PEACE ON EARTH

GOODWILL TOWARD ALL MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN, BORN AND UNBORN

Monday, January 23, 2012

What do you call an Order of Married Priests?

Lutherans.

That was the old joke. Now the new one is Anglican Ordinariate and thank God for them. They can perhaps start to enlighten the unmarried kind about some basic things regarding heterosexual family life from first hand experience. Like chastity is not the only path to holiness even for clerics.
And like if you are a responsible human being trying not to live outside your projected means you only have as many kids as you reasonably can afford so birth control is smart, responsible and moral. Its not that they don't adore kids, or think kids are a disease, its that they think eight is enough.
Theoretically, if someone is married in their early twenties and used no birth control they could have a kid literally every year until menapause hit somewhere in the mid 50s. Who in their right mind thinks it is morally responsible to have twenty to thirty kids, maybe have a few die off- other than the Duggars and who knows where they get their money from and what vitamins that chick is on.
Seriously. Birth control is morally responsible. It is not a slight on pregnancy- it is moral responsibility to have children when you are ready emotionally, physically, sociologically in the right family context and financially. If you want to avoid any abortions it is morally responsible to exercise some sort of birth control, and because the 'natural family planning' method is not reliable, the pharmaceutical ones should not be outlawed.

Does this mean that they shouldn't be tested for safety as well as efficacy- no. No one is arguing that. They all go through FDA approval and testing. Still, some are not all that safe and nothing not natural you put in your body is. But women weigh the alternative and find that a more morally acceptable alternative and assume the risks.

So the non married male Bishops have decided its morally wrong to take birth control? Are they kidding? And the wingnuts are out to demonize the Secretary of HHS? How sad. I have never been on the 'pill' or any pill like prevention-so I am not talking out of self-justifying defensiveness. I am talking out of concern that unmarried males in clerical garb who have not had girlfriends openly that we are supposed to know about much less wives or children are dictating birth control policy to women. Thank God the Health and Human Services Secretary is a Catholic Woman.

No comments: