By JOE SIXPACK
There was a time in America when we called ourselves a Christian nation, and it was largely true. Many of us would like to think it’s still true that we are a Christian nation, but Christian commentators have been writing and preaching for decades that we are now living in a post-Christian era.
It only takes a cursory look at our society and culture to recognize these commentators are absolutely correct, and an unfortunate reality is that most of the cultural changes have been foisted upon us by government — that is, we the people.
In my lifetime, the changes have been dramatic. When I was a child, abortion was codified in criminal law as murder, and to perform or procure an abortion would land you in prison. Infanticide, which is still codified as murder, is now legal under the guise of partial-birth abortion. To be caught engaging in or soliciting homosexual sex would also get you a term in prison, but now homosexuals have a legal right to marry. Good grief! It’s a wonder God hasn’t treated us as He did Sodom and Gomorrah!
The saddest thing, to my way of thinking, is that we practicing Catholics have not escaped the paganizing of our culture unscathed. We stand up for life by protesting against and working for the repeal of abortion, yet many (perhaps most) of those same pro-lifers are just as guilty of infanticide as those procuring and performing abortion.
I’m referring to those who use artificial contraception. Why are those people guilty of infanticide? Because infanticide is defined as the unjust taking of the life of a child, and since life begins at conception a child exists at conception. Without exception, every artificial contraceptive (except so-called barrier methods, such as condoms — which are still immoral) has been proven to be an abortifacient, which means anyone who uses artificial contraceptives is guilty of procuring or performing an abortion — infanticide!
Admittedly, many Catholics have never been taught that contraception is immoral, and it’s sad that too many priests have told their parishioners who question the practice that it’s perfectly all right. (May God have mercy on those priests on the day of their judgment!) However, most Catholics know the Church teaches contraception is a mortal sin — a sin worthy of eternal damnation.
Still, the vast majority of those Catholics think the Church’s ban on contraception began with Pope Paul VI’s encyclical in 1968 called Humanae Vitae. They believe this because they also think modern chemical contraceptives are new to medical technology, but such thinking only demonstrates an ignorance of history.
Anthropologists have proven that contraception is of much greater antiquity than medical and social historians thought. Extant medical documents from China as far back as 2700 BC and Egypt from around 1850 BC describe contraceptive methods. So from the very first century of the Christian era, Catholics were faced with the option of following the more difficult Church teaching on procreative love or conforming to their pagan environment — much as is the case today.
Indeed, a pagan doctor from Ephesus named Soranos (AD 98-138) describes almost twenty medically approved methods of contraception. The premise used in his writings is that it’s safer, medically speaking, for the mother to prevent conception from taking place than to destroy the fetus in the womb.
The widespread practice of contraception in the first century of the Christian era was referred to euphemistically as “using magic” and “using drugs.” This is why the New Testament has prohibitions against magic (mageia) and drugs (pharmakeia) when listing things associated with sexual immorality (cf. Gal. 5:20; Rev. 21:8; 22:15, et alia). The Didache, meaning “teaching of the twelve,” is a first-century document written while St. John the Apostle was still alive, and it’s a treatise of Catholic teaching. It condemns both abortion and contraception.
Records from the first century tell us that people would first try “magic” to contracept, and if that was unsuccessful they would resort to Soranos’ methods. If his methods failed, women would resort to abortion. If abortion failed, they would use the Roman law that permitted infanticide — today known as partial-birth abortion.
So contraception is nothing new under the sun. Before the end of the second century, St. Clement of Alexandria wrote a catechism called Paidagogos. It reflects a very balanced treatment of marriage. In it, Clement defended marital intercourse as good and holy. He wrote that marital “love tends toward sexual relations by its very nature,” and “sometimes nature (menstrual cycles) denies them the opportunity to perform the marriage act so that they may be all the more desirable because it is delayed.” However, Clement went on to tell us that “to indulge in intercourse without intending children is to outrage nature, whom we should take as our instructor” (Paidagogos, II 9-10).
Over the next several centuries these teachings were re-emphasized by Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr, Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. They taught it was wrong because it imitated the evil maliciousness of the pagans, placed carnal pleasure before the love that wants children, profaned the sacredness of the generative act, denied God’s grace to sustain a married couple who practice continence, debauched the human person by making him/her subject to unnatural lust, an injustice against the laws of God (mortal sin), and that it is irrational to have sexual intercourse while excluding the desire to have children.
So none of the Church’s teachings on artificial contraception are new. The Church has always taught in perfect continuity what she teaches today, that the twofold purpose of marriage is unity and procreation — the giving of love and the giving of life. So when Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae in 1968, he was merely restating the Magisterial teaching of the Holy Catholic Church.
This teaching on contraception isn’t one that may be chosen or rejected like someone picking and choosing what to eat in a cafeteria. Being a cafeteria Christian is what Protestants did, which is why they broke away from the Church and became protest-ants…they protested Christ’s immutable truths. Any Catholic who rejects any Magisterial teaching of the Catholic Church (and the ban on contraception is just that) is not a Catholic, but rather a protestant.
In other words, when one rejects Magisterial Catholic teaching one places oneself outside the communion of the Catholic Church and is living in a state of mortal sin.
This is one of those times when I regret that What We Believe…Why We Believe is only two pages long. Not only could many pages be written on the topic of contraception and chaste married love, but entire books could be written on the subject. Indeed, many books have been written on the topic, and I would recommend that readers go to such sources as Natural Family Planning International, the Couple to Couple League, and Ignatius Press to learn as much as they can.
Failure to learn and practice natural family planning could have eternal consequences — the difference between eternity in Heaven and eternity in Hell. If you have a question or comment you can reach out to me through the “Ask Joe” page of JoeSixpackAnswers.com, or you can email me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
Hey, how would you like to see things like this article every week in your parish bulletin as an insert? You or your pastor can learn more about how to do that by emailing me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
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