Letter to editor on Orthdox Russia mail list
This letter included in a mail list I receive touches, with some sensitivity I think, some of the difficulties between the Orthodox and RC, as well as some important areas of agreement.
Letters to the Editor
Bishop Hilarion’s recent statement calling for “a European Catholic-Orthodox Alliance” to be formed has provoked very great interest. It is worth reflecting exactly upon the Bishop’s words: “This alliance may enable European Catholics and Orthodox to fight together against secularism, liberalism and relativism prevailing in modern Europe, may help them to speak with one voice in addressing secular society, may provide for them an ample space where they will discuss modern issues and come to common positions.”
An alliance is not a union between Churches and Bishop Hilarion expressed himself quite clearly upon this point. However, whilst the matter of union between the Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church still has serious doctrinal obstacles, there is every reason to suppose that an alliance of the kind defined above will not only attain its purpose of resisting militant secularism and fighting for Christian values in the European context of legislation but also bring the two Churches closer, producing, as all practical co-operation does, an attitude of mutual sensitivity and respect. Practical co-operation is worth much more than agreed statements: the latter have an abstract quality, whilst the former is something that every one can grasp concretely.
More controversially Bishop Hilarion says: “By defending life, marriage and procreation, by struggling against legalization of contraception, abortion and euthanasia, against recognition of homosexual unions as equal to marital ones, against libertinage in all forms, Catholics and Orthodox are engaged in a battle for survival of the European civilization, of European peoples, of Europe as such.”
The mention of “contraception” along with abortion, euthanasia, & homosexual unions has provoked some adverse comment from the more middle-class wing of the Western Orthodox Church. The problem arises from memory of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae [1968], which declared contraception to be gravely sinful and from the crisis that this reassertion of the moral tradition of Roman Catholic doctrine produced in Europe, the UK and the USA. At the time of Paul VI’s pontificate there were great hopes amongst the more liberal circles of Roman Catholicism that the Church would relax its teaching in this specific area, in view of the majority report which gave a favourable answer to the question of whether contraception was licit.
Historically, the moment of Pope Paul VI’s rejection of the majority report, his re-examination of the whole question from the point of view of his own office and his final decision that there would be no change in the official Catholic Church teaching had some important consequences. Firstly, it produced a polarization between Vatican authority and Catholic dissent upon this issue. Hans Küng began his book Infallible? with a discussion of whether or not the encyclical was an infallible dogmatic definition, in view of the fact that the Roman Catholic Church believes that the Pope may be infallible “on faith and morals.” It now seems clear that the encyclical was not a pronouncement of the infallible teaching office of the Pope as was for example, quite unequivocally, Pope Pius XII’s definition in 1950 of the Assumption of the Mother of God “body and soul” into heaven. Secondly and simultaneously, it began an uncompromising battle with liberal attitudes concerning sexuality, the propaion of life and the preservation of innocent lives which is associated especially with the pontificate of John Paul II.
There is no reason why the Orthodox Church should associate itself with the authority-questions connected with the Roman Catholic Church’s position in the modern world, which have a history going back into the 19th century, when the Papacy reacted against modernity by developing further the unique and supernatural nature of its office. At the same time, the profoundly personal and humane nature of Pope John Paul’s struggle on behalf both of the dignity of every human life and the sacredness of the means by which human life comes into existence is something which, as Orthodox, we can identify ourselves. Moreover, Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae was much more than an assertion of authority. There are many general principles in this document which Orthodoxy shares. Pope Paul VI was well aware of the difficulty of living a Christian married life in the modern world; with regard to those who felt unable to comply with the ideal he upheld, Pope Paul did not condemn them but urged them to stay in the Church, to cess their shortcomings and to benefit from the grace provided by the sacraments. It is this sense that human beings are in constant need of grace that scandalised the optimistic liberalism of the late 1960s.
The Orthodox Church does not have a magisterium or official teaching body, by which definitions may be promulgated nor, of course, does it accord to any Patriarchate the authority as a centre of unity which the Roman See claims as having received from St Peter. We, therefore, do not have an official pronouncement upon the subject of contraception of comparable authority with Humanae Vitae. It does not follow from this that there are not aspects of the Roman Catholic teaching on the subject of contraception that the Orthodox Church does not share. The vital affinity which we have with the Roman Catholic Church is the high sense of the dignity of marriage as the sharing with God in the propagation of life. In that God has called those who are married to participate in the miracle of conception, He has called us to be like Him and to represent Him in the world as a sign to the nations. Consequently, as Orthodox we cannot be on the side of the active and often aggressive promulgation, through education, andrough public health-policies, of artificial contraception which interferes with the process by which human life comes to be. This is because these public policies are part of the very secularism which we resist, insisting in an unbalanced way upon contraception as the solution to conceptions described as “unwanted” and educating people into an outlook in which chastity has no part. In fact contraception has been advanced as a panacea but the many abortions show that it has not been effective in preventing the murders of innocents: whilst the programmes of education about contraception might have been expected to reduce the number of abortions, the reverse has been the case. Such programmes cannot substitute for the respect for the holiness of sex within marriage, which Christian teaching says can only be attained by the grace that enables us to overcome the disordered passions which all human beings suffer as a result of their fallen condition.
I conclude that, although we have reservations about how the contraception-issue has got mixed up with the absolutism of the papal office, we do not, on the other hand, recommend contraception as a positive good or a praiseworthy actualization of human freedom.
Stephen Thomas,
Southampton, UK
28 comments Tuesday 28 Jun 2005 | Jacobse | Orthodox Christianity, Politics |
It logically follows from the authors comments condemning contraception even among husbands and wives, that God requires married couples to procreate every time they are physically intimate.
Does the Orthodox church actually agree with this? Does our church actually teach that married couples cannot be intimate with each other unless they produce a child, even one they may not have the economic resources to care for properly? Do we really teach young people to remain abstinent until they get married, only to tell them after they get married, “fooled you, you still have to remain chaste unless you intend to procreate”?
Does our church require women to give up their careers and stay home barefoot and pregnant if they want to be intimate with their husbands, and require husbands to take on second and third jobs to feed all the new mouths in the family resulting from their desire to be intimate with their wives? Do we consider any decision by married couples to postpone the “miracle of conception” until the wife is ready to take a break from her career, and until the husband’s income reaches a level where she can afford to take that break, to be a sinful abomination and victory for “secularism” as well?
This is where the demands of Catholic doctrine (and hopefully not our own) are so unrealistic and oblivious to the economic pressures ordinary people face that lay people cannot help but become somewhat estranged from their church by them.
#1. Dean, it doesn’t follow logically at all. Your “logic” leads you to jump to an extreme (and absurd) conclusion, not the next logical step. What follows from the Catholic Church’s teaching against contraception practiced within the context of marriage is that every sexual union be open to life, with no artificial barriers. It is common sense, recognized as such and taught widely in the Catholic Church, that not every sexual union results in pregnancy. If this were not the case, then how can the approval and teaching of Natural Family Planning throughout the Church even be possible?
The Catholic Church’s teachings on contraception are very challenging, especially in this sex-obsessed modern culture. Nevertheless, they are morally correct and authoritative, because they point away from even the subtle use by married people of their partners as tools for their own selfish pleasure. They require the highest level of self-sacrificing respect and love of the human other to whom one is joined by God.
Interesting… that last sentence also describes Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Just as we cannot toy with the scandal of the cross, so we cannot toy with its implications in our “ordinary” lives, to treat human beings as brothers and sisters, not objects or tools.
Bill, I think you missed Dean’s point. Based on my understanding of Catholic moral teaching, NFP is merely a concession to weakness, not an ideal. After all, if you are intentionally engaging in sexual activity while simultaneously not desiring children (knowing that NFP is “97-99%” effective in avoiding conception), you’re thwarting the entire purpose of it and thus, are misusing sex entirely (even if it’s within marriage).
The Church will never say this, however, although it’s alluded to in the writings of some of the Church Fathers.
While I find the goal of refraining from using others as a cheap commodity to be a laudable one, I think things must be looked at slightly differently when marriage is involved. (just my opinion)
If you are thinking in terms of a family, natural family planning is open to the creation of new life. It rejects contraception on the grounds that artificial contraception erodes this openness on several important and sensitive levels of understanding.
#3. JamesK, I think you missed Dean’s point as well, although your articulation of your own view addresses the issue better than he did. Dean, as he often does, painted his picture in black and white, with no nuances: the evil old establishment versus the poor victimized people. But both of you still imply or state that the Catholic Church teaches that sex is only for procreation. This is not the case, as even a quick reading of Humanae Vitae proves. While the main point of sex is procreation, there is room as well for the couple to comfort and bless each other in their intimacy.
#3. JamesK, when you mention the Fathers, are you talking about Augustine? I read (I forget where) his claim that sexual pleasure is a consequence of the Fall, and that before the Fall Adam was able to consummate his physical union with Eve purely by strength of will. But then again, consider the man and his experience with Manicheism, against which he revolted (I think) rather too strongly. John Chrysostom wrote against Augustine’s kind of view, I believe, although I can’t reference a specific text. Anyone else?
Bill, I’m thinking mostly of Thomas Aquinas who saw sexual activity as valid not only when open to procreation in the physical sense but in the intellectual (or willful) sense as well. NFP may or may not contain the latter since the intention of the couple may be explicitly to NOT have children and to seek pleasure for its own sake. Based on my readings of his works, it would seem that he would see NFP as a conceivable source of venial sin being the purist that he is.
This may not be official Catholic teaching, of course, but it makes logical sense. Whether such an approach is attainable by most humans would be irrelevant to Aquinas.
A few years ago a RC friend of mine gave me a tape on Human sexuality that included excepts of Pope John Paul’s actual teaching and lectures on the subject as well as extrapolations from that teaching that were made by the person who produced the tape.
The vision of human sexuality presented on that tape was at once the most challenging and most affirming presentations I have ever heard or experienced. Explicitly stated was the idea that sexual intimacy within marriage was not just for procreation, but was also for strengthening the marriage bond against the world and even for the process of salvation. The caution was included that even within marriage sex can be wrongly, even sinfully used and care must be taken by the married couple to avoid falling into worldly, sinful attitudes regarding sex.
Certainly, like any other teaching the widespread understanding of the RCC’s teaching on human sexuality is undoubtedly quite spotty from person to person. I think, however, that Pope John Paul’s teaching on human sexuality offers significant evidence of the movement of the Roman Catholic Church away from the Augustine/Aquinas theological mold.
From an Orthodox POV Augustine and Aquinas did great deal of damage to the theological unity of the Church, particularly Aquinas. Their view of man, our inter-communion with God, and of God Himself is just not tenable for Orthodox.
The Pope’s teaching on human sexuality, the increased use of Byzantine style icons, and the return of the relics are three of the most encouraging signs to me that unity is possible.
Michael,
It’s way more fun to agree with you than to argue with you!
I’m completely on Board with Natural Family Planning. There is an Orthodox Natural Family Planning Association with a website if anyone is interested in this topic.
I think that Rome is way out in front of us on this one. I bet we’ll catch up and the Orthodox will eventually teach the same.
How ’bout this:
If sex in marriage without the possibility of procreation is acceptable, why should we be surprised by the idea of same sex marriages? There is a connection between contraception, promiscuity, abortion, divorce, same-sex marriage, and even euthenasia. We are living in a culture of death. The church must stand up for life.
All Christian Denominations used to condemn contraception unanimously and unilaterally. We don’t need to follow the protestants on this one. When you’re culture is sick, the church is going to have to be counter-cultural. If this means banding together to help families take care of their kids, we need to roll up our sleeves.
According to the RCC, NFP can be used to postpone kids, but only for serious reasons. Maintaining your golf habit and paying off your new SUV doesn’t count. Health concerns and really serious economic issues do count. You have to work this out on an individual basis with your father confessor.
NFP fits in so beautifully with Orthodox asceticism and Marriage. It’s good for marriages, too. The only stress comes from a lack of information. This is where clergy and lay organizations could really help out.
I’m not on board with NFP. Have there been any scientifically rigorous studies measuring the rate of prevention of pregnancy using natural family planning compared to other forms of contraception, such as condoms or oral contraceptives?
David – I really find your comments highly offensive and insulting. You suggest that sexual intimacy with my wife (with whom I was wed by an Orthodox Priest in the sacrament of marriage) not to produce children but to express our love for one another, is a cheap and sinful act of physical gratification no different than that of homosexuals having a one night stand. Who do you think you are to judge me like that? Get out of my bedroom!
Two thousand years ago most couples didn’t even have the technology to use NFP. Women got pregnant and gave birth to as many children as their bodies were able to sustain till they either died or started menopause. How is the NFP form of contraception more appropriate than certain forms of contraception such as a condom? There are so many pressures on marriages as it is… husbands and wives are over-worked, tired and stressed. If we follow the fast schedule in regard to relations and then we have to have follow another ovulation cycle schedule there are probably precious few days when one can have relations with one’s spouse. It certainly takes away the spontaneity in a marriage if one is looking at a couple of schedules to figure out when the correct “time” is to have relations. As a cradle Orthodox Christian who is married I have strong feelings that we should not follow strict rules in regard to contraception. That said, I am not in favor of forms of birth control that destroys life or is harmful to the health of women (IUD, the Pill, etc.) There are many cases when the Orthodox Church does not lay down hard and fast rules on certain subjects and I believe contraception is one of those cases. We are not legalistic Roman Catholics.
David, my post did not mention anything about NFP. I frankly don’t know enough about it to say one way or the other. I was stressing that the RCC does not necessarily teach that sex is only for procreation. The Orthodox will never use the legalistic approach to determine how individuals should behave. We have more freedom than that and therefore more resposibility to know Christian principals and live by them as best we are able. When we can’t, we can boldly go before the throne of grace.
Dean, the Lord is with you always… in your bedroom too, whether you like it or not. That level of moral consideration in good conscience is what this discussion is about, not your tired old liberal self-righteous outrage. Roman Catholic teachings on sexuality have much to do with Orthodox teachings on the same subject, and should not be dismissed with secular platitudes.
Here’s the abstract of an article available in PDF format at the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University. Here is the link:
http://www.irh.org/pdf/contraception.pdf
The Standard Days Method is a fertility awareness-based method of family planning in which users avoid unprotected intercourse during cycle Days 8 through 19. A prospective multi-center efficacy trial was conducted to test, in a heterogeneous population, the contraceptive efficacy of the Standard Days Method. A total of 478 women, age 18�39 years, in Bolivia, Peru, and the Philippines, with self-reported cycles of 26�32 days, desiring to delay pregnancy at least one year were admitted to the study. A single decrement multi-censoring life table analysis of the data indicate a cumulative probability of pregnancy of 4.75% over 13 cycles of correct use of the method, and a 11.96% probability of pregnancy under typical use. This article describes the study and the results. Results suggest that despite its requirement that couples modify their sexual behavior when the woman is fertile, the Standard Days Method provides significant protection from unplanned
pregnancy and is acceptable to couples in a wide range of settings.
Now, here’s a similar statement from a pro-condom site at
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fscondom.htm
The cited study is: Hatcher RA et al, ed. Contraceptive Technology, 17th rev. ed. New York: Ardent Media, 1998:
With typical use, 14 percent of women relying only on the male condom, and 21 percent relying only on the female condom, will experience unintended pregnancy within one year. With perfect use (meaning couples make no errors in the way they use the condoms and also use condoms consistently at every act of sexual intercourse), only five percent of women relying on the male condom, and three percent on the female condom, will experience unintended pregnancy within one year.5
Luke 16:31: He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’”
We must all keep close watch on how much we doubt the ancient teachings. If we do not heed the wisdom of Scripture and its derivations in Church doctrine now, we will not recognize the Lord when he comes.
Glad to see that the good bishop holds the true Christian view on contraception, which all Christians before 1930, even the most anti-Roman Catholic ones, agreed on.
On artificial birth control.
For Christians, human sexuality is part of the mystery of communion with God. When engaged in righteously, sex is salvific in nature. When God blesses and sanctifies the union of a man and a woman in marriage, their appropriate sexual intimacy reverses one of the consequences of the fall, i.e., the distrust and separateness between man and woman. Also, the union, to some degree, returns us to the primal state of creation before we were split into male and female.
For any of us to really approach sex appropriately requires a great deal of unseen warfare and a deep sense of the sacred for sex in marriage should be sacred. As Philip Sherrard so beautifully puts in his book, The Sacred in Life and Art,
“To be saved is to attain a state in which one is sound and whole, entire; and the Saviour is He who bestows these qualities–who integrates, makes whole, keeps alive and well–because they are qualities that belong to Him and to no-one and nothing else. That is why when we lose contact with God, or when we ignore the transcendent, we not only cut ourselves off from the source of sacredness but also, and as a consequence, fall into a state of sickness and self-division.
Indeed, it is this losing contact with God, the source of holiness and wholeness, that is the crux of the fall of man; and our modern age exemplifies it as perhaps no other age ever has, because it is the product of a state of mind which has lost he sense not only of this fall but also and correspondingly of practically every aspect of the sacred. A symptom, if not the cause, of this disastrous state of mind many be discerned already in the famous doctrine of the ‘double truth’ proposed in the Middle Ages by the scholastic philosophers. According to this doctrine there is a double order in things, a double order of knowledge, or two levels on which things are viewable. There is a supranatural order, and there is a natural order (nature now being understood as a purely physical reality). The supranatural order is the state in which grace is paramount, and it corresponds to the sphere of theology. But where nature is concerned, no considerations of grace of divine intervention are necessary, because nature follows its own inherent laws which have nothing to do with grace or divine intervention. This means that nature–the natural as such–is now accorded a status of its own, to all intents and purposes independent of God. Of course, by the scholastic philosophers God is still regarded as the author of nature, but essentially nature works according to its own laws, and it is quite sufficient to take account only of these laws in order to discover how nature does work.”
What can be more natural than sex? Add to the mix the ascendancy of individualism and the stage is set for the utter profaning of one of the most beautiful gifts God has given to us, sexual intimacy in marriage. It is no wonder that so many champions of the scientistic materialism known as Darwinism couple their assult on fundamental Christian doctrines of creation with a libertine attitude toward sex.
The Church has every right and indeed the God-given responsibility to teach us how to behave in our bedrooms. If we go beyond what is right and holy, the Church has the responsibility and God-given right to chastise and correct us. If governments are applying their God-given authority in a context of maintaining a social order that is congruent with the real nature of man, governement too has the right to set standards for sexual behavior that are enforceable.
Bill,
Do Roman Catholics follow a fast schedule too with regard to marital relations? The NFP method is still a form of contraception because the couple is consciously avoiding relations during the times the woman is most fertile. Do you honestly think this form of contraception is any more acceptable than a condom considering it is a more successful form of pregnancy avoidance? Do you honestly think the ancient fathers of the church would have condoned a form of family planning that purposefully avoided intercourse when a woman was most likely to get pregnant? This seems to me to be a bit of following the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. Lets leave contraception chose between a couple and their father confessor. Let’s not become Pharisees and place heavy burdens on married couples who already have many burdens placed on them. We do not need to mold our faith in the legalistic framework of Roman Catholicism. If we were really going to follow the teachings of the church we would avoid any form of birth control just as our ancestors did. Our wives would be stretched to the limit taking care of large families and our husbands would all need to get high paying jobs or work two jobs to support them.
A cradle Orthodox Christian
#15. Orthodox Christian, you ask: “Do you honestly think the ancient fathers of the church would have condoned a form of family planning that purposefully avoided intercourse when a woman was most likely to get pregnant?”
The answer to that, of course, is yes, they did. It’s still used today. It’s called abstinence. And that is what NFP is about. It is not “contraception” (as Dean incautiously asserts) but self-disciplined abstinence from intercourse for a period of time. A kind of fasting, if you will, and squarely within the ancient tradition. It follows the letter AND the spirit of the Law.
Some of the comments in this thread seem to imply that the Catholic Church teaches that married couples are obligated to have intercourse as often as they can when the woman is fertile. By extension, perhaps, couples must refrain from intercourse when the woman is not fertile? Pure absurdity, of course. They amount to a condemnation of sexual activity as evil in itself, a dualistic attitude the Church has rejected from the beginning.
Here are some relevant excerpts from Paul VI in Humanae Vitae, the encylical which called the Catholic world to account for its flirtations with secular attitudes about birth control:
First, on the true scope of this debate:
“The question of human procreation, like every other question which touches human life, involves more than the limited aspects specific to such disciplines as biology, psychology, demography or sociology. It is the whole man and the whole mission to which he is called that must be considered: both its natural, earthly aspects and its supernatural, eternal aspects. And since in the attempt to justify artificial methods of birth control many appeal to the demands of married love or of responsible parenthood, these two important realities of married life must be accurately defined and analyzed.”
Take heed, Dean! There is indeed a moral and spiritual dimension to the question, not just a legal one!
Next, the Church’s understandings of marital love…
“This love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit. It is not, then, merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of the free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment.”
… and responsible parenthood…
“With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.”
… on to the implications for sexual love:
“The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, “noble and worthy.” (11) It does not, moreover, cease to be legitimate even when, for reasons independent of their will, it is foreseen to be infertile. For its natural adaptation to the expression and strengthening of the union of husband and wife is not thereby suppressed. The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse. God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws. The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.”
At last, the appropriate use of periodic abstinence to avoid conception (which is not the same as “to contracept”):
“If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained…
“Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the latter they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love.”
End quotes. If any Orthodox readers here still want to quibble about “letter” and “spirit” and “Catholic legalism,” not to mention “freedom” and “privacy,” you need to raise your understanding (and the level of your debate), and see how much of the spirit of its laws the Catholic Church really does embody.
Read Humanae Vitae here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html
Also read the brilliant companion essay by Elizabeth Anscome, “Contraception and Chastity,” linked above by Fr. Hans).
The Orthodox reluctance to codify regulations on doctrinal matters has served it well in the past. However, the Church has always laid down the law when division over doctrine threatens the integrity of its witness to Christ. The Catholic Church has had the courage to do this in the context of the debate over contraception. To date, the Orthodox Church has not. Until (and also when) it does, it stands to learn a great deal from the Catholic approach.
While I am not a firm believer that NFP is the only moral viable choice for married Christians, it is worth mentioning that the divorce rate among NFP practitioners has been noted as being quite low (less than 5%?).
Of course, whether this is cause or correlation is a different matter, considering that those who use NFP are more likely to stay together for reasons their less “traditional” counterparts would (e.g., adhere to Church teaching, stability, etc.)
There are financial and health reasons where having a child (or another one) may prove disastrous for a married couple and the Church needs to take this into account. I also don’t see anything particularly virtuous about keeping a woman pregnant until menopause, especially if she is one who, having done her part and raised a few kids, desires to find some personal fulfillment in the workforce.
The Marital Fast
Orthodox married couples are expected to abstain from sexual relations throughout the Church’s four fasting seasons, as well as on the weekly Wednesday and Friday fasts. Couples are also suppose to abstain from sexual relations before receiving Holy Communion. There are a total of 180 days of fasting during the church year when Orthodox couples are supposed to refrain from relations. But that does not count the days a couple would fast to receive Holy Communion.
NFP would further reduce the days a couple could have relations because a woman’s ovulation cycle obviously does not follow the church liturgical cycle. I just think we need to have a little “economia” in regard to real life. We can strive for perfection in this life but I still think having two schedules to follow for marital relations is unrealistic for most couples. Finally, and most importantly, we need our father confessors to dispense the “medicine” to us as individuals and as a couple with regard to the level of fasting (food and marital relations) our bodies can withstand. One size does not fit all in the Orthodox Church.
Dear Dean,
I apologize for offending you. My comments were probably too inflamatory for this forum. I don’t think they were false, but perhaps inadvisable. I was not, of course, suggesting the moral equation that you supposed I was. Contraception in marriage is by no means the moral equivalent of any of the other acts that I mentioned. It is much less harmful, and it’s much easier to imagine how people would do it believing they were doing nothing wrong. I was just saying that from the perspective of moral theology, it’s a slippery slope from allowing one to allowing the other, because the same reasons should be cited for disallowing each. And it’s not intimacy for the purpose of expressing love that is problematic. It’s just an act of intimacy which has been artificially separated from it’s natural consequences. There’s nothing artificial about abstinence, kinda like dieting to lose weight vs. bulimia or surgery.
As for your admonition to stay out of your bedroom, let me assure you I have no desire to be there. Michael and Bill have explained very nicely that it IS the Church’s responsibility to regulate what we do in our bedrooms. I just think the Church hasn’t yet fully addressed this issue. Even when they do, as Orthodox Christian points out, it will still be between you and your father confessor what you do with it.
Orthodox Christian,
I completely agree that economia is important. It gets exercised all the time, but that doesn’t mean that there is no need for the Church to set out guidelines for our conduct. If there were no rules, there would be no need for economia. The fasting rules you mention are an excellent case in point. Do you suppose a priest might exempt a parishioner from the marital fast for good reasons? I imagine they do.
JamesK,
I don’t understand the comment about keeping a woman pregnant until menopause. If a woman chooses to have children, it is indeed virtuous. NFP does not ‘keep’ women pregnant. It’s just as effective as any artificial means. Today’s standard practice is much more effective than “the rhythm method” or the calendar method, and should not be confused with them. It involves monitoring temperature and other symptoms and is not difficult once you get used to it.
Bill, you give us the following from Humanae Vitae: “God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws. The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law…”
I contrast that with Philip Sherrard’s critique of that type of reasoning from The Sacred in Life and Art: “There is a supranatural order, and there is a natural order (nature now being understood as a purely physical reality). The supranatural order is the state in which grace is paramount, and it corresponds to the sphere of theology. But where nature is concerned, no considerations of grace of divine intervention are necessary, because nature follows its own inherent laws which have nothing to do with grace or divine intervention. This means that nature–he natural as such–is now accorded a status of its own, to all intents and purposes independent of God.”
There is a prevalent theme that runs though many Orthodox theologians about the separation between the natural and supernatural, even man and God, which was introduced into the West by Scholasticism. Certainly, St. Gregory Palamas fought hard and long to bring that point to light. In Pope Paul’s statements, we can see that same line of thinking. Even at its best, such assumptions can lead to a far more legalistic framework in approaching theological matters. While I agree with you that more recent teaching from the RCC on human sexuality, especially Pope John Paul’s, is not legalistic, that does mark a change in the way the teaching has been understood by many Roman Catholics, at least the ones I have known.
The principal of economia can be easily abused allowing for a laxity in spiritual discipline that is not correct or warranted. We Orthodox must be careful in that respect and indeed, we can learn from the example of our Catholic brothers and sisters to stand more authoritatively on Christian principal in general while still allowing for discernment in individual, private cases.
Fr. Hans writes: “If you are thinking in terms of a family, natural family planning is open to the creation of new life. It rejects contraception on the grounds that artificial contraception erodes this openness on several important and sensitive levels of understanding.”
I don’t understand this. Every method of contraception has a failure rate that is often strongly linked to the compliance rate.
The research of which I’m aware distinguishes between “perfect” and “typical” contraception. “Typical” here means a certain amount of intentional noncompliance, device failure, misunderstanding, etc.
The figures vary according to what study you look at, but for “typical” contraception for natural family planning the failure rate is around 6.5 percent. For “perfect” contraception natural family planning has a failure rate of around 1.1 percent. (Again, figures vary according to the study.)
For “typical” condom use the failure rate is 14 percent, and for “perfect” use the failure rate is around 3 percent.
Again, the figures vary significantly depending on what study you look at. But the point is that every method of birth control doesn’t work all the time, even “sterilization.” It’s all statistics. So it’s not clear to me why one statistical outcome is “open to life” whereas some other comparable statistical outcome is not.
Number 20: David: Sorry if I responded too strongly. I love my Church and have no desire to see it set itself up for satire and ridicule (The Monty Python “Meaning of Life – Every Sperm is Sacred” skit comes to mind, http://www.go2lyrics.com/M/Monthy+Python/257236.html) by taking an extreme position seeming to infer that even sexual intimacy among married couples is inherently sinful.
We really need more classes on maintaining a healthy marriage offered through our churches, not just for engaged couples, but for the already married as well. I agree with everyone else that even among married couples sexual intimacy has the potential to descend into unloving, exploitative physical gratification, and this is not God’s purpose. But I do think God’s purpose for giving us sexual intimacy does include the expression of love independent of child-bearing.
Thanks Dean,
For the record, I’ve always thought that Monty Python skit was hilarious.
And you gotta be realistic about this. Anytime the church does anything countercultural, living the truth in an age of darkness, ridicule is likely, and it could get much worse. Our culture hates life. Fifteen million abortions a year. You can’t have a big family without getting funny looks. If your wife does stay at home with kids people often think there’s something wrong with one of you. Any guesses why fomerly Christian Europe will be majority muslim in a few decades? It’s not just emigration, folks. They have kids, europeans don’t. And Americans are only slightly ahead. Something about affluent western democracies, I guess.
You also wrote:
“But I do think God?s purpose for giving us sexual intimacy does include the expression of love independent of child-bearing.”
I couldn’t agree more. In fact nobody disagrees with this. The popes have written so explicitly. Of course, even Orthodoxy would forbid a marriage relationship that EXCLUDES childbearing (or at least for frivolous reasons). But as long as you don’t intend to postpone children forever, or for silly reasons, and you don’t choose to postpone through illicit means, neither the RCC nor any Orthodox bishop or synod that I know of would have a problem with it. The question is just about what counts as a moral way to postpone conception.
Note 23. I’ve been thinking about your comment and wonder why a Monty Python skit would even serve as a reference to any discussion about contraception. Are you saying that you think that restrictions on contraception is equivalent to a position that argues sexual relations are inherently sinful, or that a restriction on contraception would subject the Church to ridicule by Monty Python types?
Note: 25: Perhaps no policy of the Roman Catholic church is as widely ignored by American Catholics as it’s policy on contraception. This may be the inevitable result of trying to influence behavior in a sensitive and complicated area through command and directive, rather than through teaching and explaining.
Policies that are not well understood and at least superfically at odds with other moral imperatives, like “don’t have children you can’t care for” do become the objects of scorn and ridicule.
It’s likely that underneath all the layers of confusion and rhetoric surrounding the policy of the Roman Catholic church on contraception lie actual nuggets of truth and wisdom. But if they are there, they are not clear to me, as they are probably not clear to millions of other Christians.
The policy of the Orthodox church on contraception needs to be folded into a larger discussion on the purpose of sexual intimacy in a relationship, and an even larger discussion of how to make our intimate relationship with another more loving and of service to God. Maybe in addition to classes for the soon-to-be married we should have “refresher” classes for the already married. I have heard on one Orthodox week-end retreat for married couples to explore marriage issues, that some friends of mine at church attended. Maybe we need more educational programs like that.
We don’t need the church in our bedroom to be a busybody and a finger-wagging-prude, but I agree we do need the church in our bedroom to bring in the spirit of the loving God to enrich and strengthen our relationships.
Note 26 Update on economic policies and economic indicators
I am admittedly barging into a theological discussion to post some economic news. Posters to this board have, from time to time, debated economic issues, including the impact of tax cuts. Here is a good summary of some recently released economic news: domestic budget deficit and international balance of trade deficit are both heading downward. We have a long way to go but we are headed in the right direction. The United States economy is now one of the healthiest in the world
Taken from instapundit.com
SHRINKING DEFICITS: The trade deficit is down:
The U.S. trade deficit narrowed unexpectedly in May to $55.3 billion as exports rose slightly to a record and imports retreated a bit from the record set in April, a U.S. government report showed on Wednesday.
The smaller-than-expected trade gap suggested stronger-than-expected U.S. economic growth in the second quarter and could help persuade the Federal Reserve to remain on a path of steadily rising interest rates.
And so is the budget deficit:
Based on revenue and spending data through June, the budget deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year was $251 billion, $76 billion lower than the $327 billion gap recorded at the corresponding point a year earlier.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the deficit for the full fiscal year, which reached $412 billion in 2004, could be “significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion.” The big surprise has been in tax revenue, which is running nearly 15 percent higher than in 2004. Corporate tax revenue has soared about 40 percent, after languishing for four years, and individual tax revenue is up as well. Most of the increase in individual tax receipts appears to have come from higher stock market gains and the business income of relatively wealthy taxpayers. Hmm. Weren’t people telling us just recently that the budget deficit was growing because wealthy taxpayers were paying less? Apparently they were in error.
Dean,
I completely agree with you re: the need for education. This is one thing that NFP can help with. I went to an NFP class offered by Couple to Couple League, a Catholic Lay organization of married couples who teach a standard NFP curriculum. These classes are required by many RC priests before they’ll marry a couple. In addition to teaching the method itself (which is intensely marriage building) they spend quite a bit of the time explaining why the approach is good for marriage. Admittedly, they do spend some time bashing contraception, and some of the rhetoric is peculiarly Roman Catholic, but by and large it was very positive. It would be great to see a curriculum offered along the Orthodox lines that you mentioned. We do need to warn against contraception, but the case for NFP can and should be made in a positive, marriage affirming way.