The Church on faithfulness and opinion

In the 4th paragraph it states: "No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law. It is in fact indisputable, as Our predecessors have many times declared, (l) that Jesus Christ, when He communicated His divine power to Peter and the other Apostles and sent them to teach all nations His commandments, (2) constituted them as the authentic guardians and interpreters of the whole moral law, not only, that is, of the law of the Gospel but also of the natural law. For the natural law, too, declares the will of God, and its faithful observance is necessary for men's eternal salvation. (3)"

With this declaration so early in the document, the pope is validating everything he says after it. He thinks people should trust what the church tells them. Many other people feel this way as well. Not just with religion, but with other authorities such as the government and police. Many people put their faith into the systems that govern the world, and trust them to not mislead them. However the pope is saying he has more than just authority, but has been given this ability through god. He goes on to say that if you do not heed what they have to say, you may not get into heaven after you die. I believe that ending statement is what makes people want to have faith in the church, because if they don't, they won't go to heaven. The same way that if you go against the government or other federal organizations you are called unAmerican and harassed.

I don't agree with the pope saying you should have complete faith in the church's interpretation and statements.Isn't that why the bible tells many of the same events, but through different viewpoints? When it comes to the bible, and they way people live their lifes, I think it's more important to do what you believe is right rather than strictly follow what the church says. I also don't agree with the fear tactics they use to try to scare people into agreeing with them by saying they'll go to hell if they disagree. Free will and thought was also given to us by God, according the bible, so we should use those abilities to their full potential instead of relying on others.

'till death do we part

“Married love is also faithful and exclusive of all other, and this until death. This is how husband and wife understood it on the day on which, fully aware of what they were doing, they freely vowed themselves to one another in marriage. Though this fidelity of husband and wife sometimes presents difficulties, no one has the right to assert that it is impossible; it is, on the contrary, always honorable and meritorious. The example of countless married couples proves not only that fidelity is in accord with the nature of marriage, but also that it is the source of profound and enduring happiness.” -Pope, Paragraph 9

                It is very apparent to all of us the opinion the Pope has on marriage and who the bond it should be shared with. This opinion is not only held by the Pope but by many other people in the United States, and this is something we have discussed in class. The Pope views marriage as something only a man and a woman can share, and a lot of it is driven from his religious beliefs. This goes for other individuals also who believe marriage should only be shared between a woman and a man. Religious beliefs is a subject many people are very firm about, and many stick to their beliefs from day one. This is understandable because we like to believe one thing, find many reasons to have that belief, and then keep it because that is the easiest way to go.

                I on the other hand, have a different opinion on this subject than the Pope. I do not believe that the man and woman are the important aspects of marriage, but the love that is shared between the two individuals who are going to wed. I have based some of these opinions off of my family. My parents got married at the ages of 16 and 17 because my mom became pregnant, and due to my grandparents religious views they were pushed to marry immediately. Their marriage did not become out of love, but out of religious views and a pregnancy. Their marriage ended when I was three years old, and the vows they made on their marriage day were not followed. Two people should marry because they love each other unconditionally and want to spend the rest of their lives together, “’till death do we part.” I believe the vows that are made at marriage are the important aspect, not the people making them.

                While reading how the cultural aspects of marriage have emerged in the past 30 years or so, we read many points that go completely against what the Pope states in his explanation of the order and structure of human life, especially on marriage. The Pope states that it was understood since day one that husband and wife are fully aware of what they are doing when they vow to one another, and that it is until death. But now, due to the actions of the people around us the aspect of culture in marriage has turned to 40-50% of marriages resulting in divorce. Our population has caused culture to turn this way.

The Pope on the Infertile Period

"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 later 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."

The Pope tells us that sexual intercourse between a husband and wife is STRICTLY for the purpose of reproduction and taking responsibility for a family. HOWEVER, there is a way around this law, and that is the infertile period. If a husband and wife wish to express their mutual love in an intimate way, they have to do so during the woman's period. The infertile period is like a form of NATURAL birth control, and therefore can be taken advantage of. This is explaining the difference between natural birth control, and unnatural birth control. The husband and wife are rightly using this natural birth control as much as they want if the conception of another child is undesirable, for example, for economic reasons. Doing so, proves true and authentic love between the couple.

I believe that in order for a husband and a wife to be able to become one with another and bring out the perfections in one another (as the Pope says rightful husbands and wives should), sexual intercourse is a way of doing this. Sexual intercourse is believed as a way for a man and woman to become closer to each other than ever before and to profess their love for one another. In order for a husband and a wife to grow, sexual intercourse will need to come into play before they should be allowed to have children. Husbands and wives will need to grow to be responsible parents before their first child is conceived. I believe sexual intercourse SHOULD be permitted to a man and woman if they are rightfully married, for terms of intimacy and true love, not just for reproduction purposes. If man and woman only participate in sexual intercourse for the means of reproduction, they may not have the bond that a couple needs to be in true, authentic love and it would be more casual and less meaningful, therefore resulting in less growth for the couple and over time, distance will occur.

Sexual intercourse is natural, and appealing to men and women alike. We see sex everywhere, whether it be music, clothing, advertisements, artwork, landscapes, buildings, or even food for God's sake. Sex takes our 5 senses into mind using forms of scents, tastes, touch, sounds, and sights to control what we are attracted to and what 'turn us on,' ultimately. Our bodies read what is sexual and what is not at all sexual without us even knowing it. Our bodies construct our ultimate fantasies and what we desire and long for in terms of intimacy. We grow and adapt when we read the media around us and our sexual wants and needs begin to change to the point where we want more, more, more exciting and new ways to achieve satisfaction. Each and every culture has different forms of ways to achieve sexual satisfaction and different traditional sexual practices, making each culture sexually different, eve though sexual intercourse gives all of us the same enjoyment. Bordo explains to us that women go to high extents to be sexually attractive to males, by means of bulimia and anorexia, so that they are the woman the man chooses in the end. Sexuality is a competition between women and the man will go for the most attractive, and child-bearing looking woman. There are tests conducted by prestigious schools, such as Harvard, to tell us what our bodies like and are appealed to. Those that we don't appeal to are a turn off and we look at them as appalling. Leppert reads the female nude as more sexual a character in our famous artworks than a traditional, non-sexual, icon as we thought these paintings were to supposed to be. Orgies are depicted, Adam and Eve are reconstructed, ALL in terms of our sexual desires and sights in terms of our intimacies. History has shown that sex is, and always will be, a major contributor in the construction of our cultures and medias. Church's and religions all alike deny sex and look down upon it, for we were not created to possess satisfaction, we were created for reproductive purposes and that sex is the ultimate temptation. But in reality, SEX IS EVERYWHERE, and all we have to do is take it in and enjoy it, for it is a natural occurrence.

Pope Paul VI

In the Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI states from paragraph 14:

"Therefore We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. (14) Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary."

Simply put, you cannot use birth control as a means to control the population. Population growth, itself, is a huge issue especially since we recently hit the 7 billionth person mark recently, but here, Pope Paul VI is stating that any form of birth control is wrong in regulating the population, whether it is through a vasectomy or just a condom.

I have to disagree with the Pope's claim for a couple reasons. Population growth is an economic issue. With the rising number of people, we face the issue of how we plan to accommodate the rising numbers with food, shelter, water, and other resources, especially in more affluent countries like the United States where energy consumption is a big issue.

Not only is the issue an economic issue, but a human rights one too, which face bad social and psychological

consequences. The liberties of using birth control to manage family size/population are taken away with Pope Paul VI's claim and that in itself would bring uproar to the people of the United States, due to the structure of feeling that has been created through time when addressing human rights and the right to privacy. Pope Paul's claim implies that sex between two people, male and female, is natural..... when in reality, because humans have agency and they aren't animals and therefore sex is not natural. We have constructed ourselves through history to be able to make a choice in whether or not they want to have sex, when they want to have sex, and who they want to have sex with. Makes me think back to the differences between sheep sex and "human" sex.

This brings me to the two child policy in China. We had Pope Paul VI's claim where there shouldn't be ANY birth control during sex, whereas in China, they place a strong law on how many children a family can have at a time. Although they do adjust it according to where in China you are located...(typically you can have slightly more children if you live in rural parts of China) if you are caught violating the implemented policy, they do force the women to get sterilized. In the case of China, it seems to be the opposite extreme to Pope Paul VI's claim. It also violates human rights, especially women's rights. In the case of a communist country, it would make sense to have a law like this in place to control the people and the country's resources, but that does not make it right. One social consequence that arises with China enforcing this policy is the way the child/children will grow up to be like. Studies have been shown that single children don't have the childhood that their parents did being able to grow up with multiple siblings resulting in slightly socially awkward and less independent children, obviously we can't pinpoint that every child will be one specific way, but we can follow trends and see where that leads us to.

Overtime, humans have developed more and more of their sense of agency... the ability choose what they want to do and how they want to feel while doing it. In the case of Pope Paul VI's claim, I agree that in cases like China where abortion is required if the govt discovers that you may have be having an unannounced child, abortion should not be used, but I disagree that it shouldn't be used at all. I believe that we have developed well enough through time to be able to decide when we want to stop having children, if we never want children in the first place, etc, and we have the choice to choose which birth control method we want to use in order for one thing to happen. In places of overpopulation, I think if we can educate women who are willing to be educated about sex and birth control methods, we can lower the risk of having unplanned pregnancies, especially with the technology that we currently have.

Pope and Contraception

"Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law." -Pope, Paragraph 17.

Overall Pope Paul VI is explaining how contraception is bad for people, especially young people because it will lower moral standards by making sex more accessible. The Pope is bringing up the issue that the young are overly exposed to temptations in today's society. The Pope is condemning contraception because he feels that if moral laws are easier to break, then they will be broken.

The Pope's position on contraception is a very dangerous position to be taking on a health standpoint. of course it is taught that abstinence is the best policy when it comes to premarital sex, but premarital sex is going to happen. The Pope's decision is one of ignorance. The point is that assuming that premarital sex is going to happen, why not try to make it safe. Everyone who feels that abstinence is the only policy that should be taught is putting everybody at risk. Abstinence and contraceptives are both ways of fighting STDs and STIs that kill millions every year. With the knowledge that premarital sex is not extinguishable in the world, the only LOGICAL way to move forward is to promote contraceptives, yet stress that abstinence is the only 100% guaranteed way to be totally safe.

It was overwhelmingly supported in class that a woman on "the pill" is a different woman. The idea is the same with contraceptives. Once young people learn about the advantages of contraception, their thinking changes forever. But this needs to be seen as imminent, and the only way to make a safer and more bodily conscious future is to embrace contraceptives for their health benefits. In this case I feel the Pope is holding back his followers from being healthier.

The Pope and the "I Do's"

"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."

These words are from Humane Vitae written by Pope Paul VI in Paragraph 9. We all know the views of the church and marraige, but in case you didn't know, they have a strict policy when it comes to being together in a state of holy matrimony. Basically it says to love your partner, and only them for all time to come and that the act/feeling/emotion of 'love' is human. You and your partner share everything, you trust one another, you love one another, you don't cheat (huge emphasis on this mainly because if you cheat then you're marriage will fall apart, etc), and that the main thing you're supposed to do is make babies. The Pope outlines that marriage is between husband and wife and that marriage is assumed to be between a man and a woman, in which they assign gender roles to the subjects in question.

The Pope (and all the people who back him up and share the same ideas) argues that marriage is happy, marriage is eternal, and that everything is going to be okay in the end, it also entails that you're going to find someone who's going to follow these rules, and see 'marriage' the way he sees it. The Pope says that no matter what you will be happy with someone else...which says a lot.

The problems with the way the Pope thinks comes in many forms/thoughts/ideas. One, that you are heterosexual, I mean, what if you're not? In his letter he doesn't define 'husband' and 'wife' as being a male and female, neither does the Bible...but by him excluding this thought he also excludes the idea of marriage between a male/male and female/female. He makes no room for 'love being of free will' like he states, free will happens for everyone and if you fall for someone of the same sex and want to be married well then you're screwed. Two, he makes a huge assumption that your partner is perfect and doesn't come with baggage or anything. He doesn't say what to do if your partner isn't an angel like the way your partner should be, if they cheat on you, if they give you an STD/STI, if they break your heart, if they're mean to you, if they beat you up, if they rape you, if you're not compatible (like if you're betrothed)...etc. The Pope spells out what marriage should be like without including all of the logistics/life things that could happen along the way. All of these things are psychological/identity/social problems. Like what if you don't fit the 'perfect angel partner' that he outlines does that mean your damned? What if you get married and find out you're just not right for each other are you damned eternally?

The consequences of this are quite plain, everyone tries to live up to this perfect standard that doesn't exist. It compiles everything from guys wanting to be all muscles, girls wanting to be skinny and pretty, identity crisis' with your sexuality, how you look to other people, you worry about what other people may think of you, you worry if you're doing things 'right' or if you're doing them 'wrong' and what this means to your culture/ideas of the afterlife??? Then you're thinking about what to believe in and who you should believe in...

The Pope and his ideas of marriage can be thought of deeply and interestingly. You can literally tear his idea of marriage apart and apply the cultural aspects of 'marriage' and what it means to people. People change and as a result culture does as well. Right now marriage means to be in love with someone with a fair chance of being divorced (people are always cheating). 50 years ago marriage meant saving yourself for the partner that you're going to marry with divorce being a last resort. Things are definitely changing.

Stem Cell Research Vs. Religion

“Therefore We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children” (paragraph 14).

Stem cell research is a common controversy in the United States. Many Catholics and other Christians believe that stem cell research should be banned because the use of some of this research uses embryonic stem cells. These are made with donated eggs and sperm to make embryos, but they are not grown inside a woman, and there was no sexual act to create these. Embryonic stem cells are very useful because they are extremely versatile. If they are undifferentiated, they can grow into muscle cells. Pancreatic cells, skin cells, etc. With this technology, it is thought that we could find methods to cure the damaged cells in patients who are sick with terminal diseases such as Parkinson’s, diabetes, heart disease and hearing loss.

The reason that this issue relates to the Pope’s Huminae Vitae is because of the interpretation that Catholics give to this doctrine. Some religious people believe that the use of those human embryos qualifies as “direct abortion.” They believe that any manipulation of these processes that does not result in a baby is essentially murder. They use cute baby posters to convince you that there is no conceivable difference between a group of cells no larger than the head of a pin and a full sized smiling baby. They believe that using these embryos destroys the potential life that could have resulted from that particular egg or sperm.

Here’s how I see it: a woman can be born with up to 7 million eggs. Men’s bodies can produce almost unlimited amounts of semen. Honestly, we have more than enough of these resources to go around. The probability that the egg/sperm that they are using for their stem cell research is the same one that would have ended up being fertilized and carried to term is almost laughably small. The truth is that those little tiny cells could save someone’s life. I think that it’s wrong to value potential life over actual life. These people are alive right now, they’re suffering, they’re dying slowly, their families are grieving, and they’re good people who got stuck with a bad lot in life. Why does the Pope feel that their lives are worth less than a group of cells? Those embryos are not babies. They don’t wear adorable hats. They can’t smile. But they could save someone’s life.

An article in the Minnesota Daily recently announced that the University of Minnesota is adding an undergraduate course in stem cell research methods and ethics. The University is a huge proponent of stem cell research, and has received 43 million dollars in funding from the federal government to contribute to research on the subject. There is an entire institute at the University devoted to Stem Cell Research. I take great pride in attending a university that is dedicated to finding cures to these severe diseases and changing the lives of those who suffer from them or may suffer from them in the future.