Former Irish president backs challenge to Church teaching on contraception
September 19, 2016
Ireland's former President Mary McAleese has thrown her support behind a statement by a group of Catholic academicians, challenging the Church's teaching on contraception.
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McAleese endorsed a forthcoming statement by the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, which is to be released on September 20 in New York, signed by 100 scholars. (A rebuttal, signed by over 400 scholars who support Catholic teaching, will soon follow.) McAleese said that the ban on contraception has caused harm "particularly on the poor, on women, on children, on relationships, on health, on society, and not least on the Church itself." She claimed that the Church's teaching "has no basis in divine law."
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Sep. 20, 2016 4:19 PM ET USA
No basis in divine law? What of the sin of Onan? This sin is fourth in St. Thomas' list of the 4 species of unnatural vice: "It is contrary to the natural order of the venereal act. ...by not observing the natural manner of copulation...as to undue means" (Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q. 154, A. 11). Is failure to consider NFP based on ignorance or on obstinacy? A BMJ study of 10,000+ women of all economic classes in all parts of the world proved that NFP is very effective at regulating births.
