Letters

Humanae Vitae

Ron Graham

Contents - Oct 2013 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Postscript on the Australian elections - Peter Westmore Pope Francis to consecrate world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary - Peter Westmore News: The Church Around the World Frassati Australia and the New Evangelisation - Fr Paul Chandler OSCE Conference: The new face of religious intolerance - Bishop Mario Toso The Catholic Church is holy, despite its members' sins - Audrey English Interview: Why science needs faith - Professor Dominique Lambert The priesthood and the Catholic faith - Fr John O'Neill PP Church of Divine Mercy in Singapore: an amazing discovery - Kazimierz Kozlowski Blessed Jacinta Marto: heroine of Fatima - Cedric Wright Letters: Dr Mobbs replies ... - Frank Mobbs Letters: Exaggeration? - Noel Keith Roberts Letters: Humanae Vitae - Ron Graham Letters: Moral failure - John Wynter Letters: Harmful effects - Richard Grant, Willie Chenhall, Maryse Usher Letters: Creator's plan - Clare Ryan Letters: Culture of life needed - Fr Bernard McGrath Letters: Anti-religious bigotry - Peter Kamsma Events: Spiritual Exercises in Bowral, December 2013 Books: A Book of Saints and Heroes, Heroines, by Joanna Bogle - Val Prendergast (reviewer) Books: COURAGE AND CONVICTION, by Joanna Bogle - Peter Westmore (reviewer) Books: ON THE LEFT BANK OF THE TIBER, by Fr Gerald O'Collins SJ - Frank Mobbs Books: THE FREEDOM OF LOVE, by Rafael de Santiago - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Support: Launch of 2013 Fighting Fund - Peter Westmore Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: Bishop Fisher: Young Catholics must be Christ in the world - Bishop Anthony Fisher

Deployment of artificial contraception (deliberate preventing of conception by artificial means) is really negating the possibility of God in deciding to, or not to, on that particular occasion, create new life with a soul He has chosen from before time began. It deletes the possibility of God's will being enacted, in the way He might have so chosen, but for illicit human intervention against Church teaching.

Dr Frank Mobbs' rather cynical questioning of the justified validity of Paul VI's encyclical, Humane Vitae, is both troubling and troublesome.

Dr Mobbs' dismissal of the justification for this practice, banned for Catholics under pain of serious sin, can never take authoritative precedence over what has essentially become official Church dogma.

On the other hand, delaying intercourse until the female cycle is almost certainly infertile, i.e., in the first and last weeks of a regular cycle, for sufficient reasons after spouses have carefully considered their conduct before God, is morally acceptable. There are three partners in the marriage act, not the least, by far, being Almighty God.

Paul VI correctly predicted that if artificial contraception were widely introduced, then surely abortion and euthanasia would follow. These, along with increased acceptance of practising homosexuality, propagate the evil culture of death, when we should all be pushing hard to support those magnificent Christians in the fight for life over death.

It is surely significant that countries in Africa such as Uganda, have obtained a far greater reduction in AIDS and other STDs by promoting abstinence, rather than the use of contraceptives which actually encourage promiscuity – and increase abortions.

RON GRAHAM
Dapto, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 26 No 9 (October 2013), p. 14