CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Modern-day imperialism. Harmful to women. A failed promise. These are the ways that leading Catholic scholars described contraception \u2013 and said the Church is right to warn against it.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat women have discovered over the past 48 years is that we don\u2019t have a design flaw. Being a woman is good enough, and it\u2019s a wonderful thing,\u201d said Mary Rice Hasson, J.D., director of the Catholic Women\u2019s Forum at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.<\/p>\n
Hasson was among a group of more than 500 Catholic scholars who signed a document supporting Church teaching against contraception, as expressed in Blessed Paul VI\u2019s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae.<\/p>\n
The document, entitled \u201cAffirmation of the Catholic Church\u2019s Teaching on the Gift of Sexuality,\u201d was released at a Sept. 20 press conference at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
It responded to a statement opposing Church teaching, released by the U.K.-based Wijngaards Institute. The 150 signatories of the dissenting statement argued that the Church has no reason for its teaching against contraception. They said that the use of birth control is sometimes \u201can ethical imperative\u201d and that abortion-causing methods of contraception are sometimes acceptable.<\/p>\n
Pope Paul VI\u2019s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae reaffirmed the traditional Christian rejection of contraception and said it applied to the birth control pill. If a married couple faces a just reason to avoid pregnancy, the Church teaches that they may do so through Natural Family Planning, a process that works with a woman\u2019s natural fertile cycles and abstaining from sexual activity during the times that she is fertile.<\/p>\n
Hasson voiced gratitude for the Church\u2019s teaching, saying that it affirms women and does not treat their bodies as \u201cbroken.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a woman\u2019s perspective, contraception, abortion and the sexual revolution were held up to be a situation of promise, opportunity, of a way to move forward in equality,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what we\u2019ve found, not looking just through the eyes of faith, but our lived experience has shown that this is a false promise. In fact, women have proved to be hurt and more vulnerable by the consequences of the sex revolution and the promotion of contraception as the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than affirming women, Hasson said, contraception tells women that their fertility is a problem to be \u201cfixed\u201d through medical means.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the Church\u2019s teaching protects and defends women, she said. \u201cWe are the future. Women have the support of the Church\u2019s teaching and it\u2019s been just a tremendous thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hasson told CNA that both domestic and foreign organizations are \u201cvery coercive\u201d in pushing contraceptive implements on lower-income women around the world, often without regard for women\u2019s relationship goals and at the cost of other forms of developmental support.<\/p>\n
Religious studies professor John Grabowski of Catholic University of America agreed.<\/p>\n
He told CNA that during his time serving on the Pontifical Council for the Family, he has heard people from around the world complain that \u201cwe are having these population, family planning services shoved down our throats, regardless of our convictions, our cultural values, our religious convictions.\u201d<\/p>\n
In many cases, he said, funding is directly tied to acceptance of contraception and abortion programs. \u201cIt really is contraceptive imperialism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grabowki, who also signed the document supporting Church teaching, pointed out that every major Christian church agreed with Catholicism through the 20th century.<\/p>\n
And today, he said, \u201cthere are many Catholic scholars, academics and intellectuals who support the Church\u2019s teaching, who recognize that the teaching is not the policy instituted by the Church 48 years ago, but represents the constant teaching of the Church from its beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grabowksi noted that when Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae, he \u201cpredicted that if contraception were to be widely implemented we could expect a number of things to come to pass: increasing infidelity, and the overall moral decline within society, a loss of respect for women on the part of men.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of these things have come to pass, Grabowski said, charging that the Wijngaards Statement does not recognize \u201cthe fact that we have a wealth of data from the sciences and the social sciences demonstrating the real harm done to women, to relationships, to marriages and to the family. It\u2019s as if the sexual revolution hasn\u2019t happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also pointed to the statement\u2019s failure to address the \u201cunique contribution\u201d of St. Pope John Paul II\u2019s Theology of the body, a work which he described as \u201csuch a rich resource in unpacking this teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statement organizer Janet Smith, an ethics professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, noted that with just a few days\u2019 notice, the document in support of Church teaching had attracted more than triple the signatures of the dissenting statement.<\/p>\n
She suggested that this is \u201can opportunity for us to show the world that there are many, many people who accept the Church\u2019s teaching on contraception.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furthermore, she said, while all of the signatories hold advanced degrees, they are also largely people who are married with families.<\/p>\n
By living out the Church\u2019s teachings on contraception and sexuality in their daily lives, many of the signatories are a living witness to the truth of the Church\u2019s position, she said. \u201cThey\u2019re not just accepting it on blind obedience.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nKevin Jones contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Washington D.C., Sep 21, 2016 \/ 04:03 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Modern-day imperialism. Harmful to women. A failed promise. These are the ways that leading Catholic scholars described contraception – and said the Church is right to warn against it.<\/p>\n
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