The announced appointment of Msgr. Philippe Bordeyne, current rector of the Institut Catholique of Paris, as dean of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute is the last stage of the re-foundation carried out by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia and Pope Francis of this institution explicitly desired by St. John Paul II and founded by Carlo Caffarra, the future cardinal. That confirms this re-foundation is a real and true revolution.
The rich reflection of the Polish pope on the sexual body, marriage, and the family can be understood as a response to the failure of the reception of St. Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae vitae. Of course, this document does not touch upon the entirety of those themes, far from it, but it can be considered as the touchstone of the whole doctrine of the Church on sexuality and marriage. The contraceptive mentality that the encyclical opposes is in fact objectively the condition of possibility of the social legitimation of abortion, of the technologies of procreation, and of all LGBTQ demands.
Now, the re-foundation of the John Paul II Institute begun a few years ago by Archbishop Paglia, passing through the dismissal of most of its professors and the appointment of theologians such as Maurizio Chiodi and Gilfredo Marengo, clearly no longer takes Humanae vitae as touchstone. This document is now seen as too “abstract” and “theoretical”; the status accorded to it makes it only an ideal, even if it is described as “prophetic,” as if it were an ornament set on the mantel as decoration and no longer touched. The appointment of Philippe Bordeyne confirms this paradigm shift. It should be judged on the basis of the facts. Here is what he says in a text written on the occasion of the synods on the family of 2014 and 2015:
“The encyclical Humanae vitae teaches that natural methods of controlling fertility are the only legitimate ones. However, it must be recognized that the distance between the practice of the faithful and the teaching of the magisterium has grown even wider. Is it simple deafness to the calls of the Spirit or is it the fruit of a work of discernment and responsibility in Christian couples subjected to the pressure of new ways of life? The human sciences and the experience of couples teach us that the relationships between desire and pleasure are complex, eminently personal, and therefore variable according to the couples, and evolve over time and within the couple. Faced with the imperative moral duty to fight against the temptations of abortion, divorce, and the lack of generosity in the face of procreation, it would be reasonable to leave the discernment on birth control methods to the wisdom of couples, placing the emphasis on a moral and spiritual education that would make it possible to fight more effectively against temptations in a context that is often hostile to Christian anthropology….”
But now the circle is closed: the ecclesial spirit of the seventies has ended up conquering Rome! But why has the “distance” been so “widened” if not because most pastors, not having wanted to embrace this good news on birth control, identified as an unbearable burden, never really passed it on to those who had been entrusted to them? At that point why even speak of “deafness” to the calls of the Spirit as if His voice had actually reached the ears of the faithful?…
The above comes from an essay of Thibaud Collin’s cited in a March 16 story by Sandro Magister in L’Espresso (Italy).
Goodbye to a Christian understanding of the human person!
Goodbye to natural law.
Although Monsignor’s doctorate is in “anthropology of religions,” it seems he fails in Christian anthropology.
Should we leave the “discernment” of marriage to couples (be they unmarried, same sex, several in number, or inter-species)?
Should we leave the discernment of killing one’s children (preborn or born) to couples?
I presume the Monsignor is a celibate and he may not have studied biology, but, for “birth control,” not having sex works almost all the time.
Saint John Paul, pray for us! Saint Joseph, pray for us! Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
Lord, have mercy! Spare us, O Lord!
Using birth control is so destructive. To the couple. To the marriage. To the individuals. To the children that the couple allow to be conceived and born. And it is punished. And it is a never-ending punishment.
You never get back those children that you prevented from being conceived. And the day will come when all you want in the whole world is those children.
Using contraceptives is a grave sin. When done with full knowledge and full consent of the will, it is a mortal sin and it kills the life of grace in your soul.
You must repent, confess and receive absolution in sacramental confession.
You cannot receive Holy Communion if you are using birth control.
If you don’t want a baby, don’t have sex. Don’t use any method to prevent conception. Trust God.
Almighty God the Church has failed you and us, I pray your mercy has expired and is spent. I pray for your Holy Wrath so your Church may be obliterated of the sexual perverts and filth that currently occupy and corrupt. Lord have Justice
So, since attending to a Papal Encyclical is now optional, can we just ditch Amorous Letitia? Sauce. Goose. Gander. You know the drill.
Not Catholic nor Christian at all! Who are they kidding?? A true follower of Christ lovingly and unselfishly trusts, and gives their all in Faith and Morals to Our Lord. My mother, who met her true love and married right after finishing school at age 17, with parental permission– always fully accepted her marital responsibilities with faith and love, and my parents never, ever accepted wrongful “birth control.” “Have faith!” my mom said. “With a simple Faith in God, everything always works out right!” My mother so loved children! She prayed for six long years, to have her beloved firstborn– me! And mentioned that to me, with great love, several times, on her deathbed. Each of her children were her “beloved,” her heart’s treasures. My mom and dad had a happy marriage of nearly 70 years, and are now gone from this world.
“. The contraceptive mentality that the encyclical opposes is in fact objectively the condition of possibility of the social legitimation of abortion, of the technologies of procreation, and of all LGBTQ demands.” A brilliant insight! Humanae Vitae stood guard over the proposition that Grace was mediated through Nature. With Humanae Vitae relegated to the dustbin of history, we are left at the mercy of the wolves of pride and concupiscence.
Many today, do not have the understanding that the senses are delicate. There is a sensible limit to all things. God never intended Americans to gorge their senses ridiculously, making themselves sick, even losing the ability to appreciate and enjoy simple pleasures! One must be more delicate, taking reasonable, small bites of delicious food, savoring the flavors, and small sips of wine, savoring it, truly appreciating it, with pleasure and good manners! Same thing in Marriage! Marriage is a beautiful, delicate, holy gift of God– a Sacrament! Marriage is intended to bring forth God’s children from Heaven into the world! Marriage and Family are a School of Love. In daily prayer and discerning God’s Will for them, a Catholic couple can fulfill their Marriage Vows, and find true happiness on earth, and prepare for Eternal Life in Heaven.
Pope St. Paul VI predicted that the birth control pill would lead to infidelity in marriages, divorces, illegitimate births, lack of development of necessary self-control in married couples, venereal disease, abortion, among other things. He also stated, in “Humanae Vitae,” that the widespread use of contraceptives would lead to infidelity and moral decline, a vast abuse of power in public authorities, loss of morality, population control programs, loss of respect for children, for life and the life-giving, purpose of marriage in bringing forth children; loss of respect for women, and their delicacy, and unique needs, objectification of the body for pleasure, and loss of personal dignity and true married love; and a false belief that man “controls” his own body and has ultimate, unlimited dominion over it. I believe that Pope St. Paul VI was correct!
Humanae Vitae has been, more or less, ignored, Most Catholic women,at least one time practiced birth control, because they can’t rely on NFP.
Fine for those who can observe the regimen. But the invention of the ‘pill’ in the 1960s changed a lot of things.
The invention of pornography changed a lot of things too. You seem to want to say something but don’t have the courage to say exactly what you mean.
mikem, the invention of nuclear weapons changed a lot of things. So did inventions like the internet, identity theft, mustard gas, the credit card and in vitro fertilization. Not all things that create change are good.
Most Catholics ignore speed limit signs. Should we abolish speed laws?
And, your assertion that “most Catholic women” cannot rely on natural family planning is unsubstantiated. NFP today is quite reliable.
You can learn more about it at https://ccli.org/2017/09/5-nfp-myths-debunked/
That said, it does involve abstinence from sex at times. Is that somehow unreasonable?
We all forego sex for various reasons, including illness or business travel/military deployment. No one dies without sex.
But, “birth control” pills sometimes prevent the implantation of very young human persons into the uterine wall and are deadly for those young children.
I was just reading comments on the Internet about women who looked forward to having children, waited to have them until they were older maybe, and then they find that they hate being a parent. They feel really guilty but they want the life they had before.
So before contraception, abortion and sex and babies with multiple people, women had their children young when they still had energy and they weren’t judged for getting exasperated with motherhood. People understood that it was a lot of work (at that time childcare duties all fell to the woman), women helped each other out, older kids helped out, kids had chores. Parents did not exist to wait hand and foot on the child and to provide for their every desire.
Most Catholics have lied. It is a sin. Most Catholics have missed Sunday Mass. it is a sin. Most Catholics have done naughty things. Those things are still sins.
Because something is expedient does not make it right.
It is a temptation to use birth control but it is a grave sin.
Mike M the sexual chaos that has enveloped this culture is a direct result of the pill.
Mike….Some people relied on birth control and developed blood clots, breast cancer, phlebitis and other problems. When you separate the pro-creative and pro-unitive aspect of the marriage act, you’re saying to your spouse, I can only give you part of me. High divorce rate also. I believe NFP has a much lower rate of couples divorcing. And NFP if practiced right, is more effective in delaying childbearing than contraception would ever be, minus the medical problems which will ensue.
Humane Vitae is one of the key reasons people convert to the Catholic Church. They recongnize the wisdom and key to a truely passionate and free relationship that is expressed in a couples love making. With out the freedom and responsiblity of caring for this act in marrage and being always open to life it leave the act less than fulfilling and puts fear in the middle of a couple. St. John Paul the Great and St Paul the IV were totally right. This monsienors thought is intrinsically evil.
The destruction of this institution will lead to the destruction of the family and ultimately weaken and destroy the Church. We have already seen what artificial birth control has done to the men and women, not to mention children.
Hail Mary Full of Grace Kick Satin in the Face !
Msgr. Philippe Bordeyne: “It would be reasonable to leave the discernment on birth control methods to the wisdom of couples.”
A sentiment that expresses a desire to have a church made in the image of man.
For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears:
And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
According to Catholic teaching, there are 9 ways of being an accessory to another’s sin.
By counsel.
By command.
By consent.
By provocation.
By praise or flattery.
By concealment.
By partaking.
By silence.
By defense of the ill done.
I wonder if Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Lisa Murkowski and other Catholic politicians know this?
They are in all official Catholic prayer books. They should know these — that is if they even read and/or listen, and I do wonder about that. Joe Biden tried to read a Psalm and pronounced it “palm” instead of “salm”. Since every Ordinary Mass has at least one Psalm and every Extraordinary Mass has several, and three Psalms from the book of Psalms are included everyday in the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer book of the Church, he should have known better. He did not just stumble and correct himself; he did not know the correct pronunciation.
Talk about innocuous and confused. Would someone explain this sentence to me if it is possible? “The contraceptive mentality that the encyclical opposes is in fact objectively the condition of possibility of the social legitimation of abortion, of the technologies of procreation, and of all LGBTQ demands.”
Stan– very easy! The writer states that the encyclical makes clear, that those with an “anti-child,” “anti-procreative,” “contraceptive” mentality– thus rejecting Christ’s teachings– open the door, objectively enabling conditions of possibility — to all “anti-procreative,” “anti-child” sinful beliefs and actions– the social acceptance and legitimation of child-killing (abortion), technologies of procreation (IVF, test-tube babies) and of all LGBTQ demands– “free sex,” any disordered, sinful, pervert sex act. That is because the sex act (meant in Nature, made by God, to produce children)– and natural child-bearing– are unnaturally, wrongfully fractured– falsely, artificially separated– denying the reality of the conception of children. When you marry, the couple must accept the God-given gift of child-bearing, in the conjugal act, as a very important part of Marriage. You must be open to Life, to child-bearing. Otherwise– the Sacrament of Marriage is invalid, and the couple is committing a serious mortal sin. Hope that helps!
It means that widespread acceptance of birth control establishes an anti-child mindset and drives a wedge between the act of sexual intercourse and its natural biological consequence: conception. The illusion is that sex now has nothing to do with conception. Once society separates sexual intercourse from conception, it paves the way for the legitimation of abortion because the pregnancy was an unintended and undesired consequence of sex; so abort the baby since the point of the sexual activity was just the sex, not the child. It paves the way for technologies of procreation because creating a child is no longer inseparably connected with sexual intercourse. It paves the way for LGBTQ ideologies because sex is no longer inseparably connected with procreation, thus sexual activity does not have to be between a husband and wife, nor between a male and a female.
You’re good at this.
Sure, Stan.
The contraceptive mentality leads to abortion, reproductive “technologies” and demands to legitimize homosexual behavior and gender ideology.
Humanae Vitae opposes that.
When sex is separated from love and life, “stuff” happens.
And, something may’ve been lost in the translations from French into Italian and then into English.
I hope that helps.
The same kind of thinking that causes contraception (opposed in Humanae Vitae) also causes acceptance of abortion, IVF, sperm donation, and all of the demands that people with sexuality and gender identification differences are making to meet their desires.
How pathetic, and devastating to so many lost souls. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”.
If they don’t know what they’re doing, then it’s not a sin and there’s nothing to forgive. You can’t commit sin if you don’t know what you’re doing is evil. Sin is the deliberate choosing of evil.
Anonymous, Morton is quoting our Lord, Jesus. (See Luke 23:34.) Take it up with the Lord in your prayer time. Study it. Then, you’ll understand what it may mean.
(It’s similar to what Deacon Saint Stephen, the first martyr, prayed in Acts 7:60.)
We all pray, or at least should pray, that all sinners, including ourselves, repent of our sins and are forgiven by God.
Every Saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
(OK, for those heresy checking, not the Blessed Mother, but she is the only sinless non-Divine human person.)
Anonymous, there is both culpable and inculpable ignorance. Only the Lord knows if we are guilty of culpable ignorance (guilty of ignorance through our own fault). You can look the difference up on Catholic websites.
Goodbye humane vitae? I highly doubt it. However, the Church’s teachings regarding human sexuality and birth control are grounded in medieval thought. Most Catholics have rejected the teachings of the Church about birth control. Perhaps it’s time for an “update” and an assessment of the sensus fidelium.
Medieval Thought? you mean a time when the natural moral law was upheld, I think its time to update liberal thought into the ashbin of history along with any and all “progressive” ideas.
Along with contraceptive pills and abortions came rises in cancers.. Women were discouraged from breast feeding, which helps protect against breast cancer. Crohn’s disease, unheard of in breast feeding cultures, developed and rose in ours. Contraceptive pills and abortions contribute to cancers, blood clots, obesity, greater chances for later miscarriages and other medical problems (read labels). Promiscuity in men contributes to genital cancers. Certain sexual practices contribute to oral and throat cancers, besides all the other STD’s.
“We play, we pay.”
That is not how that works. Sin is what offends God.
Yep, Barney, we all know that when Jesus condemned sin, including sexual sin, he was walking around Europe somewhere during the Middle Ages. Maybe we should “update” to what nominal Catholics do. New “Catholic” teaching could include: rarely attend Mass, even more rarely go to Confession (I mean, they don’t sin), have abortions, view porn and commit adultery at about the same rate as the surrounding culture, don’t tithe, don’t care for the poor (expect the government to do that, paid for by your taxpaying neighbors), etc. “Most Catholics” have rejected a lot. Should we have a poll about the number of Persons in the Trinity?
Remember when God polled the Israelites before issuing the Ten Commandments?
And, sensus fidelium means sense of the “faithful.” I think you’re referring to the sensus nominal. Or, maybe the sensus lucius asinius.
How about sensus Jesuitorum?
Did you mean ineptias Jesuitorum?
Or, deliramentum Jesuitorum?
Or even sensus Pelosiae?
You can see why Latin is declining.