Before going through this piece from LifeSiteNews—a good piece indeed, the
following must however be clearly noted:
First,
Humanae Vitae of Paul VI, cited in the piece with a false impression, is not a
Catholic document. On the contrary, in a very subtle manner Paul VI favoured
birth control. Paul VI, Speech, Nov. 16, 1970: “…this, among other
effects, will undoubtedly favour a rational control of birth by couples…”
Paul VI, Address, Aug. 24, 1969: “…the liberty of husband and wife does not
forbid them a moral and reasonable limitation of birth…” Paul VI, Humanae
Vitae (No. 16), July 25, 1968: “It cannot be denied that in each case
the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their
intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result.” So
Paul VI says in Humanae Vitae that couples are perfectly free
to have zero children if they want to!
Secondly,
on the Church’s true condemnation of homosexuality, see the piece: “Catholic
Church Urged to Accept Gay Unions”:
By Maike Hickson
 |
| Bishop Johan Bonny |
In a sweeping critique of
Catholic teaching, Belgian Bishop Johan Bonny, who will participate in the
Ordinary Synod on the Family next month, has attacked not only the Church’s
teaching against contraception but even the very notion of the natural law.
In a contribution for the recent
German book, Zerreißprobe Ehe, published by Herder Verlag, the bishop of Antwerp makes a strong
critique of the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae and questions the Church's
understanding of sexuality. He also criticizes the natural law as a moral
foundation because it describes certain acts as good or bad independently of
one's personal life history and biography.
Bonny claims in his essay,
which is entitled "The Synod of Bishops on the Family - Expectations of a
Diocesan Bishop," that the encyclical Humanae Vitae lacked the consensus
of the bishops and therefore immediately caused "tensions, conflicts and
breaches.” He regrets that the Church does not give more space for "the
individual conscience" of the faithful with regard to the question of
"methods of family planning and birth control," and says he hopes
that the upcoming 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family will correct this
purported defect.
"All constitutions and
decrees of the Second Vatican Council, also the difficult ones, were finally
accepted with a consensus. Of this kind of collegiality, there was little left
three years later, when Humanae Vitae was published,” Bonny writes. “That the
pope would make a judgment concerning the problems of 'population, family, and
births' was foreseen by the Council. But that he would ignore the collegial
striving for a greatest possible consensus, was not foreseen by the
Council."
"This ecclesial policy has
left behind a broad trace of tensions, conflicts and breaches. This split
should not remain such."
Bishop Bonny also
discusses in his article the question of homosexuality and the Church’s
traditional rejection of homosexual acts. According to Bonny, "scientific
progress allows us to modify this point of view. First of all, one knows that
homosexuality exists also in the world of animals." With his reference to
the animal world, Bonny tries to show that the natural instinct for
heterosexuality, as put into nature by God, might not exist, after all.
Bonny also argues that
"in our personalistic culture, the interdiction of homosexual
relationships is regarded as an unacceptable discrimination: there shall be men
and women who do not have the right to live out their sexuality, only because
they do not live in the same manner as the great majority of the people
live!"
Finally, Bonny claims
the "externally induced suppression of the sexual practice" is the
cause of ailments such as alcoholism, aggressivity and drug abuse.
Source: LifeSiteNews.
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