The Hermeneutic of Continuity

The Good Counsel blog Maria Stops Abortion carries a moving and important story about bad advice given by a doctor and by what was then the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council and one person's reason for gratitude that the advice was rejected.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino III assumed office on June 30 and the Philippine Bishops have wasted no time in calling on him not to promote a contraceptive mentality. In a previous post , I gave some of the figures from the UNAIDS report showing the enormous difference between the Philippines and Thailand, in numbers of people living with HIV. It is not surprising that the Philippine Bishops should be concerned to avoid the same disastrous policy in their country. Speaking on behalf of his brother bishops, Bishop Nereo Odchimar of Tandag, the president of the bishops’ conference, said: Among the many concerns, the media has shown a particular concern on sex education and reproductive health bills. There are no changes in the stand of the Church. Human life starts at conception, and conception takes place at the fertilization of the egg by the sperm. Human life is a gift of God and has to be respected and protected from conception till natural death. The Church is always conc...

The Good Counsel Network's blog Maria Stops Abortion reports on the faithful support of Bishop Thomas McMahon of Brentwood for the pro-life peaceful prayer vigils of the Helpers of God's Precious Infants outside the Marie Stopes Abortion facility at Buckhurst Hill, Essex. They point out that 100% of the Bishops of Brentwood attend while only 5% of priests do, and 1% of laity. So the invitation goes out to you to attend if you are in reach of Buckhurst Hill next Saturday 10 July. For more details, see: Bishop does 99% better than his lay faithful for praying at abortuary See also the important post looking at the supercilious question " Why do these girls keep getting pregnant? " One significant factor is the aggressive promotion of contraception. The Good Counsel Network deal on a daily basis with women in crisis because of an unwanted pregnancy. The vast majority of their clients have been using one or more forms of contraception.

If you want to stop the pesky babies, you can use condoms, the pill or whatever and hope that they work. If you want to stop other people from having babies (especially poor people in other parts of the world) you can fund condoms for them to offset your carbon footprint and feel really virtuous. See Pop Offsets . But hey! The babies are coming anyway: H/T Tom Peters at American Papist

The US Bishops' Conference Secretariat for Pro-Life activities has published a leaflet called Contraception: The Fine Print written by Susan Wills. It gives and honest and well documented account of the way in which the promotion of contraception leads to unintended pregnancies and a higher rate of sexually transmitted infections. The text concludes with a positive summary of the benefits of Natural Family Planning and, for single people, abstinence. The leaflet gives a good clear summary of the truth about the contraception that is promoted to young people as though it were the gateway to consequence-free sexual activity. Further information and references can be found at the "Contraception" page on the USCCB website. H/T Robert Colquhoun at Love Undefiled

National Review Online carries and article by Kathryn Jean Lopez: From Saint Peter’s Square to Harvard Square which has the subtitle "Media coverage of papal comments on AIDS in Africa is March madness." Lopez quotes Edward C. Green, the Director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Green said that the Pope was right and that the best evidence that we have supports his comments because condoms have not proved effective. Greater availability and use of condoms leads to higher, not lower HIV-infection rates. He explains: This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction ‘technology’ such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by ‘compensating’ or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology.” Or, as we might put it simply, the promotion of condoms leads to promiscuity. Green also said, I also not...

President Obama has moved swiftly to assert his pro-abortion policy. Yesterday, he celebrated the anniversary of Roe v Wade, asserting that the principle was that the Government should not intrude on family matters, and offering some high-flown rhetoric about women's rights - that our daughters should have "no limits on their dreams" - provided they have managed to be born, of course. As with all pro-abortion politicians, he asserts that he is keen to reduce the need for abortion - and says that this will be accomplished by providing more contraception. (See: Obama restates his commitment to abortion rights )  The White House website has now been updated, including a section on " Reproductive Choice " Supports a Woman's Right to Choose : President Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women's rights under Roe...

I am very impressed by the Inside Catholic website which carries a wealth of good articles - our own Auntie Joanna is featured there among the many US writers with an article reflecting on Britain and the 1950s . Another excellent article is Contraception and Conversion by David Mills. He begins by observing that progressive Catholics sometimes ask him why he converted - after all, the Episcopalian Church had everything: "married priests, women priests, homosexual priests, no doctrinal restrictions, evolving moral standards, and an official reason to be rude to the pope. What more could one want?" I found this section amusing: I will often say, in as cheery, boosterish, and cheerleading a voice as I can manage, "My wife and I discovered the truth of the Church's teaching on contraception, and after a while we just had to join the one body in the world that was telling the truth about it." That usually shuts down the conversation.

The Catholic News Agency has a story from the Philippines about a "Reproductive Health" bill. As ever, this is about preventing reproduction in unhealthy ways. The proponents apparently also want to establish a "two child policy". Archbishop Paciano Aniceto of the Archdiocese of San Fernando has some sensible things to say about it and does not think it will get very far. (Cf. Philippines archbishop optimistic ‘reproductive health’ bill will fail to pass ) It is notable that the Archbishop mentioned the huge profits that pharmaceutical companies stand to gain from the sale of contraceptives. They have been backing the bill of course. Across the South China Sea in Thailand, they have been selling and giving away millions of the things since the "100% Condom Use" programme was introduced by the Government in the early 1990s. The results can be judged from the  UNAIDS 2008 report  which estimates by country of the number of people living with HIV. The figures...

Catholic World News have an article titled Filipino bishops plan massive pro-life rally . Usually a news story like this would refer to a protest against abortion or perhaps euthanasia. This story refers to a demo next Friday 25 July, the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae , organised by the Philippino Bishops against a Government proposal to provide strong support for contraceptive use via its "Reproductive Health" bill. It is right to flag this as a "pro-life" demo because the widespread promotion of contraception is the biggest cause of abortion, as well as STIs, marital infidelity and what Pope Paul VI prophesied in Humanae Vitae , the "general lowering of morality." (n.17) I am taking the opportunity this Sunday in view of the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae , to preach about the encyclical, pointing out the new enthusiasm of many young people for the teaching of the Church which is "noble and sublime" in comparison to the tawdry and base p...