What Women Have Lost! And Men Too.

So much has been lost in the Church and in our culture, much of it since Vatican II. The sixties was a particularly disastrous decade both within and outside the Church. The sexual revolution with the invention of "the pill" made eliminating babies as easy as popping a pill every day - at least when it worked as it was meant to work. Originally intended for married couples, its use quickly devolved into recreational sex and one night stands: no responsibility, no complications, no babies. 

And the Church was silent. It was about fifteen years after Humanae Vitae, the encyclical that condemned contraception that I first heard a sermon on the papal document. I went out of church and congratulated and thanked the priest. Today, polls show that most Catholic women, about 87%, use a form of artificial birth control to avoid pregnancy.

The Easy Road to Hell

In a comment on a previous post, our editor, Mary Ann said referring to past generations, “Life was harder but it was healthier. Hard work taught valuable lessons and kept kids out of trouble.”

WOW!  That statement says a LOT.

What made life healthier?  Life was not nearly so infected with vulgar temptations on a nonstop basis.  Our government had not deprived us of the “food for thought” we all need in our lives----symbols of faith such as stone tablets with the Ten Commandments on them at our court houses,

prayer in schools, songs in music classes that echoed what we heard in church, and elected leaders who were not afraid to give credit to the Creator for the blessings we have, knowing it is from the Almighty that all things come.  Mothers were doing what mothers do best and fathers were providing for and protecting them.  Kids were reared by their parents and not the state.  They belonged to and were the responsibility of their parents and not “the village.”  Those same parents had the best interest of the child in mind and not the needs of society at large, run by men that see in youth only a future work force or a passive electorate and not a little soul in need of salvation. 

When it comes to “hard work and valuable lessons” one wonders today if the word hard has lost most of its meaning.  The Church teaches us that we should fast, but that’s hard and most resist doing it, or engage in it very seldom, and only when nearly forced to do so.  We want everything to be easy and consequently we have very little self-mastery.  When you have trouble understanding or begin to believe that doing what is hard is not worth the effort, you eventually look for the very wide path of least resistance. 

Amoris Laettia: The Vehicle for the Latest Assault by the Dissenters

Charlie Curran's still in the dissent saddle
 chortlinging, We'll get Humanae Vitae yet!

Remember back in 1968 when the encyclical on marriage, Humanae Vitae, was released affirming the sanctity of marriage and the marital embrace?

Remember the lavish full color booklets dioceses developed to spread the message to the Catholic faithful to help them understand the teaching of the Church and why contraception violated God's plan of love for the family? Remember all those beautiful sermons and conferences with priests and married couples eloquently expressing their appreciation for the document?

No?

You don't remember that?

Not at all?

Right! I don't either. All we heard was the sound of silence.

Happy Feast Day, Blessed Mother!

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is the perfect day to remember and celebrate Humanae Vitae which will be 50 years old next summer. Most readers probably know I'm referring to Pope Paul's encyclical on the sanctity of human life and marriage that reiterated the Catholic doctrine that a couple, in exercising their marital privilege, must never attack the act by deliberately rendering it sterile. The gift God gave married couples in "knowing" each other and becoming almost literally "one flesh" must respect both of God's purposes -- to unite the couple in love and to be open to the blessing of a child to the union if it be God's will.

In Humanae Vitae Pope Paul VI warned of the dangers of setting aside God's purpose for married love and all the horrors he described have come to pass: abortion, loss of respect for women, government coercion, etc.

As we honor Mary today, I want to share a bit from a talk by Malcolm Muggeridge on Humane Vitae which he gave in 1979. Even then, the disasters of contraception already loomed clearly on the horizon:

Monday Headlines and Action Items on Church Issues

1) The left is attacking Bishop Paprocki for upholding Catholic teaching on gender insanity. Don't just stand there, Catholics, do something to defend this courageous bishop!

Thank Bishop Thomas Paprocki who is being viciously attacked by the left for denying funerals to "married" gays.

After you sign the petition, why not send a direct message or call. Contact information for the diocese is here.  I just sent an email thanking the bishop and telling him I'm having a Mass said for him. I also signed the petition. Let's all offer a rosary today for this real shepherd! Sadly, we don't have that many.

Great Post on Amoris Laetitita Quoting a Dissenter who Pegs It!

St. Ann teaching Mary

But, as the author says, the dissenter rejoices, he himself is in mourning. Me too and other faithful Catholics I know. So much of the apostolic exhortation is beautiful, but like a beautiful dinner that's been poisoned, it will sicken the flock, not nourish it.

I completely agree with James Carroll, the dissenter, that the pope has just brought the practice of pastoral dissent out of the shadows. Those of us who survived the sixties all knew about the dissent to Humanae Vitae: in the confessional, through the conspiracy of silence in the pulpit, through the failure to teach.

For those of us who lived those days it's deja vu. Read the article. It puts things in sad perspective. Keep the faith no matter what those around you are doing. Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.

James Carroll (Yes THAT James Carroll) Pens the Best Analysis Yet of Amoris Laetitia and It's Relation to Post Vatican II Catholicism

Contraception: The Deadly Compromise between Politics and the Pro-Life Movement

I remember forty years ago when National Right to Life (NRLC) wouldn't say one word about contraception. Thinking with the world's mind, the leaders did not want to rock the boat and risk losing Protestant support. They also wouldn't cover the rescue movement. That's one reason a friend of mine, who was the editor of NRLC News in the late 70s, quit. The powers that be tied his hands and censored the news. That's why I've never contributed a cent to NRLC. They just don't get it.

The first comment to this Vortex from "Old Man in Ohio" is a sobering one:

Natural Family Planning is Good News for Women!

My husband and I taught NFP at Providence Hospital in Washiington, D.C. for about fifteen years. We met many couples who were having fertility problems and were looking for help to achieve a pregnancy. We were thrilled when they did. One client told me the fertility specialist asked her where she "learned to chart like that." Another couple who came to our class ended up training to be teachers themselves. He was a D.C. minister and told his wife if they came and got an anti-baby message they were outa there. (Must have heard about Margaret Sanger's plan to eliminate blacks.) They came up to us after class and said they were sold when we introduced ourselves, said we had five children, and emphasized that NFP was about "planning to HAVE families."

Most people assume they are as fertile as rabbits,

It's Contraception, Stupid! It's Fatal to the Faith!

Yup, a root cause of our crumbling society is contraception. Mike Voris pegs it. All the sexual deviancies have their foundation in the rejection of the truth that sexual union and procreation are inextricably connected and cannot be separated without creating a spiritual explosion equivalent to splitting the atom.

Are you unsure about contraception? Read both Humanae Vitae and Fr.John Hardon's article Contraception: Fatal to the Faith. If you are practicing contraception you are in danger of hell. If you are promoting contraception to others, you are in danger of hell. Medical professionals who prescribe and dispense contraceptives are in danger of hell. That is the hard truth. We will be marching on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, but Roe was an aftershock of the real earthquake, Griswold v. Connecticut. I remember a statement from one of my Natural Family Planning (NFP) students. "I was on the way to hell, and NFP saved my life." God made us in a way that allows the spacing of children. The Church teaches that couples may use NFP for serious reasons. When I had cancer and was on chemotherapy at age 39, NFP allowed my husband and me to comfort each other in sexual intimacy without fearing we would endanger a child's life. NFP and the Church's teaching on marriage and sexuality are not punishments; they are part of the good news. Embrace Church teaching on this issue that is so central to who we are as body/spirit persons. Like my young friend realized, the freedom you experience is life and soul-saving!

It's a Sad Day - Especially for Babies

Birth Control Mandate Kicks in Today

One of the saddest things about the contraceptive mandate is the fact that it is the fruit of the bishops failure to proclaim Humanae Vitae. When the watchmen refuse to blow the trumpet....

The Time Has Come: Proclaim Humanae Vitae

Okay, Bishops, it's time. For over 40 years, since the Pill appeared on the scene and helped spark the sexual revolution, Catholic truth about marriage and sexuality has been muzzled or muffled in a self-imposed silence. How many pewsitters EVER hear a sermon about openness to life in marriage? Despite the fact that over 90% of Catholic married couples are contracepting, timidity and cowardice rule in the pulpit.

Contraception is gravely evil and yet many Catholics embrace the sin and continue to approach the altar rail committing a sacrilege every time they receive Communion. And, for the most part, no one says a word. It's a tragedy and a betrayal. We need to hear the truth from our clergy. The obligation of the Church is to proclaim the truth. And in our sexually debased culture that obligation is crucial to saving souls.

Why is contraception wrong? Because it takes God's gift of sexuality and deliberately destroys it. If someone gave you a car and you said, well I love the car but I hate that dirty engine and ripped it out, would the car run?

NARAL Illustrates Obama's Evil

Obama is such a good buddy of the pro-aborts, and they love to affirm his greatness as their candidate. Read NARAL's press release here. Any Catholic who supports Obama is clearly in danger of losing his soul. You can't say you are pro-life and then vote for someone who not only makes abortion a sacrament, but is determined to force everyone to pay to kill children (all chemical birth control prevents implantation all or part of the time). Many Catholics see the evil of killing children, but have not recognized the evil of rejecting God's plan for human sexuality. Contraception is a grave moral evil that makes man and woman little gods who usurp God's authority over life itself. "If your plan is for a child, God, we will not serve!"

What we are seeing here is the consequence of the failure of our Church leaders to promulgate Humanae Vitae. Abortion is the poisonous plant but contraception is the taproot. Until we have serious and continuing catechesis against contraception, the evil will continue to grow. If you have never read Pope Paul VI's encylical, read it. He predicted the evils that would come in the wake of a culture succumbing to the siren song of contraception. After you read it, encourage your bishop and your pastors to preach it. The hour is late!

A View of the Brave New World from One of its Architects

A Terrifying Future for Female Fertility - by the man who created the pill

Three men are considered the "fathers" of the birth control pill. Gregory Pincus, research director of the Worcestire Foundation, Dr. Min-Chueh Chang, the foundation's senior scientist, and Dr. John Rock, an Ob-Gyn, who oversaw the first clinical trial. In this article, however, Dr. Carl Djerassi, claims his role as the pill's developer and obviously is proud of his part in it. This is the first I've read about him, but I'm sure research was going on in many places at the time. Serle had already developed a progesterone pill that was just sitting on the research shelf.

Pincus was the zealous man behind the research who teamed up with Margaret Sanger when the pharmaceutical firm backing his project pulled out. Sanger supported his work but, more importantly, brought in a rich sugar mommy as well, Katharine Dexter McCormick. As a research scientist Gregory Pincus had no human guinea pigs for his experiments so he encouraged a well-known Catholic Ob-Gyn, Dr. John Rock, to run the intial clinical trial of 50 women through his medical practice. Rock was known as a devout Catholic and daily communicant. Margaret Sanger who was fiercely anti-Catholic, nevertheless, was shrewd enough to realize the benefit of having a Catholic working to promote the pill. She reportedly said of him, "Being a good Roman Catholic and as handsome as a god...He can just get away with anything." And Rock became one of the pill's strongest devotees. He spent years trying to get the Church to approve it even writing a book, The Time has Come.

When Humanae Vitae came out, he stopped attending Mass. He died of a heart attack in 1984. I don't know whether Rock remained estranged from the Church or recognized the part the pill played in the sexual revolution and the moral decline of the culture. I pray for him and his confreres. Shortly after the pill was approved, Pincus died of a rare blood disease from exposure to toxic drugs in the lab, an ironically fitting end for someone who killed and injured so many women.

As for Carl Djerassi's whose article inspired this post, he sounds like a man in great need of prayer, although I wonder whether prayer can penetrate such a demeanor of pride and arrogance. But as the old adage says, "Where there's life, there's hope!"

For more on the history of the pill see:

The Pill by PBS

Liberal Bias of the '60s Papal Birth Control Commission Revealed in Released Documents

Our Sunday Visitor has an extensive report in their latest issue about the Birth Control Commission that advised Pope Paul VI prior to the release of Humanae Vitae in 1968. Theologian Germain Grisez has released commission documents. See here.  Turns out the members were biased in favor of approving contraception. No surprise really; it's been know for years. But now those interested in the history of how we got where we are today with rampant dissent, "Catholic" groups undermining sexual morality, etc. can find documented answers right here among the "respected" clerical experts, members of the commission lobbying for contraception. Among the 19 priest theologians participating only three voted against changing Church teaching. Three abstained. The others believed the doctrine on contraception was "reformable." Among the bishops voting for it were Archbishop John Deardon who hosted the first Call to Action convention in Detroit in 1976 which was taken over by liberals and became the impetus for the radical dissent group and Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, bishop of Baltimore and a fan and supporter of pro-abortion Jesuit Fr. Robert Drinan. Archbishop Leo Binz of St. Paul, with whom I'm unfamiliar, voted that contraception is always morally wrong. Good to know there was at least one sensible bishop in the group.

I have a personal interest in the commission because one of the two married couples involved were Pat and Patty Crowley, founders of Christian Family Movement to which my husband and I belonged for many years. Patty and I both graduated from Trinity College in Washington, D.C. although she was decades ahead of me. After Pat's death, Patty became the "grandmother" of Call to Action and helped advance their heretical views on on contraception, abortion, homosexuality and lesbianism, women's ordination, etc. ad nauseum. Patty tried to block pro-life resolutions I wrote for our CFM group at the request of the national office which were introduced at a CFM Convention in the 1970s. Fortunately, the married couples attending had more sense than to be in awe of this "icon" of liberalism who was lobbying to defeat resolutions upholding the sanctity of human life that specifically condemned abortion and euthanasia.

Reading these commision documents, I expect to learn a lot more about the turbulent period of Church history that has so disfigured the bride of Christ. Those who used Vatican II to effect radical changes in liturgy and worship were also striving to radically change Catholic moral teachings. That they had so much help from those who should have been defending the faith is a tragedy.

We owe Germain Grisez a debt of gratitude for releasing these documents. You can also read a brief biography of Fr. John Ford, S.J., one of the three theologians upholding the Church's traditional view of marriage and the openness to life. He and Grisez, at the request of Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, prepared a response to the commission's final report advocating acceptance of contraception. We owe these men a tremendous debt of gratitude.

The fight over contraception is one more proof that the Holy Spirit guides the Church and the gates of hell assisted by Catholic theologians and unfaithful laity will never prevail against her.

Vatican Damage Control on Pope's Condom Statement

It's a fact of life that exceptional cases make bad law. They also make bad spiritual generalizations. Unfortunately, those with an agenda will use the pope's recent statement about an exceptional, individual situation to make broad generalizations that aren't true. It's already happening with headlines about the pope approving condoms for gays. And the inevitable question is, "Well, if gay prostitutes can use condoms to prevent AIDS, why not married couples where one spouse has AIDS? or fornicating couples, for that matter?" And what about other incurable STDs like herpes? 

There are plenty of difficult sexual situations that invite lowering the moral bar. Can the elderly married couple dealing with erectile dysfunction practice mutual masturbation? How about a married couple late in pregnancy? Obviously, there's no contraceptive intention in either case.  What if the woman is still in her child-bearing years but her husband can't perform? Do they have to live in a Josephite marriage with no hands-on relations? I'm sure there are plenty of wounded vets who would like to know.

The pope's comment opens a huge can of wiggling worms in sexual matters. And the irony is that it was absolutely unnecessary. Does anyone really believe AIDS-infected gay prostitutes care what the pope thinks? Do they need his permission to use condoms to protect their partners? Unfortunately, the world will see the pope lining up with Planned Parenthood and gay activist groups urging "safer sex."

To be honest, I'm in mourning. I've spent most of my adult life defending Church teaching on Humanae Vitae, and I will continue to do so. But I feel like the pope just made it a lot harder. Here's what I said in a comment on an article at LifeSiteNews today. The author was "explaining" that the pope was talking about sodomy not normal sex, but it still left me scratching my head:

So let me get this straight. An AIDS infected homosexual engaging in gay prostitution is showing his moral concern for himself or his partner by using a condom while he commits sodomy; but a married couple where one is infected with AIDS is committing a mortal sin of contraception? Or is it only if the couple can potentially become pregnant? Are the post menopausal married woman and her husband allowed to use condoms to prevent spread of disease?
It seems to me that the pope’s statement absolutely undermines the Church’s teaching on contraception. If the infected sodomite is to be seen as exercising concern for the other by using a condom, how can the infected married couple not be seen in the same light? Or is their marital act with a condom, because of the contraceptive aspect, now seen as more immoral than sodomy with a condom that shows the gay couple’s concern for one another. I’m baffled and heartbroken.

As someone who’s spent a lifetime defending Humanae Vitae, I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me. I feel like I’m on the wrong side of the looking glass at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

The Vatican knows the pope's comment created a firestorm and they've gone into damage control mode. [See Vatican Rushes to Clarify Pope's Comments in Book ] What the fallout of this imprudent papal comment will be on the Church remains to be seen. Please pray for the pope and our poor suffering Church. And I'd appreciate a few prayers for myself as well. It's hard enough to fight those coming straight at you. But it's doubly hard when you have to watch your back.

You Can't Fool Mother Nature: i.e., Pope Paul VI was right

Pope Paul VI was a prophet when he predicted the negative effects of artificial birth control. Particulary on target were his statements about the evil effects on the relationships between men and women:

Another thing to be dreaded is that men who have come to take contraceptive practices for granted, will lose all sense of reverence for women. With no heed for their physical or mental balance, they will make them mere instruments of their lust. No longer will women be looked up to by men as companions to whom they owe love and respect.

It isn't just relationships that have been poisoned, however. Women are paying the price for their "reproductive freedom" in their own bodies. Hormonal birth control is a woman's daily dose of poison. She may not die of it today, but the damage to her body is irrevocable and the increase in the likelihood she'll die of breast or other form of cancer is significant. Who really benefits from women "controlling their bodies?" Rapacious men who want the enjoyment of sex without any of the responsibility. They used to have to pay hookers to get it. Now they just "hook up."

The dangers to women from chemical birth control are well known and have been for years, but the unpopular truth has been suppressed. The government medical community aids and abets the silence and enables the exploitation of women, especially teens. Approving over the counter sale of the morning after bill, which contains a mega-dose of hormones, ensures that young women will suffer serious health consequences in the future. How many times will young girls, encouraged by their boyfriends, resort to the pill during their teen years? How many will die of breast cancer before they're 50?

Who cares after all? Women have always been seen as sex objects by immoral and irresponsible men. The playboy's greatest coup was convincing women that to be equal to men they needed to be equally irresponsible. But women are the ones who pay the biggest price for their so-called freedom.

Read Humanae Vitae and see all the prophecies that have come to pass since its release: loss of respect for women, more infidelity, government using birth control and abortion against their people, more divorce and breakdown of the marital bond. There are plenty of problems in the Catholic Church because, while it's an institution founded by Christ, he uses men and some of them are Judases. Nevertheless, the fullness of truth is in her doctrine whether anyone follows it or not.

Dangers of chemical birth control

Wake up!

Spitzenpopper just pointed me to a great blog called Old Jarhead written by a Vietnam Vet named Robert Hall. His blog post "I'm Tired" has been all over the internet and I'm sure lots of people can identify with the views he expresses there. Sick and tired might be more accurate.

I'm tired too. I'm especially tired of fighting with people who should be on our side: Catholics who prefer eating cafeteria style to eating at the rich banquet of doctrinal truth, of a hierarchy apparently more interested in protecting the institution than the flock, of so-called Catholic schools that feature "queer" film festivals, heretical speakers, and snide attacks on those who object. I'm tired of milquetoast, feel-good homilies that portray God as the King of Candyland and CCD programs modeled on coloring activity books.

So I'm rebelling. I will not be a mindless pew sitter quietly cooperating with the pay, pray, and obey mentality. I will spend every day studying the faith and I will share it with my children and grandchildren and anyone else who will listen. I will urge the laity to act like grownups by taking responsibility for their own faith development. If you don't have a Catechism of the Catholic Church on your bookshelf, get one. And read it. If you have a grandchild being baptized, study the section on baptism. Ditto for first Communion and Confirmation. If you've rejected Humanae Vitae without ever reading it I challenge you to study it. Pope Paul VI was a prophet.

A great way to fight fatique is to exercise - so let's all exercise those Catholic brain cells. That's fundamental. From there we can be salt and light to our poor country which is rapidly losing its soul.

Wake up! There's no time to be tired. You're a soldier in the Army of Christ fighting for the faith, not a community organizer collecting dead men's votes.

Gays Outraged at the Pope

The gays are furious with the pope for speaking the truth recently. An unofficial translation of his statement was provided by the coadjutor bishop of Lancaster, England. Here's what Pope Benedict said:

"Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Credo, the Church cannot and should not confine itself to passing on the message of salvation alone. It has a responsibility for the created order and ought to make this responsibility prevail, even in public. And in so doing, it ought to safeguard not only the earth, water, and air as gifts of creation, belonging to everyone. It ought also to protect man against the destruction of himself. What is necessary is a kind of ecology of man, understood in the correct sense. When the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman and asks that this order of creation be respected, it is not the result of an outdated metaphysic. It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation, the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God. That which is often expressed and understood by the term ‘gender;, results finally in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator. Man wishes to act alone and to dispose ever and exclusively of that alone which concerns him. But in this way he is living contrary to the truth, he is living contrary to the Spirit Creator. The tropical forests are deserving, yes, of our protection, but man merits no less than the creature, in which there is written a message which does not mean a contradiction of our liberty, but its condition. The great Scholastic theologians have characterized matrimony, the life-long bond between man and woman, as a sacrament of creation, instituted by the Creator himself and which Christ-- without modifying the message of creation-- has incorporated into the history of his covenant with mankind. This forms part of the message that the Church must recover the witness in favour of the Spirit Creator present in nature in its entirety and in a particular way in the nature of man, created in the image of God. Beginning from this perspective, it would be beneficial to read again the Encyclical Humanae Vitae: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against sexuality as a consumer entity, the future as opposed to the exclusive pretext of the present, and the nature of man against its manipulation."

The main issues as I see them are:

1) The Church has an obligation to publicly proclaim the truth about the created order including God's creation of humanity as man and woman. Devaluation of this truth leads to the self-destruction of man.

2) We must protect the physical earth but even more so protect man from his own worst instincts. (Implied here is the reality of original and personal sin which destroy man's integrity and make him an enemy of himself.)

3) The terminology of "gender" is an attempt by man to make up his own theology and be his own God.

4) Matrimony is the "sacrament of creation" that Christ made part of his covenant with mankind. Our liberty is conditioned on the correct understanding of this truth.

5) Humanae Vitae defended true love against the view of sex as a consumer item to be manipulated by every fad and perversion of the age.

Reading the pope's words, it's not hard to see why gay drawers are tied in knots. How dare the pope affirm marriage between a man and woman and imply that failure to recognize the creation by God of man and woman (not a panoply of disparate combinations) leads to the "self-destruction of man." Beyond that to imply gender confusion is just as damaging to the earth as the destruction of the rain forests - what a low blow!

Well, rage against the Vicar of Christ when he speaks the truth illustrates that he must be doing something right. So raise a toast to the pope and pray for his continued courage to bear prophetic witness to a world gone mad. And don't be afraid to imitate him by speaking the truth in love even when they stone you for it.

Fr. Corapi describes AMERICA'S DEATH WISH!

Listen to this fifteen minute teaching on the disintegration of American culture. If you love our country, listen to Father's words, take them to heart, and begin to transform your own family, your parish and your precinct, your diocese and your county. Fight for the faith! How to begin? Join in the 40 Days for Life Campaign to start. If there is no activity in a city near you, join in spirit. Go to daily Mass and raise up your prayers with all those fighting for the unborn. We cannot save our country, but God through the intercession of the Blessed Mother will. Devote yourself to the message of Fatima. Put on the armour of God and wield the sword of the spirit, the word of God through Holy Scripture. On this feast of the guardian angels join your prayers with all the angels and saints for our poor country and our poor world.