Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden is a “pro-choice Catholic.” This highlights a problem in the Catholic Church that won’t go away: the disconnect between the attitudes and behaviors of the people in the pews and official church doctrine.
What happens when the majority of Catholic decide to ignore Vatican doctrine? Let’s leave aside the abortion issue for now (and Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput’s views that Democrats simply don’t know Christianity if they insist on continuing to spin the Bible’s teachings on abortion).
Let’s talk about birth control. The church is against it, even if condoms would help stop the spread of AIDS in Africa and save thousands and maybe millions of lives. The Vatican’s medieval mentality on birth control is almost criminal, resulting in needless death and continued poverty for strict Catholic families in developing countries.
But the vast majority of American Catholic women, poll after poll reveal, use birth control. They know how the wrongheadedness of the church’s teaching, and I imagine one day, the Vatican will change course — as it has many times in the past 2,000 years long after science and more modern thinking revealed its old doctrine to be just plain wrong.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Iron Pol // Aug 28, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I’m not sure science can swing the Catholic church on the issue of birth control. The stance is based primarily on church history and a single verse in the Bible. It has very little to do with science.
I use the story of Lot and his wife leaving Sodom to explain why I think the stance on birth control is illogical. The “every sperm is sacred” theory comes from Onan when he disobeyed God and “spilled his seed” upon the ground. God killed him for that. The question is, did Onan die for “spilling his seed” or for disobeying God? Using the same logic, Catholics should be afraid to look back toward a city they are leaving. After all, Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back toward Sodom (or was it Gomorrah?).
But to be fair to the Catholic church, they don’t oppose birth control and family planning. They oppose artificial means of birth control, whether it be chemicals, dams, or abortions.
Good call, Bill, to seperate the two. Too many people try to link them.
2 Thranil // Aug 28, 2008 at 9:29 pm
“The Vatican’s medieval mentality on birth control is almost criminal”
This is the only thing I disagree with. It IS criminal… not ‘almost’.
3 Iron Pol // Aug 28, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Why criminal? Extra-Biblical I would accept. Logically questionable I would accept.
Criminal? Criminalizing religious viewpoints is a very large leap down a very slippery slope.
4 Drew // Sep 9, 2008 at 7:04 am
Im jumping in a little late I know, but just in case anyone is still paying attention…
IP, I know you are a laywer, so you are the perfect person to ask. What does the law say if you know something can save lives (condoms and HIV, in this case), but you use your considerable authority and influence (many people believe it or not listen to the Church and cisider them more important that human government and law) to withold that life saving information or product and somebody dies?
Is that criminal? I don’t know, honestly. Perhaps there is some confusion over jurisdiciton, Vatican, other countries, etc. Perhaps they cannot be prosecuted.
I know if I withold medical treatment for my kids adn they die I can (and should) be charged with child abuse, and that is a criminal offense.
Should the Church get a special dispensation that I am not eligible for? I know they do in many cases, taxes tops the list. But should they?
IMO the Church is behaving criminally. If not by some law, then in the eyes of the god they worship for sure. If they are in fact breaking no law, perhaps that is criminal as well, there should be some law somewhere.
But admittedly I view the Church in the same light as I view organized crime. Indeed I see very little difference, historically as well as contemporarily. (is that even a word?lol)
Anyway, I may be biased a bit.
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