NFP in Marriage?

Lotar said:

It's more convenient to just refer to him as He who must not be named, the Mouth of Sauron, or something similar.

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come on now

ArmyMatt said:

of course, I only read Harakas as opposed to Fr Stanley. certainly no one should just call Met Kallistos by his last name only, and I hope I wasn't the one who did.

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I mean, I'm referring to people impugning his Orthodoxy, which you certainly did not do.

gzt said:

I mean, I'm referring to people impugning his Orthodoxy, which you certainly did not do.

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If you mean my comment - I did not specifically intend to impugn his Orthodoxy - if that's what it seemed like, I apologize.

But Met. Kallistos Ware has said things of late (I imagine we all remember) to cause us to be a bit guarded, not to mention the demonstrated direction of the edits in his books are cause to take notice.

No one is above the faithful taking notice if they begin to teach things not in line with the Church - not even if he were a Patriarch.

I don't think anyone slandered Met. Kallistos, or even called him just "Ware" much less a derogatory name. But to point out potential errors - that is not wrong. It is rather a responsibility if it is pertinent, though something to be deeply grieved over at the same time.

If I'm wrong here, someone please correct me. But this is my understanding.

gzt said:

I mean, I'm referring to people impugning his Orthodoxy, which you certainly did not do.

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well, you can point out where someone is wrong, but if the person is clergy it should be done respectfully with his proper title. even in their debates, as long as Nestorius was a legit bishop, St Cyril addressed him as such even though he was questioning Nestorius' Orthodoxy. same is true with St Maximos addressing Pyrrhus.

Lotar said:

You can go by what every single Orthodox Church says everywhere and use contraception, or you can listen to some crazy convert priest in California and a smattering of quotes from saints who lived before the modern understanding of conception and modern methods of birth control.

Just saying.

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This is beyond the pale on two fronts.
One, in claiming “every single Orthodox church”.
Two, by only taking 2018 (or even the last fifty years) into account, and completely ignoring what was taught for nearly two thousand years prior to that.

Interesting that some cannot see that priests, bishops and synods can go wrong; that they must accept, agree with and support past teaching. Unless you have a consistent consensus on the truth of human nature over the entire history of the Church, you don’t have the mind of the Church, and, as members inside the Church, could be promoting heresy, something we all ought to be afraid of. Modern scientific claims are irrelevant and do not change those truths. Revelation of truth to all is not continuous; it ended with Christ’s death and resurrection. Something may be a revelation to YOU personally, but not to the Church.

So what did the Church teach about sexuality in AD 75, 250, 850, 1100, 1475, and 1825? If you don’t know, you should be quiet and attempt to teach no one, no matter how many modern Orthodox thinkers you read, and you should accept correction that IS shown to be the consensus.

I have to even challenge the compassionate suggestions of pastoral approval. The trouble there is that we all see our own case as exceptional. Provide an exception, and everyone will beat down the door claiming their exceptionality. Birth control means no birth, and no self-control. It seeks to separate the marital act from its natural consequence, and Met Kallistos’s slippery evolving views don’t change the fact that the Church fathers and saints consistently taught against it. Jackstraw has and can produce fifty different Church fathers over Church history that confirm that, gzt can produce exactly zero and can only appeal to modern clergy who have already started going off the rails.

If you don’t have the Church fathers and Scripture (in tandem) on your side, chances are you risk becoming a heretic. And please note that I have not called anyone a heretic, or any name or label, true or false, of any sort. The site rules are being observed.

If having children is such a burden, then don’t engage in marital relations. No one has ever died from a celibate lifestyle.

gzt said:

The same consideration should of course be extended to comments about Met. Kallistos.

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I said his views are slippery, not that he as a man is slippery. The adjective is fair and accurate; it expresses that his views have changed over time and that it is therefore reasonable to suppose that they can continue to change. I acknowledged his priestly rank, and did not insult it, and I used his ordinated name, not his name in the world.
Hope that helps.

It's hard telling what the Holy Fathers would say if they were with us today. They'd not only tell most of us probably that birth control is unacceptable, they'd likely condemn our consumerism, obsession with gadgets, our obsession with our careers over family, our filthy entertainment, our greed and avarice, our polar philosophies that have ruined Western Civilization----Socialism on one hand and Vulture Capitalism on the other! They'd likely condemn our politics and useless wars that only benefit the military-industrial complex, they'd blast the movement in the West to encourage effeminate men and confuse sexuality to the point nobody knows what they are or who they're attracted to.....they'd criticize so much.

You can go back and read the Early Fathers BLASTING men for shaving their beards! I have a huge anthology of quotes of the Fathers. There is a whole section wherein they talk about a beard being a sign of manhood, and to shave it would make a man either a girl or a little boy not yet of age. It's a sign of perversion to some of them. I have a pretty robust beard, so I'd be ok on that front!

The way confession now is utilized is quite different from the days of the first 3 centuries. Would those Fathers be ok with the way it is used now?

The rampant divorce we have now would be criticized to no end by the ECF's I'm sure.

Sexually speaking you can read Blessed St. Augustine of Hippo and it is amazing what he says about sex. His views were basically that sex was so close to the Fall, so intimately tied up with the First Sin and a monstrously dangerous thing that can lead us to hell in a nanosecond that it really should be altogether avoided as much as possible. Go with your wife and have sex with her, don't enjoy one second of it, try to look the other way, get it over with, impregnate her, and GET OUT! That's Augustine. Then behave "as brother and sister" he frequently says.

Frankly, that was Catholicism for me. That NFP stuff and the guilt about sex, it's very Augustinian. Attraction itself is awful, sex is awful, enjoying it is awful, Augustine all the way.

My priest has only two sons. I know some other priests with one or two children, maybe three or four. We all know that most of these clergy could have 10-12 if they really followed the ECF's. This is a dicey issue.

I know constantly having kids almost killed my wife. The post-pardem depression was more than she could take. I watched her change. I feared it. I truly did. And when she almost died in surgery twice in one night, I just couldn't take it anymore.

gzt said:

This is just slander.

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It's not slander in the slightest. It's an examination of the two positions.

Lotar said:

Wrong. I have a child that was conceived while on chemotherapy, and has severe health issues likely do to that, because we were idiots and listened to him. Which was, directly from him, we had permission to practice nfp, or we could use condoms and not have communion, ever, unless we don't have sex.

He was me priest for 5 years, and my wife's for 10. So don't be telling me that I don't know what he is really saying.

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Glory to God!
God has seen fit for your family to bear a heavy cross, though I know others who carry far heavier crosses. Given your attitude towards Fr Josiah, you don't seem to be responding in the appropriate manner to what God has permitted.

but I do have to say, it is not wise to challenge pastoral allowance for something like this because priests are charged to discern, and are charged with using the flexibility and responsibility from canon 102 of Quintesext. just because folks abuse it or whatever, doesn't mean it shouldn't still be there.

MariaJLM said:

Just because the Fathers didn't speak against it that doesn't mean we should do it. We need to consider our conditions and work within them. If a person cannot afford any more children then they should not be bringing them into the world, period. I'd say it's cruel actually since it could potentially lead to neglect. That said, I'd say neglecting children would probably be more sinful than not having them at all(provided they're not being aborted or something).

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To be fair to the fathers, they called even methods such as coitus interuptus as "worse than murder." So, it would be dishonest to say the fathers "didn't speak against it."

Yeah, you guys are really misreading podromos.

Duplicate post

ArmyMatt said:

but I do have to say, it is not wise to challenge pastoral allowance for something like this because priests are charged to discern, and are charged with using the flexibility and responsibility from canon 102 of Quintesext. just because folks abuse it or whatever, doesn't mean it shouldn't still be there.

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I understand why you say that. But when economia becomes license, it becomes necessary to challenge the license. I have learned that priests can go wrong, very much so, and break with the mind of the Church. And I do challenge economia in birth control, because I understand what it is, philosophically and theologically, and the priests approving it right and left do not. I think I have the fathers on my side, and the moderns approving it do not. And I say that, not as “holier than thou”, but as a sinner.

The position of the fathers steps on a lot of people’s toes. That’s why they won’t quote them.

rusmeister said:

I understand why you say that. But when economia becomes license, it becomes necessary to challenge the license. I have learned that priests can go wrong, very much so, and break with the mind of the Church. And I do challenge economia in birth control, because I understand what it is, philosophically and theologically, and the priests approving it right and left do not. I think I have the fathers on my side, and the moderns approving it do not. And I say that, not as “holier than thou”, but as a sinner.

The position of the fathers steps on a lot of people’s toes. That’s why they won’t quote them.

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but when it becomes license, you challenge those who are abusing, not everyone.

ArmyMatt said:

well unless you are clairvoyant and actually know he was undergoing those passions, you are merely venturing an opinion about someone you could talk to but haven't yet. you could be right, I don't know. I have not asked prodromos, and I am not arrogant enough to assign a motivation I don't know.

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Of course, only God truly knows the heart. I personally cannot fathom such comments deriving from anything good or achieving any good, especially when stated in such a manner. It's time I bow out of the discussion, but I just wanted to offer some support to Lotar in the face of him receiving such outrageous treatment.

ArmyMatt said:

but when it becomes license, you challenge those who are abusing, not everyone.

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I think that license is becoming the rule, and not the exception.

tapi said:

Your insistence on taking a completely apophatic stance in the face of an absurd level of uncharitably is striking

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if that was the case, I would not have agreed from the beginning you could say it was tactless and insensitive. I actually didn't take an apophatic stance at all.

however, I started engaging you, which is why that has been my focus.

rusmeister said:

I think that license is becoming the rule, and not the exception.

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then a lot of bishops need to speak to their priests.

I agree that we should not judge our neighbor. Prodromos has my apologies for getting a little heated and passing judgement. To me it seems just incomprehensible that anyone would make such remarks with a clear conscience and with genuine love for their neighbor. That's all I'm going to say on the subject.