Class May 16

Contraception and Virtue

A great chapter is from Austen Ivereigh's book which you can find here:

How to Defend the Faith Without Raising Your Voice
available at Amazon.com

Also, essential reading for this topic comes from Pope Paul VI's historic 1968 Encyclical,
Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) found here:

Click here to be redirected to Humanae Vitae

ENCYCLICAL LETTER
HUMANAE VITAE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
PAUL VI
TO HIS VENERABLE BROTHERS
THE PATRIARCHS, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS
AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES
IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE,
TO THE CLERGY AND FAITHFUL OF THE WHOLE CATHOLIC WORLD, AND TO ALL MEN OF GOOD WILL,
ON THE REGULATION OF BIRTH

First Lines:

The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships.

The fulfillment of this duty has always posed problems to the conscience of married people, but the recent course of human society and the concomitant changes have provoked new questions. The Church cannot ignore these questions, for they concern matters intimately connected with the life and happiness of human beings.

Again, as has been the character of this class-- This is an important and difficult topic with which there is sufficient reason to study and pray about.

Class: Thursday, May 2, 2013

Women and the Church: Challenges to tradition and paradigms.

The "Ecstasy" of Saint Teresa of Avila

Dr. Kaczor's entitles his chapter: The Church Hates Women: The Myth of Catholic Mysogyny

Today we will talk about her wisdom and tradition.  Who?  Holy Mother Church: The Body of Christ.  It is as difficult as a subject matter can get these days.  Why?  Because of false paradigms.

Today we "Americans" are used to getting what we want.  We are informed throughout our daily lives through mass media, mostly.  As catholic citizens, we are called to discern life through the teachings of Christ which include Sacred Scripture and Tradition.  Very few of us succeed in this feat each and every day.

The Church provides the remedy for those less than grace filled days, in fact for every day.  We are called to examine our consciousness by the end of each day, before we retire for a night's rest.

As we covered in last week's class, the Church teaches that our faith should be informed by our reason, our intellect (our thinking minds).  The reciprocal aslo holds true, our reason (thinking minds) should be informed by our faith.  Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in the late 4th and early 5th Century teaches us (and the Church still holds as true) that our faith should LEAD our thinking minds.  "Do not seek to understand in order to believe, rather, believe first to understand."As quoted in Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John Tractate XXIX on John 7:14-18, §6.

Tonight we will discuss the Church's teaching on women's ordination, among other things.  We will learn that we are not ever called to earthly office, rather to eternity through sanctification, saintliness.  Here is a resource for what is surely difficult subject matter for further study.  Click below--

Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin (with links to Church Teaching)