Catholics, Birth Control and Eucharist

November 14, 2006 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Religion 

Today’s votes by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops affecting birth control and Eucharist hit my family personally.

While I am Presbyterian (joining a new church tomorrow evening), my wife is a practicing Catholic.  (What the heck is “practicing” about?  I think after about 40 years she’d be good at it!)  We have chosen not to have children.  We are not using the rhythm method – my wife is an engineer and would never settle for a single point of failure.  You are welcome to draw your own conclusions on what all that means with respect to birth control.

The bishops issued two documents today that are relevant:

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The first document talks about marriage and the Roman Catholic church’s teachings.  In reality, only the first page of the 12 page document talks about marriage – the rest talks about contraception, repeating Catholic doctrine stating that the Rhythm method is the only one allowed (though they call it “Natural Family Planning”) in any circumstance.

The second one talks about preparation for Holy Communion.  Among other things it states that intentionally ignoring church teachings is sufficiently serious that the lay person should avoid Communion.  It also repeats teaching about Confession, mortal sins, and the fact that Catholics should only take Communion in a Catholic or related Byzantine church.  Also that non-Catholics should not take Communion.

Put the two together and you reach the conclusion (verified by Catholic priests in a newspaper article that I read) that any Catholic using contraception should not take Holy Communion.  The newspaper article that I saw this morning cited a survey statistic that 96% of married Catholics used contraception.  One activist in the Catholic church on sexual issues was quoted as saying “This should save them some money on wafers”, but I don’t expect much to change.  I suspect that this new guideline on taking Communion will be ignored just as the teaching on contraception is ignored.  After all, the church spokespriest was quoted as saying that priests will not be refusing anyone at the rail on this issue.

So what does that mean for us?  For me – nothing.  Nobody changed the rules that I live by today.  For Carolyn …. well, I can’t speak for her.  I assume that if you ignore the teaching about contraception, you might as well ignore this teaching as well – and I suspect that 95% of married Catholics will continue doing so.

What I do know is that the Presbyterian Church will always allow her to take Communion in one of our churches irrespective of what her church teaches about doing so.  I also know that the Presbyterian Church will be happy to take her in should she get sufficiently frustrated by the differences between the Mother Church’s teachings and her beliefs.  And I know (and she’s been told) that the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville always welcomes her.

It’s probably easier to live in a one-church household.  We’ve done fine for all these years in a two-church household.  We talk, and exercise freedom of conscience on religious issues.  We support each other’s personal faith.  We’re also generally on the same page on theological issues and issues of applying faith to life.  That might not be the same page as the Roman Catholic church, but it’s OUR page.

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