Search Page

Many Catholics lead lives unworthy of God's children, and are not sorry for going against His laws - hence the empty confessionals in this era. Most Catholics who disobey the moral law on contraception, for example, brush away their feelings of guilt. Few can plead total ignorance of the teaching of the Church.

Many Catholics lead lives unworthy of God's children, and are not sorry for going against His laws - hence the empty confessionals in this era. Most Catholics who disobey the moral law on contraception, for example, brush away their feelings of guilt. Few can plead total ignorance of the teaching of the Church.

There are some acts which are intrinsically wrong. Even if people act from ignorance, and are less blameworthy in God's sight, He does not want anyone (especially priests) to encourage people in such acts, but to invite them to abandon such behaviour, to pursue holiness. It is never right to use contraceptives, to attempt a re-marriage which is adulterous, or to have a forbidden sexual relationship such as incest.

God has designed a man and a woman for a joyful union in marriage which can result in the gift of life: the gift of a child. Where they take pleasure in one another yet at the same time exclude the possibility of receiving God's gift, they are like those before them who have called out to God, saying, 'I will not serve'.

The Blessed Virgin Mary accepted God's Will, which was that she carry a child in her womb. She bore the gaze of amazed villagers, for love of God, unlike married people who refuse to do God's Will, as they deliberately make their married union sterile, by contraceptive use, and refuse the gift of life.

Bishops and priests who fail to teach the Faith in its fullness, rarely or never speaking against contraception or abortion, send a wrong message not just to Catholics but also to other Christians who notice what they say, and conclude that these are matters of little importance. Such things, objectively, (such as contraception, abortion, so-called 're-marriage' and other practices) are serious sins.

It is a terrible thing, in Christ's sight, that some parents encourage their children to sin. They do this if they give their daughters contraceptive pills, or allow them to sleep with boyfriends in their house, or fail to teach the truth about Mass attendance, and the Real Presence of Jesus, and other truths of the Faith.

Some Catholic parents encourage their children towards sinful behaviour and estrangement from God by allowing them to use contraceptives and even to bring their sexual partners to sleep in their home with their children. Parents must once day answer to God for what they have done in leading their children away from Heaven.

It is true that groups of Christians outside the visible unity of the Catholic Church join in Christ's saving work by baptising their members. But it is tragic that those young Christians are often taught mistaken things about faith and morals, and so encouraged to sin - even if their instructors thought they were right, in approving of contraception, divorce and remarriage, even abortion and other evils.

Where abortion is freely available, many young people have adopted a hedonistic outlook, supposing that if they want to get drunk, it's their right; if they unexpectantly conceive babies, they can get rid of them; and if the Government wants them to stop having babies, they should extend the provision of free contraceptives.

It is a tragedy, that the legislation of abortion has led to an ever-dimishing sense of responsibility, amongst young people, for their behaviour. A woman can assure a man: "If I forget to take my pill, I can always have an abortion" - and so sex is seen merely as a leisure activity, and not as the intimacy at the heart of marriage.

When societies in which abortion is common-place offer help to poorer countries, they sometimes make their offer of aid conditional upon the adoption of immoral practices such as contraception, abortion, and sterilisation. They damage families, and foster an anti-child mentality amongst women by their extreme feminist propaganda. It is a modern form of colonialism.

No theologian is right, who claims that it is all right for a man and woman to make their union sterile, not fertile, and who works to overturn the constant teaching of the Church on marriage, and the transmission of life. Christ looks on with gladness whenever a faithful Catholic speaks out to defend the truths taught by the Church.

Not speaking, here, of invincible ignorance, the Lord asks: Of what value is the praise of a woman who declares, "O God, I praise You, but I am determined to ignore your wishes, as I make myself sterile in marriage, or abort my baby, or sleep with a man who is not my husband".

Disobedient Catholics who refuse to obey the Church's teachings on contraceptive use, for example, act like a group of arrivals at a Cathedral who do not want to be too involved. They refuse to enter the main door, insisting on entering elsewhere, to descend to the Crypt by themselves. They have cut themselves off from full Communion with others.

Many prominent Catholics encourage dissent and spread confusion by their public expression of their doubts about Church teaching. Priests should be honoured for their sacred office, whatever they say or do; but those who mislead the faithful by their stance, and cast doubt on Church teachings on marriage, giving the impression that contraceptive use is of no great significance, betray their calling and horrify their Saviour.

St Peter, like Pope Paul VI, was fearless in teaching the truth. Christ chose Saint Peter to be the first leader of the Apostles: the first Pope. Christ intended the Church always to have a leader; and all through the ages, the teaching of the Popes had been of paramount importance - including the 1968 Encyclical entitled 'Humanae Vitae', about the wrongness of contraceptive use.

Some people trust in their own opinions instead of the Church's teachings. In God's eyes, Pope Paul VI is a great hero of the Church who re-stated, in 'Humanae Vitae', long standing truths and principles about married love and sexuality. Catholics who oppose his teaching are opposing the teachings of generations of Popes - and, indeed, the Will of God, Who teaches us through those in authority in the Church.

When members of the Clergy, or theologians, or other people in the Church urge people to believe that behaviour once everywhere known as sinful is nowadays to be seen as reasonable or even good - such as contraceptive use, or sexual activity outside marriage - they endanger souls. To encourage people to sin is to help them on the way to Hell. The demons lie in wait for careless souls just as wild animals lie in wait for safari tourists who are foolish enough to leave the safety of the path.

Christ our God teaches us, and helps us, through His Church; yet there are countless Catholics held back from holiness or lasting joy because of their fears: fears that, if they choose to believe and practice the Faith in its fullness, they won't be able to bear the loneliness, or persecution or ridicule, or lack of luxuries, or chastity, or the rejection of sinful pleasure; some fear God's future plans, unknown. Some fear having more children.