Third Week of Lent
The readings for this week all have to do with God’s mercy, our need for forgiveness, and the call for us to forgive one another. We are all sinners in need of God’s mercy and often in need of forgiveness from those we love. However, the more sinful we are, the less likely we seem to be aware that we are in need of forgiveness. Our sense of personal responsibility is diminished by sinful habits and by the din of our culture which holds up personal freedom as the most lofty of all rights. We even begin failing to recognize the consequences of our errors and omissions and believe that we deserve solutions for the problems we ourselves have created.
In this age of advancing science and technology we expect and even demand resolution to the consequences of our own actions. Rather than taking personal responsibility for our actions, or change our behavior, we turn to technology to repair the damage we’ve created. When we eat or drink to excess,we take medication to mitigate symptoms of our over indulgence, rather than practice moderation. One recent commercial suggests we take the “purple pill” rather than give up the spicy foods that give us heartburn. When obesity threatens us with heart disease and diabetes, we take medication for the symptoms, rather than lose weight. When excess weight wears out our knees and hips we simply replace them. When our spouses can no longer put up with our selfish lifestyle choices, we simply divorce them, rather than amend our behavior.
Rather than teach our children self control and temperance, we provide them with condoms, contraceptives, and vaccination against HPV. Our individual freedom has become the idol we hold up as sacrosanct, even as we seem to have forgotten the importance of the virtues of temperance and moderation. We deceive ourselves into thinking that modern man has long surpassed the antiquated ways of the past, but we have reverted back to sacrificing our children before the god of self-indulgence. Fifty million babies have paid the price for our unbridled sexuality over the past 40 years, and that’s just in America. Now our president has defined fertility and pregnancy as illnesses to be prevented. In a recent speech he openly declared that preventing and destroying human life is “preventive health care” and a right of every woman that must not be denied. The president and his supporters seem determined to force the Catholic Church into the 21st century by demanding that they pay (one way or another) for contraception, surgical sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.
How much do we actually know about contraception? Do we agree with the media and the popular opinion that the Catholic Church is out of touch with reality in holding to its teaching on contraception? Should each Catholic have the liberty to pick and choose among Catholic teaching and ignore the Church’s guidance when it interferes with our freedom? The Catholic Church has long been criticized for its opposition to contraception, but few people seem to recognize the many negative consequences that result. In a recent editorial, the Catholic Health Association (a physician organization), pointed out that:
“Oral contraceptives (OCPs) contribute to significant disease and dysfunction, such as increased rates of blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks (especially in smokers); increased rates of HPV transmission; and increased incidence of cervical cancer and liver tumors. The same synthetic hormones in OCPs that make a women’s body behave as if pregnant all the time, also change her body chemistry, rendering her more susceptible to STIs. Many studies have shown that OCPs increase the risk of breast cancer – especially in young women who use them for more than four years before their first full-term pregnancy. Breast cancer rates have increased from 1 in 12 in 1960 to 1 in 8 now. The International Agency for Research on Carcinogens declared estrogen and progesterone Class I carcinogens in 2005. Why would we promote any substance that increases the risk of cancer, and describe it as preventive care? The Guttmacher Institute’s own data show that increases in contraception use lead to increased demand for abortions, and that women are more likely to have unplanned pregnancies when using contraception. There are no valid statistics demonstrating that the use of contraception and abortion have improved the health of women and children. In fact, the rates of premature and low birth weight infants have been rising precipitously since rates of abortion and OCP-use have increased.” ( This editorial was signed by five women physicians, including the current and past presidents of the Catholic Medical Association).
Contraception has also led to higher rates of infidelity, higher divorce rates and a significant increase in single parent families, as predicted by Pope Paul VI back in the 1960s when he wrote Humanae Vitae. Every pope since then has upheld this doctrine. In Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) Blessed John Paul II described “The emergence of a culture which… takes the form of a culture of death. This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency.” The Holy Father pointed out that the use of contraception fosters this culture of death, noting the close connection between contraception and abortion, citing that, “…both are rooted in an unwillingness to take responsibility for our sexuality. The life that results from a sexual encounter becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs and abortion the response to failed contraception.”
Perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves this lent is whether our sinfulness has blinded us to the truth about ourselves and our beliefs. Do we take responsibility for our health, for our behavior and our sexuality? Or have we gradually adopted a hedonistic mentality which dictates how we view others, putting our self-interest ahead of all other values. Having a child teaches us many lessons about life and about ourselves. We instinctively put the child’s well-being ahead of our own and we willingly make self-sacrifices to care for and nurture our children. These are the instincts and inclinations of love, but they are thwarted when we prevent and destroy children and view them as a threat to our personal fulfillment.
On more than one occasion I’ve spoken to my mother about birth control and the fact that she has 8 children. She admits that it was hard work, requiring many sacrifices, but says she wouldn’t change it for the world. She cannot imagine a world without each of her 8 children and all the love they now return to her in old age. In my eyes, she has given and received more love than anyone I know. Would she have had more money, a better house and better clothes if she and dad hadn’t raised 8 kids? Of course. Would she give up one or more of her children to have greater financial security? No way.
It’s estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of active Catholics use Natural Family Planning (NFP) instead of OCPs and other forms of birth control. But that small percentage also reports greater intimacy, better communications, and a divorce rate of nearly zero. Taking responsibility for our sexuality improves our lives in many ways. Before marriage, it means abstinence and the avoidance of the side effects of OCPs as well as the emotional damage of broken intimate relationships, not to mention the avoidance of STDs, HPV and the like. In marriage it means monogamy and a true sharing of the responsibility for procreation which includes abstinence for 10-12 days a month. It also fosters fidelity and deepens commitment to the spouse who is viewed as a true partner in life, not merely the object of sexual satisfaction on demand.
In his first encyclical as pope, Deus Caritas Est (“God is Love”), Benedict XVI writes that the love which God offers man is the wellspring of all authentic human love. He says that God asks us not to retreat from the demands and fruits of love, but to embrace them and foster a “civilization of love.” Putting ourselves and our personal freedoms first in life diminishes our ability to love one another. Sinfulness dulls our sense of personal responsibility and leads to an entitlement mentality. In the sexual arena we come to think we are entitled to unlimited sexual gratification from any means available. This theme is repeated continuously on TV, in the movies and the media. Anyone who remains a virgin until marriage is considered an idiot and anyone who opposes contraception is viewed as completely out of touch. However, these modern attitudes about sex detract from marital relationship and they rationalize aberrant behavior, while at the same time reducing our spouse to an object of our gratification. Habitual sexual sins cloud our judgment and detract from our ability to offer genuine, authentic, unconditional love. We need not succumb to the pervasive misinformation and lies about our sexuality. Authentic love is sacrificial love and it upholds the dignity of every human being, especially our spouse. Sin clouds our judgment by appealing to our desires and our selfish interests. Do not be deluded.
Scripture reminds us that God is all merciful and will not only forgive our sins, but help us love one another more perfectly if only we put ourselves in His Presence and seek His mercy. In the words we repeat at every mass, let us pray: “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul will be healed.”
