is Misplaced Foolishness.

William McGurn, in his recent WSJ column ('The Little Sisters vs. Notre Dame', April 5, p. A11) makes the lame argument that the Little Sisters of the Poor are veritable moral champions for refusing to accept an Obama administration accommodation to the Affordable Care Act's birth control provision.  Recall that contraception is among a range of preventive services that must be provided at no extra charge under the ACA health care law. The administration pointed to research showing that the high cost of some methods of contraception discourages women from using them. A very effective means of birth control, the intrauterine device, can cost up to $1,000.

Houses of worship and other religious institutions whose primary purpose is to spread the faith are exempt from the birth control requirement. Other faith-affiliated groups that oppose some or all contraception have to tell the government or their insurers that they object.  The Little Sisters, whose mission is to care for the sick elderly, did this and were granted an accommodation. This meant they did not have to provide birth control under their plan, but via a secondary insurance platform. But they've rejected even this.

They are resolved that birth control (artificial) violates  their precious Catholic dogmas, but in fact they are deliriously out of touch with reality. The Catholic birth control doctrine as pointed out by Hans Kung ('Infallible?') has never ever been posited ex cathedra which means from the chair of St. Peter, the Pope (assuming his infallibility). but from the Magisterium or teaching office. In other words, it is more a recommendation not an edict for black-white moral action.

If a ruling comes from the Magisterium or teaching office, then it isn't binding! It isn't binding on Catholics and it isn't binding on those they would serve, say in their hospitals (patients who need contraceptives) or institutions (workers there, who aren't even Catholics!)

This has a direct bearing on the Little Sisters'  refusal to budge which McGurn sees as their "pluck and mettle" with the Obama administration "forcing them to choose between their faith and the loving care they provide men and women too old or poor to care for themselves". A bigger pile of ripe merde has seldom been confected - unless one reads some of the tripe penned by Warren Commission apologists.

The facts? NO ONE is forcing the Little Sisters to compromise their principles since their Catholic employees are still not affected by the accommodation (which McGurn dismisses as "fake"). That means they are still bound by the Sisters' perception of the Magisterium as prohibiting artificial birth control" so their plan is not obliged to provide it.

The difference applies not to Catholic employees but to secular employees working at their institutions. “Imposing one’s faith” means taking away rights of secular citizens– based on invoking one’s own imagined religious principles.  In other words, extrapolating their “principles” beyond their proper moral domain to take away the rights of citizens who aren’t part of that domain other than in an employee capacity.

While McGurn pompously rakes the University of Notre Dame over the coals for "signing under pressure"  and insisting the Little Sisters need to "put some fight back in the Fighting Irish" - the fact is Notre Dame doesn't need it. As opposed to McGurn's take of an expedient capitulation, the more plausible explanation is that the University recognized the same arguments I put forward above. That is, that the Church's magisterium prescriptions on birth control doesn't extend to an institution's secular employees, only the Catholics.

Let's also get clear that McGurn isn't making any of his specious arguments out of a concern or pure support for the Little Sisters. No, he's doing it out of his own ideological stance that insists ever increasing population is needed and the world can support it - for capitalist advance. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/10/more-capitalist-codswallop-on.html

In that post I attacked McGurn for sloppy thinking regarding population dynamics and effects, as when he argued that the primary error of Thomas Malthus was  asserting that "humans were primarily mouths to feed and not minds to be unlocked"  I wrote:

"McGurn is clearly too dense to process that unless those new mouths are fed, they won't be doing any thinking, and certainly not of the radically transformative, energy intense form he and his capitalist Pollyannas demand! "

I indicated as well that the Borlaug revolution is almost all but spent, and climate change and its droughts will easily wipe out even the GMO crops on offer.

From all points of view, then, the wide dissemination of artificial birth control devices and pills is of a higher moral order than enabling indiscriminate births that are already overtaking the food and water supply. It is a pity that the Little Sisters, as well as McGurn, aren't aware of that higher moral imperative or don't really care - preferring to put a specious dogma ahead of human survival.
 

 

 

 

'Little Sisters of the Poor' Need an Education In Artificial Birth Control

It appears the Little Sisters of the Poor - who run nursing homes here in Colorado and elsewhere- have now taken their case to the Supreme Court. What is this case? Evidently the goodly nuns have trouble with providing birth control (under the Obamacare mandate), even to secular employees who are not part of the Vatican's dogma axis and disavow its archaic belief system. So these nuns believe the mandate covers these secular employees as well, and  "forces them to violate their beliefs" to even sign a simple paper that would empower the Sisters' insurer to provide it. Are you kidding me? Seriously?

It seems to me the Little Sisters sorely need an education on the birth control - magisterium based doctrine - for CATHOLICS. In particular, that NO one is violating their cherished beliefs or dogmas if artificial contraception is provided to secular employees not bound to Catholic dogma.. All we are asking is for them to allow these workers to have the same health care benefits of other workers in the public domain.  It's called equal treatment under the law.

Hence, the only thing being “taken away” here is the Church employer’s ability to take away secular employees’ rights to the same standard of health care as all other secular employees’ in the public or private sphere.  The Church, meanwhile, is quite free to morally legislate its own members’ do’s and don’ts to its heart’s content. NO one is taking away that right. 

If the Church sees fit to deny its own members’ as employees access to birth control or the morning after pill, or abortion, then fine. It is well within its purview. But it can’t extrapolate that to secular employees and retain tax-free status as a peculiarly religious institution.  Here's another reason this applies: Unknown to many Catholic purists, many secular hospitals have been taken over by Catholic ones. Their original secular workers (who had benefits under those private secular hospitals ) now see them threatened or removed  because of antiquated Church dogmas invoked after the corporate takeover.

Catholic employers – whether in schools or hospitals or whatever – are quite free to set whatever moral standards they wish for their OWN Church members who are employed in such venues. What they are not free to do is to set those standards for secular employees! Not if they wish to continue to receive  tax-free status from the federal state. As for violating the First and Fifth Amendments, that’s totally preposterous: there is no proscription against freedom of speech – they can spout whatever medieval nonsense that they desire. Nor is there proscription against being a witness against oneself.

One of the ignorant First Amendment arguments usually employed is that: "No one is denying the secular women access to contraception or abortion if they want it, they just don't wish to be forced to pay for drugs that violate their religious beliefs".   

The point is the "drugs" aren't doing that because they're not being used by the Catholic women who are free to follow their own mores.  They're being used by secular workers as part of the coverage promised under the ACA  health insurance plan!  And, moreover, those drugs - such as contraceptives - may well be needed for more than birth prevention (though that ought to be important enough - given too many mouths to feed can tilt a family over to food stamps, welfare).   But as Sandra Fluke noted in her testimony in March last year: e.g. 

Contraceptives can also be used to treat ovarian cysts. If this is not done, the contraceptives denied, then an ovary may need to be surgically removed- and health care costs explode beyond what they would have been.  In addition contraception is critical to limiting severe health problems such as miscarriage or stroke (which could ensue if a woman becomes pregnant).  Moreover, once one uses contraceptives then they must be taken regularly or else they cease to work.

Thus, female employees of the Little Sisters' nursing homes could be in really serious trouble if suddenly denied their contraceptive care.

Meanwhile, the Little Sisters insist they are  not imposing their faith on anyone only trying to do God's holy will and service to others (the infirm elderly in their nursing homes) but don't wish secular laws imposed which make them violate their precepts.

As for the claim of “not imposing their faith on anyone”, I am afraid the Little Sisters need to take a semantics or logic course, preferably both.  If indeed, they’re all about preventing SECULAR employees – say atheists like me – from accessing artificial  birth control- then they are indeed imposing their faith.  Besides - what if the tables were turned? How would Catholic purists and dogmatists react if a Hindu-run corporation took over a Catholic Hospital? Would such a happenstance be called a "forced conversion" or  "violation of religious liberty"? OR - would it be considered a business transaction only? Also, if the newly merged entity produced subsidiary corporations  what religious principles would rightly apply? Catholic blowhards and those like the Little Sisters of the Poor need to think such questions through before they get all sanctimonious on us.

Now, if instead they confined their faux natural law moralism to Catholic employees only, there’d be no objection. “Imposing one’s faith” means taking away rights of secular citizens– based on invoking one’s own imagined religious principles.  In other words, extrapolating their “principles” beyond their proper moral domain to take away the rights of citizens who aren’t part of that domain other than in an employee capacity.

While we’re at it, let’s take a closer look at some consequences of these principles which they profess to hold so dear. Biologist Elizabeth A. Daugherty  has asked ('The Lessons of Zoology'. in Contraception and Holiness, p. 110):

"Why do we call secondary the ends of the sexual act which have been accorded in fullness to us, and why do we call primary the end which we share with the lower animals?"

She's referring to the fact that the core of Pius XI's  original encyclical Casti Connubii was that the "sin" of artificial contraception inhered in making primary a sexual aspect that in reality is only "secondary". According to that esteemed pontiff:

"Since therefore the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature."

 
Which is irredeemable codswallop. As Daugherty notes in her chapter (op. cit.)  what the pontiff and his ilk really sought to do is reduce humans to the state of lower animals, at the behest of their "natural" reproductive cycles. In this sense, unlike the lower animals, humans have the intellectual capacity and sense of novelty to introduce a vast variety of pleasure-play into their sex relations. They aren't yoked to  primitive instincts to simply mount and hump at specific times. As Daugherty notes (pp. 96- 97):

"After ovulation, all mammalian females are under the influence of progesterone from the corpus luteum. This is a period of rapidly declining estrogenic activity which ends the sexual receptivity of the lower mammalian female, whether or not fertilization occurs.

But (in humans) marital relations continue during this progesterone -dominated period before the abrupt onset of menstruation. It is the period of lowest estrogenic activity and the progesterone-dominated period after ovulation which are known as the 'safe period' for marital relations."

This then, is what the Catholics'  “rhythm method” (of  Ogino-Kaus)  seeks to do: establish the "safe period" for a particular woman and then ordain that this is the time to safely have sexual relations if one wishes to not have any kids. The trouble is, it requires meticulous temperature taking at various times during a cycle to establish where that safe period begins and ends, and often this will be for no more than 10 days or so in a given month. Presumably, the couple is quite happy to do without sex the other two thirds of the time!

Thus, the moralizers of the Vatican and their moral accomplices (such as these Little Sisters)  are actually demanding that married couples act UNNATURALLY, since as Daugherty observes (ibid.):

"Humans are free from physiologically determined sexual desires so we possess a more or less permanent sexuality from adolescence to old age."

Indeed! But the Church and its robed minions (and now evidently younger acolytes in colleges)  seek to dictate that despite being sexual or having sexual desires from adolescence until old age, her members are only free to discharge those desires under certain limited times and limited conditions. For example, teens who have such exploding desires on account of their hormones are warned they cannot even masturbate to relieve themselves because those organs are only allowed to morally function in the state of marriage. Then....once married, the couple is informed they may gratify their mutual sexual desires only if they are open to conception....that is, unless they use the rhythm method.  Anyone not see a pattern here?

But once more, my gripe is not so much the Vatican roping  in its own flock’s gonads, but seeking to rope in the gonads of secular employees working at their schools, hospitals etc. (And please don’t anyone tell me “They can get another job!” – NO, not in this low aggregate demand, high unemployment environment. That’s like telling a guy who’s been denied food stamps (and on his last legs)  to go jump off a roof, then he won’t need them!) Besides, would Catholics tell Catholic employees to just "get another job" if their hospital was taken over by Hindu owners? I doubt it!

Julian Pleasants has observed (op. cit., p. 88) the Vatican has always been hostage to:

"Aristotelian modes of thought which tend to fix behaviors within very limited and fixed definitions and categories."

Thus, the Church once believed it "natural" that some men be enslaved because they were “unable to manage their own affairs”  (ibid.)So why be surprised when the same Church seeks to ordain all her members abide by a sexuality more fitting of lower primates?   However, be that as it may, we MUST express surprise (and outrage ) when the Church and its enablers like the Little Sisters seek to impose that same sexuality on secularists. That is simply unacceptable.

The abiding question for me is:  Why have these nuns not been properly educated on the matter of artificial birth control? And while we’re at it, one ought to remind them that the birth control proscription has never been stated ex Cathedra so it’s not infallible. It is proposed under the Magisterium or Teaching Office. As one honest padre once confided to me: "You are free to use your own conscience in this regard, since the teaching isn't binding."

 Perhaps the best solution to the Little Sisters'  moral dilemma is one proposed last week by a Denver Post writer: Hire only physically fit elders for the nursing homes, who no longer have need for birth control. It would solve two problems: provide jobs for seniors who are money tight and may need more, and obviate the need to continue with these court cases.

It's "win - win"!

Timothy Dolan is WRONG! Catholic Doctrine CAN and HAS BEEN Changed!

Cardinal Bergoglio Becomes Pope Francis one year ago.

This is the 1st year anniversary of Pope Francis' election as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, and facts are already getting skewed and distorted by the "princes" of the Church. This is in regard to Francis' novel takes on RC doctrine, and also how permanent it is. This was brought up this morning on the CBS Early Show when Charlie Rose asked Cardinal Timothy Dolan if Church doctrine could ever be changed and he responded 'No.'   Then I pondered whether I'm living in an alternate universe, because in the one I inhabit it most certainly CAN be changed and HAS been changed!

Let me again remind readers that the Church's birth control proscription, for example,  is not any kind of a central doctrine-  issuing as it does from the Magisterium or teaching office, and not ex Cathedra or from the 'Chair of St. Peter' (which office designates "infallibility"). Hence, and logically, as Hans Kung has pointed out ('Infallible?') it could be wrong ....so there is no absolute compelling reason to follow it and most priests in the day (late 1960s-70s) regarded it as matter of personal conscience.

More to the point, Pope Paul VI actually formed a commission to look into the matter in 1968, with the view to altering this teaching and was roundly informed he needed to do so - or the Church would lose millions in first world nations  (as it has, including me).  Paul rejected the conclusions of his Papal Commission, likely owing to some arm twisting by the relics in the Vatican Curia. 

Fast forward to 1978, and Pope John Paul I had planned to change the birth control doctrine, understanding the ferocious and unseemly burden too many children put on families that could ill afford them, such as his own (David Yallop, 'In God's Name').  Alas, John Paul I was murdered before he could do so, though most deep politics observers believe this was more to do with his intended shake up of the Vatican Bank - run at the time by renegade padre, Paul Marcinkus.   The Bank had been funneling money to unsavory types such as P2 in Italy (op. cit.) and the gangsters involved didn't want any light cast on their deeds. A pity! Had Albino Luciani been elected Pope I'd likely never have left the Church and become an atheist.

It wasn't to be. A new, much more conservative pope (John Paul II) was elected, and the Church could breath easier again. There’d be no Vatican Bank shake ups, and several papal encyclicals

But let's move on!

The majority of Catholics (and probably non-Catholics) are probably totally unaware that the Church DID ALLOW abortions to be performed up until the third trimester, and until 1869. John Connery, S.J. a leading historian of the Church’s teaching on abortion, has been quoted as citing a long standing collection of Canon Law that “it was not until 1869 that abortion for any reason became grounds for excommunication” (See, e.g. Druyan and Sagan, PARADE, April 22, 1990). At the time the lack of dogmatic ruling created such furore that conservatives in the Church pushed for a higher dogma that would transcend the wishy-washy Magisterium ruling. They thereby succeeded in foisting the very late (1870) doctrine of "infallibility" which was more a rear guard action -addition to protect the Church from any possible subsequent alterations of moral teaching.

Thus, if a ruling came "ex cathedra" and applied to faith or morals, the Pope couldn't make a mistake. (Of course, as the “papal infallibility” doctrine was only first proclaimed in 1870, it conveniently didn't apply to rulings made earlier such as the ones on abortions allowed up to the 3rd trimester). But the larger point here is that clearly, the fact the Church already changed its doctrine on abortion shows its moral positions are malleable and not set in stone!

What this means is that the Church itself cannot be free of errors in faith or morals if it has already made one that was since covered up. Obviously, if you can alter a position, it is hardly "absolute". In his marvelous book, Infallible?, Hans Kung observes (p. 143):

" no one, neither Vatican I, nor Vatican II, nor the textbook theologians, has shown that the Church - its leadership or its theology - is able to put forward propositions which inherently
cannot be erroneous."

Then there is the subtle doctrinal change embodied in "papal primacy",  first enunciated with force in the Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, of July 18, 1870. As some readers may know and which Theologian Hans Kung makes clear ('Infallible?' p. 77):

"the definition of papal infallibility presupposes the definition of papal primacy". 

Before Pastor Aeternus, the Body of the Church held paramountcy, i.e. the body as in the people. The order was reversed from July 18, 1870 with papal primacy trumping the people. How or why did papal primacy and infallibility (not in evidence before 1870 in any Church doctrines) transpire?

This is made clear in the Introduction of Pastor Aeternus:

"With daily increasing hatred on all sides, the Gates of Hell are rising, to overturn the Church, if it were possible, against its divinely established foundation. Therefore we judge it necessary, for the protection, safety and increase of the Catholic flock, with the approval of the Sacred Council, to propose the doctrine of the Institution, perpetuity and nature of the sacred apostolic primacy, in which the strength and solidity of the whole Church consists, to be believed and held by all the faithful, according to the ancient and constant faith of the universal Church and to prescribe and condemn the contrary errors so pernicious to the Lord's flock."

Though wordy and somewhat convoluted, the message is:  The faithful themselves can't be trusted to judge  from whence the threats to their faith issue. Hence, they require a  spiritual "Papa" (pope) to decide and adjudicate all spiritual threats for them.  Whenever his utterances are declared ex cathedra, or from the Chair of St. Peter, they are "infallible" and can't be contradicted.

Hence, the need for papal primacy (and its implicit authority)  over the outlook or message of the faithful, including any upstart nuns.  This is why the likes of Ratzinger, for example, never hesitated to smack down any nuns whose messages appeared to be I conflict with the Curia's.   They'd do this if  nuns like Sister Margaret Farley e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/06/nun-articulates-sexual-ethics-for.html

breathed even a word about things like birth control or masturbation being in any way acceptable - never mind that Ratzinger and his predecessor were busy shuttling priest abusers around so they wouldn't be found out, and covering up any documents.

The fact is, contrary to Dolan's bollocks, the Church CAN and HAS changed its doctrines, in subtle and not so subtle ways. The problem is that most Catholics aren't aware of Church history so don't know about it. The casting of changeless doctrines is done for a very strategic reason - to make the flock believe that nothing ever will change in any real way. Hence, all Francis can do is resort to soft rhetoric but never change the doctrines themselves.

If Francis really believes that, then I am sorry for the Church - including its followers, and believers!

Catholics Need to Make a Choice - and Stop Whining!

Fr. Alvin Holloway, S.J. used to teach us Ethics at Loyola University (ca. 1966) and that using artificial contraception was akin to "mutual masturbation" (a 'mortal sin'). He never did inform us that both of these "grievous" acts were actually optional under the Church's Magisterium or teaching office!


Okay, pardon me, maybe it isn't Catholics whining at all, but rather the hysterical Reich wing chattering class doing it for them. At least one would seriously hope! This concerns the issue of contraception embedded in President Obama's 'Affordable Care Act' and whether those allowances "transgress" sacred Catholic doctrines.

I noted in an earlier blog that this claim was mostly sound and fury signifying nothing, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/01/catholics-losing-it-over-obama-admin.html

and explicitly pointed out the errors in "natural law" on which the Catholics base their morality, even citing one Catholic biologist, Elizabeth Dougherty (in Contraception and Holiness, The Lessons of Zoology, p. 110) who asked:

"Why do we call secondary the ends of the sexual act which have been accorded in fullness to us, and why do we call primary the end that we share with the lower animals?"

Because make no mistake here: no matter you're a church or person, if you deny the exercise of choice in terms of contraception, you're not only reducing your fellow humans to mere breeding animals, but you are also "planetary criminals" to use Arthur C. Clarke's stark term, because of massively contributing to a population this planet can't support! (And hence, fomenting mass destitution).

But as a former Catholic I will go even further and assert most Catholics who object to the contraception provisions in the Affordable Care Act don't even know their own theology. I, however, have had to take three years of it - including Ethics and Catholic Moral Theology, while attending Loyola University, New Orleans, 1964-66.

Here's the key point that eludes some of the most vociferous Catholics, including the caterwauling Bishops (who ought to know better): As pointed out by Theologian Hans Kung ('Infallible?') the birth control proscription comes from the Church's TEACHING OFFICE or Magisterium, not ex cathedra or "from the chair of St. Peter".

If a ruling comes from the Magisterium or teaching office, then it isn't binding! It isn't binding on Catholics and it isn't binding on those they would serve, say in their hospitals (patients who need contraceptives) or instututions (workers there, who aren't even Catholics!)

There are even more suspect moral overtones on this than meet the eye. For example, the majority of Catholics are probably totally unaware that the Church DID ALLOW abortions to be performed up until the third trimester, and until 1869. John Connery, S.J. a leading historian of the Church’s teaching on abortion, has been quoted as citing a long standing collection of Canon Law that “it was not until 1869 that abortion for any reason became grounds for excommunication” (See, e.g. Druyan and Sagan, PARADE, April 22, 1990). At the time the lack of dogmatic ruling created such furore that conservatives in the Church pushed for a higher dogma that would transcend the wishy-washy Magisterium ruling. They thereby succeeded in foisting the very late (1870) doctrine of "infallibility" which was more a rear guard action -addition to protect the Church from any possible subsequent alterations of moral teaching.

Thus, if a ruling came "ex cathedra" and applied to faith or morals, the Pope couldn't make a mistake. (Of course, as the “papal infallibility” doctrine was only first proclaimed in 1870, it conveniently didn't apply to rulings made earlier such as the ones on abortions allowed up to the 3rd trimester). But the larger point here is that clearly, the fact the Church already changed its doctrine on abortion shows its moral positions are malleable and not set in stone!

What this means is that the Church itself cannot be free of errors in faith or morals if it has already made one that was since covered up. Obviously, if you can alter a position, it is hardly "absolute". In his marvelous book, Infallible?, Hans Kung observes (p. 143):

" no one, neither Vatican I, nor Vatican II, nor the textbook theologians, has shown that the Church - its leadership or its theology - is able to put forward propositions which inherently
cannot be erroneous."

Which brings up the question: How will the Catholic bishops - who so impetuously condemned pro-abortion candidate voters to Hell in 2004 and 2008- reconcile that with the Church’s stance pre-1869?

Now let's look at the piffle from some of the hysterical, hyperventilating pundits such as Peggy Noonan (WSJ today, 'A Battle The President Can't Win', p. A15). She claims:

"The Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can't be Catholic anymore".

Which is total rubbish. Of course they can be Catholic and indeed, can expect THEIR members to adhere to THEIR teachings whether from the Magisterium or ex cathedra.

But the point missed by Noonan is that given the Church is funded by default via MY taxpayer dollars (since they don't have to pay taxes that I must) then I have to expect that if my wife or myself attends THEIR hospitals they will deliver the services WE need, not forbid us the ones they prohibit to their own flock! Thus, it serves no purpose to conflate the services the Affordable Care Act earmarks for secularists and non-Catholics (served by Catholic institutions like hospitals) with members of the Catholic Church - which is what Noonan and also Kathleen Parker ('The Cost of Conscience', Denver Post, today, p. 9B) have done.

In any case, as I already showed, the Obama Affordable Care Act merely enjoins these Catholic hospitals etc. to provide contraceptives if requested and contraception is not prohibited absolutely under the Magisterium. People can exercise choice! Indeed, forgotten amidst all the fervor and hubbub of these chattering conservos is that many Bishops since 1970 - when millions of Catholics became majorly disaffected by the anti-contraception stance - have advised parishioners to exercise their own moral choice in the matter.

Hence, the issue can't be as much of a biggie as Noonan proclaims, nor need Obama worry that "this is a battle he can't win." I happen to know many liberal Catholics and know most would not be so stupid as to revoke a vote for Obama over a morally optional issue that accordng to the Church's own doctrines insist isn't binding. They'd be stupid to do that!

Kathleen Parker is just as bad in her column, opining that:

"Essentially the new law forces them (Catholics) to forfeit their most fundamental beliefs or face prohibitive penalties- or close hospitals, schools and other charities"

Again, more bollocks! The law isn't demanding they "forfeit fundamental beliefs' because the issue doesn't concern those! NO one is being ordered to disbelieve in the doctrine of Transubstantiation (that claims the consecrated bread becomes the real body of Christ) which is a REAL fundamental belief, nor are Catholics being told to disown or reject Mary.

The issue concerns contraception provided to users of Catholic services who may not be Catholic at all.. And this contraception issue isn't fundamental as a core "belief" but rather an optional teaching from the Church's Magisterium which even Catholics are free to accept or reject (under their own exercise of conscience). As one priest told me before I finally left the Church ca. 1975: "You know you can stay if you want and just exercise your conscience. The prohibition against artificial contraception isn't binding, and you don't commit a mortal sin if you eschew it!"

Words for the wise, but you can bet that even more of the conservative chattering class will be humping and pumping this to try to fracture Obama's electoral coalition in the runup to November and get Catholics to break away. Stupidly--- I would add, because they've nothing to gain and everything to lose. Let's hope that more sane voices emerge to counter the nuttiness of the fruit cakes determined to try and make Obama a one -termer.