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Most Roman Catholics, those who practice, use artificial "conception control". I have never heard of anyone in my church who would, at least openly, condone abortion. Even IUDs, which abort the zygote, are not used by anyone in my church that I know of.
The Roman Catholics that I talk to don't see the difference if preventing conception is done with NFP or Artificial means. The objective is still the same. However, I have heard a priest tell a woman who had cancer that she should not have a full hysterectomy while still fertile, despite the medical benefits for doing so.
For the record, these are the opinions of people in my parish.

Hmmmm I think you took my thoughts to an extreme. Lots of problems in the Church are caused when people take thoughts to the extreme. I said I wouldn't judge someone with a medical condition using birth control but that sterlization is something I can't personally
condone under any circumastances.

Having a hysterectomy (sp) or masectomy is not mutilation in my eyes because you are going for a cancerous tumor not with the intention of taking out just the reproductive organs. And if anything less drastic were possible that course would be followed.

Your comment about whether infertile people can have relations knowing they cannot conceive should have been answered at your seminary with the simple response that infertile people can legitimately have relations because they are open to life and most likely praying very hard to be able to have life!

I can't accept the idea that clergy and other "do gooders" should stay out of bedrooms. We are not protestants or post-modernists. Our actions affect others around us. Like my post about the population downward spiral in Italy, what we do with contraception is affecting our society. The Church has a right and a RESPONSIBILITY to effect change in this area.

I would agree that (the/an) Orthodox position as it actually is expressed by say the OCA in its epistle on the subject is pastoral and acceptable to me BUT it's not what's really going on as far as I can see.

In Christ,

anastasios

I actually don't understand this.

Axios

I just received notification from Fr John that his site is moving to a new location:

http://home.uchicago.edu/~jas/stephanos/index.html

For those who want a traditional Orthodox view of this subject...check it out!

Dave Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

Not sure if someone posted this link or not so here goes. From the Project Stephanos site there is a link to this site by an "Armenian Christian" [I'm not sure which jurisdiction that is] but the article on contraception is interesting.

Is Contraception Orthodox? [geocities.com]

In discussions about contraception there are a couple of things that usually come into play.
1. natural law
2. reason
3. tradition as seen by patristic quotes, decrees of councils, and penitential codes among others.

Forgetting the 1st & 2nd points for now... I've seen examples of the 3rd from the anti-contraception point of view often enough.

Would somebody who favors the pro-contraceptive stance show me some actual examples from those sources mentioned in point #3 that favors their position?

Thanks!

Eric

Orthodox Statements on Contraception

Ukrainian Orthodox Church (USA)

Once a family has been blessed with children, the position taken by our Church is that the use of artificial means of birth control becomes a private matter that a couple needs to discuss carefully with their Father Confessor and in full possession of the medical facts. Certainly, the use of contraceptives that function as abortifacients (by causing the expulsion of an embryo) is wrong because abortion is wrong. If we find that embryonic stem-cell harvesting is offensive to Orthodox Tradition, then certainly that which also ends a nascent human life for the sake of expediency or convenience is also offensive. We must take care always to not be ��destroyers of the workmanship of God.� (Ep. Barnabus, XX.)

As for artificial, non-abortifacient methods of birth control in the context of marriage, the matter is placed within a mature understanding of the context of the Sacrament of Penance.

Naturally, an Orthodox couple, committed to their Faith and its holistic permeation of their daily lives, will make their decisions prayerfully and based upon the counsel of their spiritual father, with the recognition that the Orthodox Church does not take a strictly legalistic approach to this question. This is why there is still discussion and controversy. The emphasis upon the close relationship of body and soul places this issue in the total context of marriage and family, and most importantly takes a sacramental approach -- one that is penitential if necessary.

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese

Sexual relations are related to the mutual
fulfillment of the spouses and then to
child-bearing. The decision, therefore, to suspend fertility through the use of contraceptives is not necessarily in violation of natural law.

Regarding this matter, Metropolitan Chrysostomos
Zapheris notes the following: "While the Orthodox
Church fully acknowledges the role of procreation
in the marital sexual act, it does not share the
deterministic understanding of the act. . . which
ignores love as a dimension of great value in
sexual intercourse between husband and wife."
Creation of new life requires serious, prayerful,
honest and sincere reflection. While some forms of contraception are more admissible than others, it is clear that abortion is not an acceptable form of birth control.

Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada

BIRTH CONTROL:
Though opinions vary among Orthodox on this issue, the view of most Orthodox bodies is that controlling conception through "natural family planning", or contraception, is acceptable for married couples, as long as it is done in a spirit of responsible Christian stewardship of life.

This means, first, that birth control will not be used merely because having and rearing children is seen as a financial or social inconvenience.

Secondly, it means that any form of contraception used will not be physically harmful to either spouse, and will not involve the abortion of a fertilized egg. Finally, the decision to utilize birth control, as well as the decision to have a child, must be a mutual one between both wife and husband.

Russian Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Moscow)

In section �Problems of bioethics� Russian Orthodox Church for the first time has formulated the attitude toward problems, which were unknown neither to apostles, nor to the fathers of the Church. So, claiming abortion as a murder, Russian Orthodox Church nevertheless does not forbid women to come to Church, who made abortions for the medical or social reasons. The Catholic Church strictly forbids to the followers to use any contraceptive means, referring to �natural methods of contraception� (for example, to calendar method) in special cases only. However Russian Orthodox Church is not against contraception: if it is authorized �by a mutual consent� and �according to the confessor's advice� to resort to �non-abortion means of contraception� (obviously, condoms may be used according to this definition). From modern forms of artificial conception Russian Orthodox Church accepts only �artificial fertilization by sexual cells of a husband�, but rejects a donor service of sexual cells and �substitute motherhood� as destroying integrity of the marriage union. Naturally, the church rejects cloning, rejecting a God's attitude about uniqueness of each human personality, but allows cloning of separate cells and fabrics in medical purposes.

Thanks, Axios, for these statements showing the modern Orthodox view...

Eric, howewer, asked a question that has not been answered...

David Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

Usually the sin is found in the intent behind the action.

I believe it is correct that if a person has to have a necessary medical procedure, then it may be acceptable to do so even if the unfortunate and perhaps unavoidable result is that the individual is sterile. There are certain female medical conditions that may necessitate removal of certain reproductive organs. For example, I have a friend who had to have a hysterectomy because of a condition she has that causes excrutiating pain and uterine bleeding. Despite her condition, she managed to have three children - including one in her 40s - and under the most difficult of labors and deliveries - but as she ages and her hormone levels change, the problem is becoming worse and she has passed out and experienced other symptoms of a serious nature. Her intent is not to become sterile, but that is the unavoidable result. I don't think taking out a diseased part is mutilation. (Again, mutilation is in the intent.) I'd say its more like pruning a bad branch off of a tree, so the rest of the tree can be restored.

Sterlization as a means to the end of preventing children is not licit. That really is mutilation.

Problem is, in the situation Eric has posted, I don't know why the husband's vasectomy will directly solve the wife's health problem. I actually have friends in a situation where the wife has serious health problems (not of a reproductive system nature - but she has to take many drugs that are not appropriate for pregnant women) and having a child might be horribly dangerous to her at this point. I should mention that they are Orthodox. Their priest advised them to try to use natural means to avoid pregnancy until such time as it is safe to have children. He did tell them that abortion, abortificants, and sterilization were out. Neither of them would ever consider doing these things, anyway, and they want children. She is getting better and it might just happen!

P.S. - Axios' quote reminded me: My friends were told by their priest (again, Orthodox) that non-abortificant means of contraceptive may be used, however, their priest also advised them to pray and consider that carefully versus natural means. He seemed to feel it was best to do things naturally.

I believe it is true that Catholics of all our churches are taught that contraceptives (abortificant and non-abortificant) are not licit, nor is sterilization for the purpose of preventing pregnancy. Orthodox Christians may differ with regard to non-abortificant contraceptives, used within the context of marriage and where grave reasons exist. Did I say that right, Axios? I was trying to answer Eric's Q succinctly.

Sorry. Several RC's with whom I have spoken (some of whom studied in RC seminaries) told me that they were taught that an infertile couple can legitimately have relations despite the infertility if they are open to life (most infertile people I have met pray very hard to be able to have children). I have never really met any infertile couple that was like "yeah! now we don't have to worry about birth control!" I suppose if someone like that existed, it wouldn't be legitimate for them to have relations because their intent would not be open to life, but then we would be venturing off into the wild world of what-if's! So to rephrase, it is my understanding that traditional Catholic morality teaches that it is ok for an infertile couple to have relations if they are open to life.

In Christ,

anastasios

anastasios,

I don't want to put words in you rmouth, I just find your statement puzzling.

Are you saying that if a married couple where the wife has had her 'change of life' should not have sex if they are not desiring more children?

The infertility issue is another point of confusion. I have two female friends in my life who cannot have children. One has a a view of "well, such is life; maybe we will adopt." The other friend (and I have spent hours with her trying to counsel her -- which may be a sin on my part in your view) is just obessive about the fact she cannot have children. Her husband has convined her to take medication to deal with her depression over this (which might be a sin also?< artifical?).

I just find this all difficult to understand.

Axios

Axios,

I don't understand what you don't understand about this infertility and sex thing. Is it that you don't understand or don't agree? Neither the Catholic nor the Orthodox church teaches that a couple should refrain from sex if they are infertile.

If you're wondering WHY this isn't a problem for Catholics and contraception is then the answer seems straitforward to me. Whether you agree with their stance is of course another issue but it seems easy enough to understand to me.

To simplify I think their stance is:
a. any married couple can abstain from sex for any of several reasons so long as they're both in agreement to do so. this is not contraception and is allowed.

b. contraception is a positive action that one takes to prevent conception when having sex. Not having sex (NFP) doesn't count because this is just abstinence. The fathers knew about abstinence all the while they were condemning contraception. I understand that NFP and contraception can both lead to the same end (have sex but not conceive) but they are different means to that end. It seems that to argue that abstinence and contraception are the same is to argue with the fathers.

c. infertile couples can have sex because they are not responsible to be fertile - they are responsible not to interfere and get in the way if God wants to send them a child (if they decide to have sex that is -- again abstinence doesn't count as the tradition plainly teaches that couples can abstain altogether).

I'm not trying to give you a hard time but it seems that your issue is that you don' agree and not so much that you don't understand. But maybe I'm wrong... It's happened before!!

Yes, I think that is the issue. Like most Orthodox Christians, I do not find the responsible use of contraceptives to be objectively immoral. I do find some Catholics make what seem to me to be very tortured defenses of opposition to contraception.

It seems to me that contraception is a medical means to acheive what most couples desire (and desire legitimately), that is, to plan their families, space the birth of children and to have families of a certain size.

These desires seem present in both couples that use natural and chemical family planning. Once that desire is accepted as morally neutral, I remain confused as to the Roman Catholic position on family planning.

However, I respect the Catholic Church having its considered view on this matter and simply ask that the Orthodox be given the same respect and this not become an issue for division between our two communions as we seek unity and union.

Axios

Axios said
I think it boils down to the old saying "the ends don't justify the means". There are lots of things in life that are good ends but the means selected do matter and some means are objectively wrong.

I hear what you're saying which basically boils down to "to us modern Orthodox christians *we* don't see what the problem is with contraception" - and yet the church fathers knew about both abstinence and contraception and abortion yet only condemned the last 2.

One could try to argue the current majority view of contraception in Orthodoxy is true. But how could one argue this is the historical teaching of the christian faith? The fathers knew the difference between abortifacient and barrier means of contraception yet condemned contraception without exception anyway.