Letters to the Editor
-
what is the problem here?
Less than half of Catholics in America attend Mass every Sunday. Since the majority stopped practicing THAT rule, should the church change it to "get with the times?" Or should it keep preaching what it sincerely believes to be the truth, regardless of unpopularity?
There is Jesus' saying of "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Most Christians take that to mean that they are obliged to obey legitimate secular law EXCEPT when doing so would violate God's law. Then the Christian is obligated to disobey the secular law in favor of obeying the higher authority. Regardless of popular opinion, the Catholic Church DOES consider contraception to be gravely against God's law.
Catholic Charities isn't prying into people's bedrooms here. All they are doing is refusing to subsidize something that they sincerely believe is wrong. (Strikes me as being like the parents who know their child is living with a boyfriend/ girlfriend, but refuse to put the two in the same bedroom when they come home for Christmas because they believe extramarital sex is wrong. If the kids don't like it, they can find other accomodations.)
Nobody is preventing these women from obtaining birth control on their own. If Planned Parenthood is so worried that they won't because of the cost, why do they not offer free contraceptives to women who work for Catholic Charities?
BTW, The Church recognizes that the pill has legitimate medical uses outside of contraception and has no problem with use of the pill for treating acne, cramps, regularity, etc., so long as it is used by women who are abstaining from having sex. If this is a sexually active woman we are talking about, she is supposed to only use it in desperate situations (i.e., crippling endrometriosis, not acne) and after all other feasible treatments have failed.