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Catholics, please help me with these sexual related questions
How is it not hypocritical for Viagra to be accepted by the Catholic Church? And other sexually related questions.
I'm currently taking confirmation classes, and it's a topic that troubles me, because I currently fail to see the logic behind the unquestioned acceptance of Viagra. My priest said something along the lines of that Viagra aids a married man with his natural biologic function, but how is a man's natural impotence, as he ages, any different from menopause women experience as they also age? If God doesn't make mistakes, then I don't see how a man using Viagra as he ages, to counteract a natural process, would be so "natural." I'm not saying I personally think Viagra is necessarily wrong, I'm just saying the current message I'm getting from the Catholic Church on related matters just appears to be hypocritical.
My priest said IVF is condemned because it involves essentially aborting "undesired" embryos, but what if a couple only decided to save the number of embryos they were planning to use? For example, a couple could save 4 embryos, and then attempt to have 4 children, instead of creating 4 embryos and only picking the one "good" one.
I also asked my priest if the Catholic Church views abortion as worse than birth control, citing studies that the vast majority of Catholic women use some form of contraception other than NFP, and his main arguments were that just because many women do it, doesn't make it right, which is fair, but also essentially equated the birth control pill to abortion, by saying when a woman skips a day, she is told to "just take 2 the next day". Personally, I'm no expert on the birth control pill, as I've only taken them pretty long ago, as a pre-teen, for regulating my period, but from the information I can gather on the internet, my priest's latter statement does not appear to be accurate. A human is not a human until it is an embryo (women aren't having miscarriages each month they have their period), and contraceptives like the birth control pill and condoms prevent sperm from reaching the egg, so what harm is being done? What child is being impacted? What sin is taking place if sex is taking place in a marriage acknowledged by the Catholic Church? Doesn't the Catholic Church view sex as both procreative and unifying for married couples? As far as I know, infertile couples aren't banned from taking part in the activity. Seeing as abstinence is the only contraceptive method with a 100% success rate, couples would technically still be open to life, even if they used contraceptives like birth control pills and condoms. I mean, miracles also sometimes happen to people rendered as "infertile".
Another related thing I take issue with is how consummation and sex in general is a requirement of marriage. What if a couple satisfy every other requirement of marriage, but are both asexual? Or have permanent disabilities that make such activity impossible? Are such people not fit for marriage, in the eyes of the Catholic Church? Is love really love if it wanes due to the lack of sexual activity?
I thank you in advance for your help!
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Maybe give some free advice about: Spirituality?
I will give you a shorter version of what the previous writer wrote.
As I understand the church's view on sex is in brief this: Sex for the simple pleasure of sex is a sin. Sex is meant to be done not for pleasure but for conception. Therefore if you have sex for the purpose of conceiving a child you are not sinning.
Viagra allows a male to have an erection which allows him to do his part in the conception of a child. Therefore the church can support it's use. Birth control on the other hand prevents conception there for it's use is not supported by the church. Sex while on birth control is also seen as sinful as a child cannot be conceived.
I've somewhat overly simplified the approval and objections but the basics are here.
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Hon, I know the Catholic Church has it's own take on what is okay regarding sex, birth control and anything related to mens or womens genital issues. So do most all other Christian type churches. Each has it's own interpretations of what the bible says, and presume to know whats best on issues the bible doesn't mention or they sadly misinterpret what God meant for us. this is gonna be extremely long, I will share what I know, what I believe, and some of the terrible things I've witnessed in the church regarding sexual matters.
Lets see if I can explain a few of the birth controls and how the church might react to them.
The pill is most common so I'll start there. When a female becomes pregnant, the point at which a fertilized egg attaches to her uteran wall, a certain hormone is released into her body that signals many things, one being that no more eggs need to be released for the next 9 months as she is already pregnant. the pill simulates those hormones in the female body so no egg is released, meaning she can't become pregnant for there is no egg for the sperm to swim to.
The argument in this case is not that you are killing or aborting a life at a very early stage but preventing instead which is interfering with God wanting you to have children. Heck this world is so overpopulated that it wouldn't matter if a few of us had no children or only 1 child.
There are other hormones based contraceptives, like the shot, or a patch worn on the skin, etc.
I think the one that got the most controversial attention might be the copper IUD, called Paragard. It is something inserted into the womb and taken out when you are ready to have children. Lasts about 10 yrs. This does not use hormones. So how does it prevent pregnancy, by making the lining of the uterus inhospitable for the fertilized egg so it can not attach to the uterus wall, like being too slippery I heard it said once. And the egg can not begin to start growing into a baby until it is attached to the mother where it will get it's nourishment and protection. The arguments here on one side is that preventing a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus is a way of aborting it and the argument is that it is already a baby. On the other side, they argue that its not a baby until it can attach so if that part can be prevented, then it is a good source of birth control.
Before modern birth control, there were some women who learned what herbs could achieve the same thing as copper does for birth control, making the lining such as the egg could not attach and result in a pregnancy. This was common knowledge in the world, each area perhaps having it's own type of plant that had the same effect. The only one I know of today that is still in use by a very small percentage of women keen on using everything natural and herbal for health and such, is Daucus Carota, known as wild carrot or the plant from which our future carrots we know of today come from. Daucus Carota used to be popular in gardens as a flower known as Queen Anne's Lace. I have only seen it growing wild and naturalized in abandoned lots, fields or out of the way places in city, like a weed, much like a lawn taken over by dandelion only it the Queen Annes Lace's. Its hard to find but I once found one website that explains using it as birth control. Basically you drink a tea made from the blossoms or from the seeds and drink it hours before having sex, or if you forget, in the morning when you awake from sex the night before. It is hard and expensive to get in the large quantities needed to supply yourself for a number of months let alone a year unless say you only had sex once a month. Back then, women shared knowledge of this contraceptive as a secret among themselves and the men rarely knew much about it. Women not having the conveniences of modern times would find it extremely a hard life to have all her children one year or less, apart and several in diapers, or the equivalent, at the same time. It was also a smart move provisional wise. In times when people survived off what food they raised, and there were no groceries, in lean years, with too many mouths to feed, people actually died of starvation or illnesses due to malnutrition.
So long ago, woman took a role in personal decisions as to when they were ready to have a child, with out having to give up having sex with their husband.
As a teen I was attending an Assemblies of God church. I got married in one and saw many couples our age get married there. The church had issues with Christian girls dressing in a way that might arouse the boys. So they had to dress extremely conservative. Had to wear t shirts over their bathing suit. Which was stupid as it hid the bare skin but not their shape or the nipples. It wasn't okay to hold hands or kiss as that would be a temptation to the boys too. I thought it was stupid as the males, no matter what their beliefs, especially when young teens can get erections whether a girl was around or not, its part of how life goes for them at that age, thats what their bodys do. I remember my daughter going on a teen crusade to New Orleans to share the Gospel on the streets. She came back totally disillusioned with how paranoid and idiotic their rules were. They were told if a leader shouted out the phrase 'ground check' they were to avert their eyes to stare at the ground as if looking for something because there was something in the immediate area that they deemed of a sexual nature that might arouse the teens. She instead would look around to discover what they considered sexual, once it was a tshirt was a joke on it, another it was a statue of a nude in the park. She also witnessed a 15 yr old girl breakdown and have a mental melt down when a random man whistled at her as the teens passed by. She began to cry and shake in terror because a man had 'whistled' at her. They had to abort plans because it took a long time to console her. I have seen many other people messed up sexually because they were so impressionable, even into their twenties. I know an adult woman from church. She and her husband had sex in high school and throughout the years before they married. Some time after they became Christians and when she learned that sex before marriage was a sin, she couldn't forgive herself for having had sex beforehand, and she immediately became ill with stomach issues, and as the years went by, more illnesses of the gut, intestinal ones to where she began to look like a wasted away body of a person dying from cancer. I saw a gal at her own wedding never having kissed her fiancee or even held hands or touch in any way have a melt down at her wedding. she became so terrified of the upcoming kiss that she fainted. A couple months later we heard they split and the marriage was annuled because they both were too terrified of having sex, some fear that they might become sinful creatures lured into very dark things by having sex with each other. It is a very sad thing that the views of a church, which should be a place people go to have a better life is something instead that distorts their life when it comes to anything sexual. Many attend and totally ignore anything they hear of sexual nature from the pulpit. Others find a church where others like themselves can go where people still love Jesus and Holy Spirit but are more open minded, accepting of all gender types, for example gay churches or churches where there is a mix of both gay and hetero.
I am glad that you have issues and are not blindly believing what you hear. Just because some one has studied and has a degree or becuase they are an adult doesnt mean they are on the right track as far as God is concerned.
I found a way to make it simple for me. If something bothered me, I had issues or questions about it, I would ask God, especially if it was something that might affect my life then or later. God would always answer me. I would also check in with Him so to speak asking if He was stilled pleased with how I was doing and growing as a believer. When it comes to belief, religion, faith, I don't believe that the "one size fits all" applies here. Ones spiritual path is a private thing, uniquely different from the path God may have your best friend on. Why then does the church try to set rules and a way of life, even in sexual matters that are a one size fits all type of thinking? Wild guess, fear of loss of control of the people, if they all were to rely on a direct line of communication with God and learned how to get instruction 'from the Horse's mouth' so to speak, then the CHristian faith would be out of business. I know it sounds awful but I have seen it run more like a business and how moves or promotions will be good for the strength of church leadership and bringing more numbers of people in for their tithes not for their spiritual health. Another reason why church leaders can not presume to know what is best for you and make rules you should obey, I have found that God's truth to any of his children that ask will be personalize just for them. Is is often catered to where they are at in their spiritual maturity. Looking back at my journals, I can see what God said to me in the past, using speech, language and words I could relate to then or believed to be true, but ever so slowly leading me in a different direction that was more true. That is what I know you are ready to do as you have so many things you find issue with already or find hypocritical, things that just don't add up. Not knocking the church. there is much good there but we're expected to swallow the whole ball of wax and I'm not buying it. I have found more loving spiritual happy well adjusted people outside of the church than in it who are living their lives by Jesus principles, not church doctrine. And get this, they have more success with healing when they pray for people than I ever saw in the church. If what a particular church is teaching is hindering rather than helping, there is no purpose to being part of that unless you like spinning your wheels in place and going nowhere or worse, going backward.
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