Grumpiness Over USCCB "Happy Are We Who Are Called To His Supper&

[jswranch]

I am very pleased with the multiple documents I have seen so far from this conference. [url="http://www.usccb.org/dpp/Eucharist.pdf"]“Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper”: On Preparing to Receive Christ Worthily in the Eucharist[/url] is one of those great documents. However, I am upset with the decision not to include contraception in the list of items of grave matters which serve as an impediment to receiving the Eucharist.

[url="http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/archives/007452.php"]From Curt Jester:[/url] (primary source unvarified)

[quote]The move to name contraception as a reason to refrain from communion failed 148-75.

Bishop Arthur Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., said that the drafters did not include contraception because it was not intended to be a comprehensive list of sins and there was a concern that this "particularly difficult pastoral problem" would distract from everything else in the document. Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, auxiliary of San Diego, argued that not mentioning it would draw even more attention.[/quote]
Serratelli was wrong, Cordileone is right in my eyes.

[b]Why am I so fussy over this issue?[/b]
The ban on contraception was a major factor in me becoming Catholic and has greatly improved my marriage. Now some Catholics are ashamed of it and try to sweep the issue under the rug. The fact that the ban was swept under the rug by a vote of 148-75 [u]makes me feel like an Anglican again.[/u] When I was back in Canterbury land, I asked outsiders to join my faith, but my faith had an asterisk. I used to invite others to become Anglican... but my kind of Anglican which was not reflected by the larger ruling body (Virgin birth etc.). Being Catholic, I fear this document places me again in a sect within a sect. Become Catholic, but become the type of minority Catholic who is not ashamed to profess the Church teaches contraception as an intrinsically evil act which blocks full communion. Then, pray that our US leaders accept this belief.

A counter-argument to my rantings is the pastoral issue of 'is this how we want to correct the error on the topic many Catholics have?' or as His Excellency Bishop Serratelli said, "particularly difficult pastoral problem." However, leaving in the gray area further justifies Catholics breaking other moral decrees of the Church (see how Catholics voted for pro-abortion candidates in the last election). If the bishops are reserving the decree for a more pastoral medium, when will they do so? Do they plan to have it taught from the pulpit?

Solution.
What is done is done. Excuse my baby Catholic (1yr anniv on Monday!!) answer, but how about a Dubium. From my understanding any bishop can as 'the bishop in white' a yes or no question. The response, if he gives one, would be infallible on issue of faith and morals. Today, such question needs answering to bind all the faithful and remove all doubt.

My option B would be to lock the USCCB in a room until they unanimously (2/3rds) produced their plan for teaching their flock of this fact. Stop feeding them and remove roof if necessary. :

Ok, I feel better. Now you experts show me where I am wrong.

[dspen2005]

admittedly the absence contraception as a reason for refraining from the reception of the Blessed Sacrament is a cause for concern, but can we not look at the document and be grateful for what it does mention. if I am not mistakened this is one of only a few, if not THE only, document to come from the Bishops. At least, the Bishops are finally recognizing the issue and concern that has caused the faithful to ask questions.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='jswranch' post='1123681' date='Nov 19 2006, 01:34 PM']
What is done is done. Excuse my baby Catholic (1yr anniv on Monday!!) answer, but how about a Dubium. From my understanding any bishop can as 'the bishop in white' a yes or no question. The response, if he gives one, would be infallible on issue of faith and morals. Today, such question needs answering to bind all the faithful and remove all doubt.
[/quote]
I don't understand what you mean by this. Individual bishops do not have the charism of infallibility. It seems like you were saying that.

[jswranch]

[quote name='Raphael' post='1123730' date='Nov 19 2006, 01:31 PM']
I don't understand what you mean by this. Individual bishops do not have the charism of infallibility. It seems like you were saying that.
[/quote]
A bishop can ask for a dubium... so I heard.

[quote name='dspen2005' post='1123729' date='Nov 19 2006, 01:29 PM']
admittedly the absence contraception as a reason for refraining from the reception of the Blessed Sacrament is a cause for concern, but can we not look at the document and be grateful for what it does mention. if I am not mistakened this is one of only a few, if not THE only, document to come from the Bishops. At least, the Bishops are finally recognizing the issue and concern that has caused the faithful to ask questions.
[/quote]
Oh, the USCCB did a great document in support of NFP and against contraception. It is what they didn't say that bothered me.

Perhaps I am too stringent compared to how our leaders wish to run the house. They seem to want to keep people in the flock as the best we can without compromising our standards too harshly. Yet I am raised with the attitude, 'don't let the door hit you in **s on the way out. this is our standard, live to it or start your own church.'

[Era Might]

The Bishops issued an entire document on married love ([url="http://www.usccb.org/laity/marriage/MarriedLove.pdf"][u]HERE[/u][/url]):

[quote]When married couples deliberately act to suppress fertility, however, sexual intercourse is no longer fully marital intercourse. It is something less powerful and intimate, something more “casual.” Suppressing fertility by using contraception denies part of the inherent meaning of
married sexuality and does harm to the couple’s unity. The total giving of oneself, body and soul, to one’s beloved is no time to say: “I give you everything I am—except. . . .” The Church’s teaching is not only about observing a rule, but about preserving that total, mutual gift of two persons in its integrity.

This may seem a hard saying. Certainly it is a teaching that many couples today, through no fault of their own, have not heard (or not heard in a way they could appreciate and understand). But as many couples who have turned away from contraception tell us, living this teaching can contribute to the honesty, openness, and intimacy of marriage and help make couples truly fulfilled.

...

A couple need not desire or seek to have a child in each and every act of intercourse. And it is not wrong for couples to have intercourse even when they know the wife is naturally infertile, as discussed below. But they should never act to suppress or curtail the life-giving power given by God that is an integral part of what they pledged to each other in their marriage vows. [b]This is what the Church means by saying that every act of intercourse must remain open to life and that contraception is objectively immoral.[/b][/quote]
A dubium is a petition for clarification on something, but there is nothing that needs clarifying here. The Bishops expressed the teaching of the Church against contraception in a full document on married love. That they didn't include it as an example in another document because it wasn't intended as an exhaustive guide is a matter of editorial judgement.

If anyone doesn't know what the US Bishops teach with regards to contraception, there is an entire document for them to consult now; of course, the Bishops teach what the entire Church teaches.

[jswranch]

Era, you are correct. However, I am gripping that this belief on contraception is a barrier to the Eucharist and should have been presented as such in this synod.

[N/A Gone]

as another "baby" catholic I wanna cheer for you!!!!

Converts/reverts typically go thru the issues and work on the individual parts. Where as baby-catholics tend to be cafeteria. I know I am speaking in generalizations

[Era Might]

[quote name='jswranch' post='1123820' date='Nov 19 2006, 06:11 PM']Era, you are correct. However, I am gripping that this belief on contraception is a barrier to the Eucharist and should have been presented as such in this synod.[/quote]
All grave sin is a barrier to the Eucharist. The Bishops note in their document that contraception is objectively immoral. Hence, it follows that if you are using contraception, you are acting immorally, and must receive Sacramental absolution.

There are any number of sins that could have been listed as an impediment to communion and weren't, from domestic abuse to gluttony to whatever. The examples that they do give are intended as a practical exposition of the ten commandments, and so they are brief and correspond to the essential point of each commandment; pornography, for example, is mentioned because the commandment says explicitly not to lust after your neighbor's wife. Abortion and euthanasia are mentioned because the commandment says explicitly not to kill unjustly. There are many sins that are drawn out from each particular commandment that aren't self-evident in the actual commandment, but the Bishops weren't trying to give an exhaustive analysis of each commandment and every sin that it corresponds to. Also, some of the Bishops probably wanted to defer the question of contraception to the document on married love, so that it could be treated fully in its own right, and not obscure the main point of another document with a controversial tangent. That seems to be Bishop Serratelli's point; contraception is a difficult question, and it's better for the Bishops to have more than a passing reference to the Church's teaching against contraception. This was accomplished with the document on married love, which is able to frame the Church's teaching from the perspective of the theology of the body, and not merely give the sense that "this is a sin because we say so"; not the case, but many people without ears to hear unfortunately will take it that way. Some Bishops are worried about driving uncatechised Catholics away from the Church by not treating this matter with particular sensitivity, perhaps to a fault, but I think their decision is understandable.

It's fine to suggest that they could have included contraception in the list. But I don't think it's cause for panic or doubting the faith of the Bishops.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='jswranch' post='1123797' date='Nov 19 2006, 06:10 PM']
Yet I am raised with the attitude, 'don't let the door hit you in **s on the way out. this is our standard, live to it or start your own church.'
[/quote]

I feel that attitude is more effective when people are aware of their sin and know the reasons for the Church's teachings. We live in a society that is not only ignorant of both, but ignorant of their ignorance.

On the other hand, sometimes an inquisition is necessary. We just have to trust our bishops, whom God has placed in authority over us, to decide whether it's better to lean towards grace or justice.

[jswranch]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1123890' date='Nov 19 2006, 07:20 PM']
It's fine to suggest that they could have included contraception in the list. But I don't think it's cause for panic or doubting the faith of the Bishops.
[/quote]
Very true. Remember, I said I was 'grumpy', not that they were of doubtful faith or that I was panicing.


[quote name='LouisvilleFan' post='1126847' date='Nov 23 2006, 05:58 PM']
We just have to trust our bishops, whom God has placed in authority over us, to decide whether it's better to lean towards grace or justice.
[/quote]
Yes, I am there.