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Aussie Archbishop slams Catholics who defy church on contraception

Eucharistic Congress address stirs debate on birth control

PATRICK COUNIHAN,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 7:52 AM

Updated Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 8:49 AM

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Archbishop Barry James Hickey

Photo by au.news.yahoo

An Australian Archbishop has launched a strong attack on Catholic couples who defy the church’s teaching on contraception.

Speaking at the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, Aussie Archbishop Barry James Hickey claimed:

“the truth is not respected when couples defy church teaching on contraception.”

The Irish Times reports that he said: “Such defiance sets up an inner conflict which undermines faith and causes mistrust of Christ’s mandate to teach on matters of human sexuality.”

Archbishop Hickey added: “The wisdom of the world has chosen to ignore, even ridicule Catholic teaching on the matter of openness to children, and has taken a different and tragic path.”

Hickey, Archbishop Emeritus of Perth in Western Australia, also said: “Artificially separating sex from its possible consequences has led to the separation of sex from marriage and has led to the proliferation of casual unions, to the exploitation of young women, to false hopes that sexual activity will lead to love, and to the abandonment of marriage by millions of people around the world.

“Where the church is concerned it can either compromise and face irrelevance, or continue to teach Christ’s truth about marriage, life and love, and pray that the world will listen.”

The paper reports that Archbishop Hickey addressed the congress on the Eucharist and the Christian family.

He added: “Christian marriage is now under fierce and hostile attack. The gift we give to a world of broken relationships and unloved children is the beauty of Christian marriage and our desire to reach out to the victims of broken marriage.

“However, increasingly marriage is being promoted as only one of many options in human sexual relationships.

“Added to this is the pressure to change the very definition of marriage from a union of a man and a woman to a union of two persons of the same sex. The Christian ideal of marriage is under great threat.”

“This worsening situation called for urgent action at all levels of society. The family is under threat because the institution of marriage is being undermined.

“Government, the churches and the community must seek to stabilise family life and strengthen marriage itself.”

Nster.com

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Andrew007 | Jun 23, 2012, 12:56 AM EDT

@eiriamach PART 2: However, I do qualify this as at the time of the writing of the NT abortifacients were also used (employing herbs or violent shocks to the female body), as well as the apparently then widespread practice of infanticide (ancient methods of contraception being VERY imperfect at best). Given that moral and legal proscriptions have existed on what was (and arguably mostly still is) regarded as murder since time immemorial (pagan human sacrifice, even of children and new-born infants, such as that which existed in Punic worship of Baal-Molech, being the exception), I don’t expect NT writers to publicly condemn what I believe was already almost universally legally condemned for being evil. I also qualify it on religious grounds, because fertility is a blessing from God and infertility a curse, and Mankind is meant to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28), and so therefore child-bearing and rearing is intended by our Creator to be a natural consequence of sex, which is expressly forbidden to be outside of marriage (i.e. marriages are meant to be fruitful, not childless). I further qualify this on historical grounds, as high fertility rates can actually make a nation strong or save a people from extinction. E.g. it was the incredible (RC-influenced) fertility of the Irish Gaels that saved them from extinction, as during the collapse of the Gaelic political order in 16thC Ireland and then the deliberate ethnic cleansing, enslavement and transportation, and then attempted genocide in the 17thC, and then the 19thC Great Famine, English overlords either deliberately attempted to annihilate the rebellious Gaels or were overwhelmingly indifferent to their mass starvation.

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Andrew007 | Jun 23, 2012, 12:54 AM EDT

@eiriamach, in response to your reply of Jun 14, 2012, 11:10 AM EDT: fair enough. Expanding upon what you said, not even St Paul, who expounded at length about the new Moral and Spiritual Order of this "Age of Grace" within which the (universal) Christian Church operates, mentioned contraception. As you’ve suggested, contraceptive practices were widespread in the ancient world (especially amongst Greeks/Romans), and included both “natural remedies” (incl. famous herbs like Silphium) as well as “artificial” methods (such as coitus interruptus, avoiding sex during ritually “unclean” (and fertile) periods, and using devices such as wool or polished stones to block the passage of ejaculate - "condoms" apparently being first invented during the English Civil War, when besieged Royalist soldiers used sheeps' intestines to prevent the poxied wenches they bedded from infecting them, but I digress!). Unlike most of the other key disciples of Christ, St Paul was highly educated and specifically trained in Jewish Law by leading scholars, and didn’t just come from (gentile) Tarsus in Anatolia, but demonstrated that he was highly informed about the gentile world he travelled in and to which he was exposed, and I have little doubt that he would have been aware that contraceptive practices existed (particularly in the gentile world). Therefore, of all NT writers I would have expected him at least to condemn contraception if indeed it was a sin. But he remains silent on the issue throughout his writings (which, given St Paul’s directness about sexual immorality and male-female relations, is significant). If we consider this silence in conjunction with the overwhelming silence of OT writers on the matter, I therefore cannot but conclude that contraception isn’t necessarily a sin in and of itself, but only when combined with other factors – such as when Onan was deliberately trying to deny his brother’s widow a son to carry on the deceased man’s name.

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mayoman | Jun 19, 2012, 10:02 AM EDT

If this article means anything it is that the Archbishop has been left at the station. Fifty years ago women began using contraceptives, and they soon discovered that contrqaceptives are a covenient and safe means of preventing unwanted pregnancies, and controlling their own bodies and destinies. This is a reality that the Archbishop isn't personally concerned about. But let's be clear about this: this is all old business, very old business. Catholic women have moved on, and have wisely decided to use contraceptives. And fortunately they don't give a rap what some old archbishop with quaint, reactionary views of women thinks. The conservative men, that are eternally in charge of the RCC, should wake up and take note. The world has changed, and is busy evolving right now. And they need to run to catch up.

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Collette2 | Jun 17, 2012, 02:52 AM EDT

Brnmar, Your the only one who has ever made reference to Chiniquy's book. It's enough to make you wonder and enough make you puke. They get away with it still today because it's a sin to speak against a priest, and many still believe it.

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seanomelb | Jun 16, 2012, 11:10 PM EDT

watched an interesting story on health care in America. They interviewed a gentleman who was turned away from hospital because he did have insurance or $20,000 dollars to pay for surgery his doctor claimed his condition was critical as his hernia was infected.His diagnosis is operate or die. The GOP mantra toward this man is tough its his fault for been poor.So much for the Christian right.

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eiriamach | Jun 16, 2012, 04:43 PM EDT

Gearoid4, Medicaid money is controlled by the states. While federal funds contribute to Medicaid, states allocate it. Many states, with PR and money from Catholic anti-choice groups, have written laws to deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood and other women's clinics that refer for abortion or provide abortion, and sometimes the state legislatures withhold the funds simply because the clinics provide contraceptive services. If poor women cannot avoid pregnancy, they are disadvantaged on the job market, their families slip deeper into poverty, the women become totally dependent, and the cycle of poverty repeats in the next generation. Isn't that the name of your game? At this point, Planned Parenthood keeps all public funding totally separate from its abortion referrals and services. These, as I understand the situation, are now completely funded from private contributions. Yet you still lobby against gynecological health services for women in need. Shameful!

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Gearoid4 | Jun 16, 2012, 04:10 PM EDT

@Eiriamach, Despite the provision of varied gynaecological services by PP, it's viability as a business, would be seriously effected if abortion or contraception were not as widely promoted as they are. Also your assertion that there is no Federal funding for abortion appears to be erroneous, as such financial aid is built into Medicaid. @CiaraDexy, Catholic parents are constitutionally entitled to the provision of Catholic education where it is in demand. At present, this has not radically diminished, despite the availability of choice concerning other types of schooling. Parents will make sure that the Church is not marginalized by an ideological campaign to cause this. You go through the litany of wrongs that the Church committed in the past. The dark side of Church involvement with the state, as in Institutional abuse has been shocking and rightfully condemned. Currently Irish Catholicism is facing this in a forthright and penitent manner and it's renewal forms part of that. You mention symphysiotomies, a controversial procedure which was carried out in certain Irish hospitals in past decades. It's association with Catholic influenced medical practices has never been verified, and this policy was also carried out in other western nations. Your figure of "100s of thousands of children" who were raped or abused is ludicrous. Abuse of minors in any form can never be condoned, but instances mentioned in recently released reports varied from slaps or verbal abuse up to very grave acts of sexual assault. You deride the senior age-profile of the attendees at the current Eucharist Congress in Dublin. But their public witness to the Faith is inspiring and bodes well for the survival it's survival in Ireland. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the Church's demise are greatly exaggerated. And long may it be so.

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Brnmar1 | Jun 16, 2012, 02:41 PM EDT

Read Father Chiniquys' book "Fifty Years in The Church of Rome." It was written over 100 years ago, but it will enlighten you about the sexual abuses committed by the priests. During Father Chiniquys' time as a priest sexual abuses by priests was already happening. What has been discovered now, was already a reality during the 1800s and even before that. The Catholic Church has been covering up these things for centuries.

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ciaradexy | Jun 16, 2012, 09:00 AM EDT

Eiri, its so refreshing to see parents here lobbying to get the church out of irish schools. More parents are sending their kids to Educate Together schools rather than the catholic schools which were the only option forever! I went to an all girls 'catholic' secondary school. it was run by nuns but most of the teachers werent and in our religion class, we had free reign to discuss whatever we wanted to. Subjects ranged from adoption to abortion to divorce to sex to alcohol to self esteem etc. This is now the norm on religion classes in school here which is brilliant. i work for many voluntary organisations and not one of the regular volunteers do the work for religious reasons. We do it because its the right thing to do and because when we are dead, we are dead. there is no after life to buy tokens for throughout your life. the church is on its way out of Ireland and its grasp is being loosened bit by bit. When its in the tiniest of minorities, then that will be a time of celebration.

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eiriamach | Jun 16, 2012, 08:50 AM EDT

Ciaradexy, go raibh maith agat, agus an abairt seo: Irish and American women have good reason for solidarity, working together, on the issues you list, despite whatever cultural differences there may be between us. Caring women like you and thousands of other Irish and American women and mothers and American nuns, etc., we face many of the same continuing threats. Ní neart go cur le chéile!

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Collette2 | Jun 15, 2012, 11:12 PM EDT

He has some track recorded shenanigans within some "spiritual community" connected to a wealthy Catholic family who donated millions to refurbishing the Perth Cathederal. Women were being groped left right and centre and he refused to admonish those running the show. Money being the root of all evil the saying goes.

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ciaradexy | Jun 15, 2012, 08:14 PM EDT

Eiriamach, youre right in everything you say! The Catholic Church is anti-women especically in Ireland. they are responsible for Magdalene Launderies, taking babies from their mothers and selling them or forcing them to give them up for adoption,symphysiotomies, contraception ban till the 90's and the rape and abuse of 100s of thousands of children. The news that less than 10,000 people all under the age of 60 turned up at the mass for the Eucharistic Congress and half of these werent from Ireland relived my heart and filled me with joy! Celibate men in dresses telling women how to control their fertility while butchering them and raping their kids just sickens me.

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eiriamach | Jun 15, 2012, 06:29 PM EDT

I's posted this before: Planned Parenthood is the US's largest reproductive health care resource for women: PP provides, free or at low cost, medical procedures that would be expensive at gynecologists' offices and unaffordable by many: cervical, uterine, ovarian, and endometrial cancer screening; breast exams and referrals for mammograms; tests and treatments for STDs and yeast and other infections; HIV tests; exams for contraceptives; treatments for fibroid tumors; endometriosis and osteoporosis testing and treatments; pregnancy testing; pre-natal and post-natal care; adoption referrals; wellness clinics; training for health professionals, counselors, and teachers; and sexuality- and family-planning education for millions of teenagers and adults. It is no argument at all to cite the fact that 3% of PP procedures relate to abortion: there is NO federal funding of abortion services. And no excuse for the Catholic Church's war on Planned Parenthood, which really is its war on women.

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eiriamach | Jun 15, 2012, 06:22 PM EDT

"Western Imperialism" at the hands of your Church, Gearoid4, imposes death on African mothers and fathers who have HIV (RCC missionary doctors will not treat infected parents) while it provides medicine to save the lives of their fetuses in the womb. I call that kind of "charity" imperialism with selective genocide. The Vatican is forever fighting UN and other organizations' efforts to supply contraceptives and medicines to women in need. These services have proven effective and ESSENTIAL to "economic and social transformation of such societies." And I've replied before to your claim that PP is "the largest abortion provider"-- it's a large provider only because RCC lobbying helps the GOP shut down other gynecology clinics. In doing so, it deprives millions of poor women of their only access to health screenings and preventive services. Cancer rates and mortality of both women and their babies will rise as a result of Catholic campaigns against PP. Gynecologists have already been assassinated and clinic staff wounded as a result of your demonizing these essential women's health care facilities. Finally, the teens do hear about abstinence at PP clinics, but they are free to choose a contraceptive (NFP has an appallingly high failure rate among teens).

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Gearoid4 | Jun 15, 2012, 05:41 PM EDT

@Eiriamach, My point concerning the use of contraception and sterilization in the past by the forerunners to today's abortion providers, is pertinent to the history of the mentality that promoted it's widespread use. One has only to look at the involvement of such organizations in the push for these "reproductive" services to be uses in countries of the so-called Third World. It is a form of insidious Western imperialism which is imposed upon mothers which is the last thing they require. The economic and social transformation of such societies are much higher priorities than such ideological-driven campaigns. In terms of sex-education, why cannot the PP branches across the US encourage teenagers to respect their bodies and say NO to the temptation of promiscuous sexual activity. But this would be a bridge too far, as it would go against the whole basis of the existence for such organizations. As I have stated before, PP is the leading purveyor of abortion and contraceptive services in the US. So it seems that any noticeable diminution in the need for such services, would badly effect their profits and "ethos".

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