www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall At Notre Dame, gay film fest

Sharon,

I must wholeheartedly agree with you.

I nursed my first child for the duration of my 6-week maternity leave. I bought one of those cheap no-good breast pumps for when I went back to work, but I had a choice between sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, or walking to the locker room to pump. A 10-15 minute break just wasn't enough time to get to the locker room, get all the equipment out, get a couple of ounces pumped with a low-power battery-operated pump, put everything away, and walk back to my desk. So my son got switched to formula within a couple of weeks of my returning to work.

My second son was born Caesarean. I developed heart problems during the procedure, so they shipped me off to another hospital and put me on heart medications. I couldn't nurse because I wasn't in the same hospital as my son, and besides they said the heart medications would contaminate my milk. By the time I even got to hold him he was already quite attached to the bottle.

My third son nursed until I went back to work, at which time I put him on bottles but still nursed him at night until he went to sleep. I had a better pump this time around and they had put blinds on my office window, so I was able to lock the door and pump. Then my husband got a day job and I was able to stay home with the kids and take Jason off the bottle and go back to only nursing. That was a nice opportunity, that I wish I had been able to do with my other two.

Tammy

Tammy, I moved from an office to a cube, and that's when the car adapter for my PIS started getting the twice daily use.

BTW, should you have more children, don't take any doc or pharmacist's word on whether a med is compatible with breastfeeding unless you check it with someone who's got Dr. Thomas Hale's "Medication and Mother's Milk" which is the research-based gold standard. The PDR is USELESS when it comes to valid info on a med's compatibility with lactation. Oh, the American Academy of Pediatrics website has a list also of meds OK for bf women too, but it's not organized in a particularly user-friendly manner.

Hugs,

Sharon

Dear Alex,

PLEASE don't shoot the messenger...

This is from the official Greek Orthodox Archdiocese website...

• Questions on Sexual Issues
  The teaching of the Orthodox Church on sexual questions is strongly determined by the Church's attitude toward marriage and the family. A representative Orthodox statement which shows the centrality and importance of the family in Orthodox thinking is found in an encyclical letter by former Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, issued on the occasion of National Family Week in 1972. He stated:
  
  "Home and family life is the bedrock of our Greek Orthodox life-style. The spirit that binds us together as a people finds its deepest roots in the home where the tenderest values of human existence, love, compassion, forbearance and mutual helpfulness thrive in abundance."(?)
  
  Over the centuries and throughout most cultures and civilizations the family has been proven to be the unifying unit of society. Today we find the family under attack both from within and from without. Outside forces would have us believe that the family as we have come to know and cherish it is no longer necessary. From within, the erosion of spiritual values and emphasis upon materialism has created for many families confusion and uncertainty where commitment and dedication once reigned. Marriage is holy. The home is sacred. Birth is a miracle. In these we find the very meaning of life itself.
  
  One aspect of the "commitment and dedication" of the holy state of marriage and family is cast in terms of sexual behavior. Most moral questions relating to sex are generally best understood in the light of this high regard for marriage and the family. Some of the questions on sexual issues addressed by the Orthodox Church are the following:
  
  The Orthodox Church remains faithful to the biblical and traditional norms regarding premarital sexual relations between men and women. The only appropriate and morally fitting place for the exercise of sexual relations, according to the teachings of the Church, is marriage. The moral teaching of the Church on this matter has been unchanging since its foundation. In sum, the sanctity of marriage is the cornerstone of sexual morality. The whole range of sexual activity outside marriage - fornication, adultery and homosexuality - are thus seen as not fitting and appropriate to the Christian way of life. Like the teaching on fornication, the teachings of the Church on these and similar issues have remained constant. Expressed in Scripture, the continuing Tradition of the Church, the writings of the Church Fathers, the Ecumenical Councils and the canons, these views have been restated by theologians, hierarchs and local Orthodox churches in our own day. For example, the Decalogue prohibits adultery. In the tradition of the Church, the second-century Epistle of Barnabas commands "Thou shalt not be an adulterer, nor a corrupter, nor be like to them that are such." The fourth-century Church Father St. Basil wrote against the practice (Canons 35 and 77); and the Quinisext Council (A.D. 691) repeated the same condemnation in its eighty-seventh canon. All major Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States have had occasion to repeat the condemnation of adultery.
  Generally stated, fornication, adultery, abortion, homosexuality and any form of abusive sexual behavior are considered immoral and inappropriate forms of behavior in and of themselves, and also because they attack the institution of marriage and the family. Two representative statements, one on abortion and another on homosexuality, from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America follow. They are from the Twenty-Third Clergy-Laity Congress held in Philadelphia in 1976. The Orthodox Church has a definite, formal and intended attitude toward abortion. It condemns all procedures purporting to abort the embryo or fetus, whether by surgical or chemical means. The Orthodox Church brands abortion as murder; that is, as a premeditated termination of the life of a human being. The only time the Orthodox Church will reluctantly acquiesce to abortion is when the preponderance of medical opinion determines that unless the embryo or fetus is aborted, the mother will die. Decisions of the Supreme Court and State legislatures by which abortion, with or without restrictions, is allowed should be viewed by practicing Christians as an affront to their beliefs in the sanctity of life. The position of the Orthodox Church toward homosexuality has been expressed by synodicals, canons and patristic pronouncements beginning with the very first centuries of Orthodox ecclesiastical life. Thus, the Orthodox Church condemns unreservedly all expressions of personal sexual experience which prove contrary to the definite and unalterable function ascribed to sex by God's ordinance and expressed in man's experience as a law of nature. The Orthodox Church believes that homosexuality should be treated by religion as a sinful failure. In both cases, correction is called for. Homosexuals should be accorded the confidential medical and psychiatric facilities by which they can be helped to restore themselves to a self-respecting sexual identity that belongs to them by God's ordinance. In full confidentiality the Orthodox Church cares and provides pastorally for homosexuals in the belief that no sinner who has failed himself and God should be allowed to deteriorate morally and spiritually. Psychiatric reconciliation is bound to prove short-lived.
  
  The possible exception to the above affirmation of continuity of teaching is the view of the Orthodox Church on the issue of contraception. Because of the lack of a full understanding of the implications of the biology of reproduction, earlier writers tended to identify abortion with
  contraception. However, of late a new view has taken hold among Orthodox writers and thinkers on this topic, which permits the use of certain contraceptive practices within marriage for the purpose of spacing children, enhancing the expression of marital love, and protecting health.

Alice

There's your documentation, Tony. Thanks Alice.

As for spacing of births, we move in countercultural Catholic circles where nursing babies until two or three is the norm. My wife nurses until two or so and we have babies [so far] about every three years. This way of suppressing ovulation [a secondary effect to the nurturing and comfort of the child] does not work with pumping breast milk nor with putting the baby on a schedule; mama must be available when the baby desires milk. It also is not universally effective; some women conceive if their husband walks into the room! Still, it generally works IF the baby is allowed to nurse at will. Of course this precludes full time out-of -the- home employment for mama; a tertiary good side effect.
And I would note that no Christian denomination ever says "in the spirit of capitulation to the world we endorse..." It is always hidden amidst talk of the sanctity of life and centrality of the family and such. The truth is that the contraceptive pill IS abortive, albeit at the earliest stages of human life, and the truth is that the Fathers opposed all means of contraception, quite aside from considering it abortive. Indeed, until fairly recent times "ensoulment" was not considered to occur until the movement of the baby could be felt, yet contraception -not unknown to the ancients, after all- and abortion were still forbidden.

Sharon:

I fully agree with all items in your rant. I merely said aid in preventing conception, by the way.

The shameful conditions women are forced to endure and the lack of appropriate education and facilities are an outrage.

I think it is the saddest commentary yet that more women are not aided by their husbands in this outcry.

Mothers who are willing to feed their children naturally should be given every encouragement, by their husbands and by society in general. But what conceivable connection does this have with a gay film festival? One somehow doubts that the film festival would attract a large number of nursing mothers!
Incognitus

Dear Alice,

Thank you very much indeed!

Alex

This argument is really, REALLY weak. The fathers condemned contraception, not because it was considered abortion, but because it violates the meaning of the sexual act, and contravenes God's purposes.

The threefold end of human sexual expression is written in the order of creation: Procreation, Union, and Remedy for Concupiscience. One cannot divorce the sexual act from any of the three ends--and most especially not the primary end which is procreation--without violating the law of nature.

LatinTrad

"Relations with one's wife when conception is deliberately prevented are as unlawful and impure as the conduct of Onan who was slain" --St. Augustine

At the risk of vulgarity, I've heard it suggested that one of the largest Monoph . . . oops, I of course mean Non-Chalcedonian Churches has issued a pastoral statement on contraception entitled "Copts and Rubbers"
Incognitus

Dear Brian- To get back on topic, what on this thread has costituted "gay bashing"? I must have missed something. To express concern that a Catholic institution is sponsoring a gay film fest when the Catholic Church considers homosexual activity to be sinful is not gay bashing. Homosexual activists would like to call anyone who considers homosexuality sinful a bigot but I would hope that we who profess the Faith know that one can combine sympathy for those struggling with sexual temptation with an unwavering adherence to what after all has always been the Christian moral ethos.

Posted by Iconophile:

"I would hope that we who profess the Faith know that one can combine sympathy for those struggling with sexual temptation with an unwavering adherence to what after all has always been the Christian moral ethos. "

One would hope indeed!

On the other hand, may those who live the tension between sympathy and adherence not be held suspect because of it.

Steve

Dear Steve- Uh, I'm not sure what that means...
-Daniel

Hi,

I'm going to close this thread in the interest of beginning a new one. I'll even begin the thread under the title of "Natural Family Planning or Contraception?" This has developed beyond the original topic.