HOW MODERNISTS INVENT THE TRUTH AND IGNORE THE FACTS

TINA BEATTIE a professor at Roehampton University and supporter of ACTA in CruxMag.com                                                                                                                                             The relationship between the Zika virus and a sharp increase in the number of children born with microcephaly in Brazil seems probable but as yet unproven. However, it has resulted in various health warnings to women in Latin America about becoming pregnant. This poses a significant challenge to the Catholic Church, particularly since the region is home to more than 40% of the world’s Catholics.

For Catholics, there are echoes of the challenge posed by HIV/AIDS when, after years of official resistance to the use of condoms, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged in 2010 that it might be better to use a condom than to infect a partner with the virus.

Like the AIDS pandemic, the Zika crisis exposes one of the greatest points of weakness in the Church’s moral teaching. Whether we are discussing the effects of repeated pregnancies and a lack of access to birth control on women’s lives, or the devastation caused by sexually transmitted diseases and those implicated in fetal abnormality, does the Church simply reiterate a morally absolutist position, or does it allow a level of pastoral concern to modify how its teachings are interpreted and applied?

Various comments from individual priests, bishops, and theologians in response to Zika have so far ranged from a reiteration of the Church’s prohibition of artificial birth control and a call for abstinence, to a more pastorally sensitive approach that recognizes this is not about the prevention of life, but about the avoidance of potentially catastrophic disability.

The Catholic tradition has always allowed for some flexibility in the interpretation of Church teaching in particular circumstances — a practice known as casuistry. When the denial of contraception exposes adults or the children they conceive to life-threatening illnesses and disabilities — and when the criminalization of abortion condemns women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term or risk their lives through illegal abortions — we need to navigate a path of careful ethical reasoning through contested areas of human vulnerability, rights, and responsibilities.

The issues are more complicated than simply competing claims to rights.

i have followed Tina's anti-catholic stance for years which she wraps up in a bundle which she claims is common sense and in the interests of the Catholic Church.   What really irks me is that she is misrepresents the Church.s teaching at every stage as she does in this article.

"Does the Church simply re-iterate a morally absolutist position and a call for abstinence", well she is inviting the readers to nod their heads in condemnation of such a thing, the wicked wicked Catholic Church condemning women to pregnancies they do not want and ignoring all pastoral concerns  that a poor priest has to face.  Her position is quite clear - the Church is against birth control.  This is a malicious accusation since the Church documents are there for her to read and she would also find the answer in Humanae Vitae.    There are now very successful methods of natural birth control and thousands use them.  The reason they use them is that unlike Tina they look not just at what has happened within marriage but at the destruction in morals and of marriage among our young people.    Of course Tina will also claim the Church should ignore Jesus Christ and encourage promiscuity among the young for it does no harm.  Really. 

We should "..move to a more pastorally sensitive approach that recognises that this is not about the prevention of life, but about the avoidance of potentially catastrophic disability"  So for Tina a child with a disability should be put to death.  She says so. "...and when the criminalisation of abortion condemns women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term or risk their lives through illegal abortions....     The killing of a baby in the womb is the killing of a baby whether in the back street or the front street.    Like so many 'feminists'  she ignores the humanity within the womb, and no doubt 'as a catholic of good standing' she ignores the creativity of God in every life.   One thing Tina will not do is watch a video of an aboirtion taking place, she could never trust herself to actually see what is happening, especially with a partial birth abortion.

When it comes to flexibility and casuistry I must profess that I do not have the slightest clue as to what she is talking about.   Again she is trying to make us believe that actually the Church is after all very compassionate after all her talk about resisting contraception and its stand on abortion.   She then misquotes Pope Benedict as many did at the time in an effort to twist Catholic teaching.    He was talking about male prostitutes in Africa who use condoms when they are having sex with women and thought this was to be recommended in the circumstances.   But he was not talking in the context of Catholic Teaching but merely pointing to the lesser of two evils.    Catholics are not permitted by the Church to engage in any evil nor indeed to be prostitutes. 

Her last sentence is typically anti-catholic.   'The issues are more complicated than simply competing claims to rights'.   You can almost hear Adolf Hitler hear talking to the Jews, or Stalin talking to anti-revolutionaries.   A right is only a right if Tina agrees with it.   She disagrees so the babies have a duty to die.