A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Archbishop Cordileone on the Mandate, NFP August 21, 2012

Apparently, this editorial ran in the newspaper of the Diocese of Oakland.  It is part of a series penned by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone on the HHS Mandate, the evil of contraception, and the alternative of Natural Family Planning (NFP).  He even uses the phrase “grave reasons” for using NFP! 

Time to dispel myths around NFP 
By Most Rev. Salvatore J. CordileoneThis year the question of religious liberty has emerged as a central issue far beyond what any of us would have imagined just a couple of years ago. I am grateful to all of our pastors who promoted the US bishops’ call for the “Fortnight for Freedom” and have continued to educate our people on this very important challenge to us at this time, and for all of our people who have been actively engaged in advocating for this God-given and constitutional right of ours.

Of course, it is the mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services that all employer-provided insurance coverage include contraception, with only the narrowest of exceptions for religious organizations, that has brought this issue to the fore with fever-pitch intensity. This, though, is only the latest and most blatant challenge in the area of freedom of the exercise of religion and of conscience.

Surveys that ask people their opinion on whether insurance providers should include contraception in their coverage are missing the point. We would certainly hear different results if, instead, the pollsters asked: “Who should decide for a religious organization what its mission is, the religious organization itself or the government?”; “Who should define for a religious organization the people to whom it is to extend health, education and social services, the religious organization itself or the government?”; “Who should define for a religious organization who its members are, the religious organization itself or the government?”

While the leadership of faith communities throughout the country has rightly kept the focus on religious liberty and freedom of conscience, nonetheless, the HHS mandate has put the Church’s teaching on responsible parenthood and the legitimate regulation of birth front and center.

Another question lurking in the background in this whole debate is this: Why would the government require, for the sake of women’s health, insurance coverage of a medication the World Health Organization classifies as a Class 1 carcinogen? Yet, this is exactly what the WHO has done after dozens of studies over a period of many years have demonstrated a link between hormonal contraceptives and increased risk of breast and cervical cancer (as well as heart disease) in women (cf.www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/ageing/cocs_hrt_statement.pdf) [Way to go Archbishop Cordileone!]

……..

This HHS mandate controversy, then, calls us to take advantage of this moment to educate our people on all the various aspects of the Church’s teaching that, for grave reasons,[And these grave reasons are defined in Casti Connubii, Pope Pius XI’s fantastic encyclical on marriage, the marital act, and openness to life, and Venerable Pope Pius XII’s elocution to the Italian midwives from 1954] a married couple may have recourse to the infertile periods of the woman’s cycle in order to delay the begetting of new offspring. Sadly, there is much ignorance about natural family planning,[on both sides – both in opposition to, and in favor of.  At times, NFP promoters go a bit overboard in promoting NFP as a lifelong contraception replacement and/or a means to limit one’s children to some small, predetermined number, irrespective of any “grave reasons.”] even among medical professionals, and many people make very serious decisions about their own lives and those of others out of this ignorance.

We are sometimes even mocked for our belief by those who do not understand it, and, likely, don’t want to, despite the fact that the physical practice of NFP is thoroughly based on science. We will, then, seize this opportunity in The Catholic Voice by publishing a series of articles, beginning with this issue, about the multi-faceted reality of Natural Family Planning and the Church’s teaching on responsible parenthood, authored by people with expertise in these respective areas pertaining to this teaching of the Church….

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The linked articles are pretty good, although I sense some latent hostility towards large families or total openness to life in one of the NFP promoters quoted.  Still, that’s a far cry from the constant cultural din shouting that putting poisons into your body (and the environment) or mutilating your body is the responsible way to act.

Again, my friend Steve B’s essay also covers the Church’s view on contraception and the illogic of using it.  Because this entire “gay marriage” movement would never have happened had not heterosexual couples – otherwise Christian heterosexual couples – not so decoupled procreation from marriage through the rampant use of contraception.  Read the awesome essay———>>Catholic_Charity_not_Hate_V7