More shallow, angry, cliché feminist rubbish from Fishwrap

The Fishwrap is a disgrace.  The National Schismatic Reporter today proudly displays:

Yes, Fishwrap pays people to write that.

Notice also their “same-sex marriage” post.  Coming from liberal RNS, it is not objective, which suits Fishwrap’s agenda just fine.

Jamie Manson, openly lesbian, disciple of Margaret Farley, writes against Catholic bishops:

But the bishops have only dug in their heels, using their health care facilities, financial resources and political influence to make the church perhaps the most powerful force in the world driving the movement to restrict access to birth control.

When Catholic theologians and ethicists argue against Humanae Vitae, they ultimately appeal to the church’s teaching on individual conscience as the final arbiter in moral decision-making. The problem with this argument is the fact that the Catholic hierarchy is making it increasingly difficult for individuals to exercise their consciences.

Realizing long ago that it had lost its authority over the faithful regarding contraception use, the bishops changed their strategy, investing their energy in promoting laws and policies that force individuals, Catholic or not, to obey their doctrine on conception.

And there’s this:

Most priests were taught three models of female sexuality: the pure and holy virgin, the chaste mother who only engages in sex for the sake of conceiving a child, or the wanton woman who is in need of repentance and the directive to “sin no more.”

These men were never expected to imagine what a women’s real life was like, what kinds of complexity she faces in her decision-making and what capacity she has to make judgments about her own sexuality.

It is little wonder that the hierarchy compulsively acts as if they have been charged as guardians of women’s purity; the ongoing exultation of the ban on contraception positions the church as a bastion of “old-fashioned values.”

What a load of shallow, angry, cliché feminist rubbish.

The Catholic bishops of these USA should immediately instruct this publication to remove the word “Catholic” from their title.

Meanwhile, pray for the conversion of these poor people.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

Dear St. Joseph, Terror of Demons and Protector of Holy Church, Chaste Guardian of Our Lord and His Mother, hear our urgent prayer and swiftly intercede with our Savior, whom as a loving father you defended so diligently, that He will pour abundant graces upon the staff of that organ of dissent the National catholic Reporter so that they will either embrace orthodox doctrine concerning faith and morals or that all their efforts will promptly fail and come to their just end. Amen.

st-joseph-patron-of-the-church

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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28 Comments

  1. MjMcC says:

    “individual conscience”
    You keep using that word.
    I do not think it means what you think it means.

  2. frjimt says:

    A great time to begin the novena to st anne… Starting July 17th…26th

  3. Julia_Augusta says:

    I know where this anger comes from. I grew up in a predominantly Catholic country where abortion is still banned and where there is no divorce to this day. Here’s what it’s like: men sleep around and have mistresses after they marry. The woman (girlfriend or mistress) has a baby. Both are at fault. But the woman gets labeled a slut and has to provide for the baby. The man is considered virile. Nothing happens to him. What about married women? Many who are poor don’t want more kids and want to practice NFP, but the husband comes home and forces himself on his wife regardless of the time in the cycle and regardless of her own desire to have sex. Boom. Kids. 10 kids for a family that is absolutely destitute. She can’t refuse him. I never heard the Church tell men time and time again to control their sexual desire. Sure, every now and then, one brave priest would say it, but on the whole, they didn’t say much about it. The men felt it was their inalienable right to indulge in sex whenever they pleased regardless of the consequences. The Church looked the other way. Men are not urged enough to control their desire. It’s women who get beaten over the head with this – “oh, you must have wanted it, or you must have deserved it.” A sick society, not the heaven that Catholics think a place will turn into if abortion and divorce are banned. And guess what, when I went home a couple of years ago for a visit, nothing has changed!

  4. EmilB says:

    Facing complexity in decision making?! Join the club sister! Try being a man some time. A straight man. With boys to raise. In this current cultural cesspool.

  5. Kevin says:

    I am currently reading “The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection”. This is a quote from St. Anthony the Great from the 4th Century.

    “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.”

    Seems like a prophesy for our times.

  6. thomistking says:

    ‘Most priests were taught three models of female sexuality: the pure and holy virgin, the chaste mother who only engages in sex for the sake of conceiving a child, or the wanton woman who is in need of repentance and the directive to “sin no more.”’

    So . . . Most priests are taught the Catholic view that the proper place of sexual activity is reserved to marriage?

  7. EmilB says:

    Julia_Augusta, you make a valid point. That situation MUST be addressed in the areas of the world where that culture is embedded. Women are not to be abused in any way. We, as good Christian men must be in control of our own passions, which I alluded to in my other post, (re. complexity in decision making. ) However, I think you would agree that the easy answer is not always the best (i.e. legalized abortion on demand) and that Humane Vitae is not the cause of these behaviors.

  8. thomistking says:

    @Julia_Augusta: Catholics aren’t consequentialists. No amount of bemoaning consequences or what the clergy preach about changes that Catholics believe some acts can never be justified. No one thinks that a society will turn into a paradise if it follows the natural law in condemning contraception and abortion, if it would we wouldn’t need Christ and the Church.

  9. Ave Maria says:

    These writers and this paper are a scandal and a scourge upon the earth and they lead souls astray which is gravely sinful.

  10. iPadre says:

    I think the left out two words! “Disregard for” Humanae Vitae’s ban on contraception causes human suffering.

    Think of all the young people who have become intrenched in sexual addiction, all the children who have been aborted, all of the marriages that have been destroyed, all of …

    All because Humanae Vitae was ignored and attacked by Clergy and laity alike.

  11. GM Thobe says:

    It is important to note that marriage has as a primary end the procreation and education of children, and as subordinate ends mutual aid and the quieting of concupiscence. So begetting numerous children is not by itself an evil, but is a very possible outcome resulting from the proper use marital relations, and one that through experience of life and a touch of prudence one might easily foresee. Having illegitimate children and extramarital affairs constitutes an abuse of the reproductive capacity, but that in no way speaks to the proper use within a marriage that involves free consent and an openness to children as a precondition. Abortion, contraception, and divorce aren’t the answer to a difficult situation. It is possible that an emphasis on the four last things and confession are the answer.

  12. Julia_Augusta says:

    EmilB, I agree that abortion on demand is not the answer. But the Pill is, for many women. They have a husband who refuses to control himself. She is required to “submit to her husband.” Isn’t that traditional Catholic teaching? So she submits to him. But she makes sure that she pops the Pill everyday. It’s the only thing she can do. Believe me, a LOT of women aren’t as keen on having sex as a lot of men (this is something most men don’t want to hear). I wish the Church and Catholics would spend as much time talking about men keeping their trousers zipped up as they do trying to ban abortion. Will it make a big difference? I don’t know. Maybe a lot of men won’t listen. But so many women have turned their backs on the Church and its teachings because they believe that the Church has been so one-sided in these matters.

  13. Pingback: More shallow, angry, cliché feminist rubbish from Fishwrap | Blithe Spirit

  14. Suburbanbanshee says:

    If we went back to pre-Trent practices of laypeople fasting from sex during all fasting times….

    But the Church tried to be nice.

  15. JesusFreak84 says:

    Julia_Augusta, abuse is a valid reason for a woman to leave her husband. (Not to divorce him, of course, but to physically separate.) Your analogies fail for the same reasons mass shootings do not give any reason to remove the Second Amendment her in the US: abuses are just that–abuses, not incitements of the premise itself. The Church cannot change Her holy and infallible teaching on this grave matter; if a Pope actually tried, wrote an encyclical nullifying HV and EV (from JPII; I’ll spare everyone my misspelled Latin, sorry,) he would cease to be Pope.

  16. JesusFreak84 says:

    *indictments sorry for spelling

  17. TonyO says:

    I don’t know what country Julia_Augusta comes from, but it sure wasn’t the United States. In the States, the heavy-beat mantra (in earlier days) on men was to provide for their family, and if they could not do so, then keep their trousers zipped. A man who could not provide for his family was, once upon a time, nearly as shameful for a man as being considered loose was for a woman. (And rightly so, that “nearly”, because there are misfortunes and honest mistakes that can cause a failure to being able to provide, but there are no honest mistakes in willingly being have sex outside of marriage).

    The Church has been teaching responsible parenthood for quite a long time now, it’s not just the past 40 years (with JPII and Benedict). Pius XI in Casti Canubii did it, for example. Priests who are on the ball and alert have been preaching to men as well as to women to put sex in its proper place, which is a good when used prudently, and an evil when it takes over in lust and controls the marriage.

    But she makes sure that she pops the Pill everyday. It’s the only thing she can do. Believe me, a LOT of women aren’t as keen on having sex as a lot of men (this is something most men don’t want to hear).

    Interestingly, in places where most women do use the Pill, they have become just as keen on having sex as the men. In these degenerate times, such women are just about as likely to cruise looking for a hook-up as a man is. So, while women may have initially told themselves the lie that taking the Pill was only in marriage and “for prudence” so as to not bear too many children to their husbands, it ends up serving lust and so as not to lead to marriage or children at all. Could it be, as C.S. Lewis suggested, that when conceiving is broken away from the act of sex, the sex becomes empty and no longer truly satisfying, so that the person craves ever more trying to satisfy a desire that cannot be met (while contracepting)?

    Regardless of whether these consequences necessarily follow or only usually follow, the fact is that intentionally contracepting so that the sexual union is made devoid of life-giving is an intrinsically disordered act and always inherently evil, by its very nature. It is unnecessary to know what consequences follow the act, because the act itself is wrong, and harmful to the soul. It is an obligation of both men and women to take charge of their sexual lives and order themselves to God and to responsible parenthood (if called to marriage). Anything else serves Satan. What we cannot do is pretend that an intrinsically evil act is exactly parallel with an act that must be weighed by prudence, circumstances, and individual needs to arrive at the best option. Whether to have another baby is generally one of prudence, not something that can be decided on the terms of intrinsic evil. But priests must preach about both, not just one.

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  19. Andrew says:

    Suburbanshe:

    “If we went back to pre-Trent practices of laypeople fasting from sex during all fasting times…. ”

    Also to married individuals abstaining from sex for at least three days before receiving Holy Communion (source: Roman Catechism).

  20. JustaSinner says:

    Individual Conscience? Is this the Lefts’ own Catholic version of privacy in Roe v. Wade?

  21. Semper Gumby says:

    JesusFreak84, Kerry, et al: Good points.

    Per Fr. Z, hopefully these people will repent and this “newspaper” will be left on the ash-heap of history.

    The Fishwrap these days is rather fixated on killing babies and decapitating political opponents. Meanwhile, certain Catholic bishops who should be doing their job and removing the ‘Catholic’ from the Fishwrap’s title are instead at the border preening in front of TV cameras for cheap political points. These bishops should pay more attention to the Four Last Things and to the damage the Fishwrap is doing to uninformed and easily manipulated souls.

    The Fishwrap could do something productive and report on, say, these two stories:

    – Cosmo magazine (note for Julia_Augusta: mainly published by females for females) is increasingly a pornographic magazine:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3181417/Major-retailers-censor-pornographic-Cosmopolitan-magazine-blinders-just-like-Playboy-Hustler-bowing-pressure-campaigners.html

    – A cautionary tale about marrying an Islamist man:

    https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/716483/terrorism-news-white-widow-jihadi-samantha-lewthwaite-beach-resort-plot

    In the Garden of Eden both man and woman were at fault. Today, the following trite phrase is now the marching orders of many foolish men and women: A woman is ‘strong and independent’…unless she’s not…then a man and the Catholic Church is to blame.

  22. MrsMacD says:

    Kerry; I love, love, love what David Warren wrote. So true. Poor people are happy. Poor people are humble. Poor people are generous. Stop scorning poor people. Stop scorning poverty. St. Francis talks about the virtue of poverty and calls it the ‘safeguard of chastity and of humility.” Wouldn’t our society be a happier place if we had a steady injection of chastity and humility!!

    Julia_Augusta; popping a pill http://www.thepillkills.org/ is never the answer. Evil can not be combated with evil and if there is a legitimate reason to refuse her man, she may refuse. The church’s teaching is not submit, no matter what, and if you have to chose between two evils popping the poison pill is worse than saying, “not tonight honey.”

    What I don’t understand is the ‘just practice NFP” crowd. Why subject a woman to doing married people things when she least feels like it, just to avoid having children? Children are not the worst thing that can happen to a woman. In fact loyal loving children are the best thing that can happen to a woman, so lets work toward that and away from the culture of fatherlessness, which is fueled by divorce and contraception. A woman needs and craves a faithful loving spouse, once secure in her home-life then she is really free to be the woman she is called to be.

    As for suffering Christ has called all of us to pick up our crosses and to follow in His footsteps. Christ and His Church are one. Stop talking about them as if they are separate. Christ is a loving Saviour. He redeems us from our wretched rejected state of original sin but he requires us to pull a little. “If you do not pick up your cross and follow me you shall have no part with me… and there shall be weeping a gnashing of teeth.”

  23. Kathleen10 says:

    What a world of confusion.
    What a pity the Church has schizophrenia, otherwise it would demand the word “Catholic” be taken off that rag. But as it is the Church often condones those opinions. Who “owns” the Church? The faithful or the radicals. We are having a tug of war we can’t see.
    A culture in which men fail to understand and live Catholicism can result in barbarian societies where women are chattel to use, children, just furniture that eats. That does not indict Catholic teaching, in fact, it underscores it. As JesusFreak rightly said, there are valid reasons to separate from a husband, no one has to be abused. There are of course places where even this is not possible, but that still does not indict Catholic teaching, because if Catholic teaching were followed that would not have to happen. Men would understand their role in life and do it. It is hard to break cultural patterns of ignorance, and ignorance is rampant in so many forms. That will never validate rejecting the actual teaching of Catholicism, because if it were followed the problem would be eliminated. We can’t blame the teaching for the failure, and yes, it is church leaders who have stopped teaching it, 100% true! Catholic teaching isn’t what it used to be, because too many clerics found it wanting and stopped teaching it. Their ears itched and off they went to the world.
    Now we have a vulgar culture where women have worked hard to out-do the men and they’ve often done it! Unfortunately the competition is for most base, most vulgar, most ugly, and there is nothing uglier than a woman who not only has turned away from authentic femininity, her critical role as cultural “civilizer”, and the beautiful opportunity she is blessed with to create a peaceful home and raise happy, healthy children, but has turned to the most vulgar and common behavior. Hey, we live in a culture where prostitutes are considered just working girls, like being a secretary, a legitimate occupation, to sell yourself. We are a corrupt culture. This is what contraception and abortion has helped bring us to. It is not progress, it is decline.
    Neither the pill nor abortion are the answer to any problem, they only make problems worse.
    Contentment can only be found in living according to God’s plan, never outside it.

  24. Evovae says:

    Julia_Augusta: I think you’re right to be angry and frustrated at the double-standard on sexuality, and I agree that the church should speak out more and more forcefully on the duties that men have to control themselves.

    But it’s very important to recognize that the double-standard in emphasis between abortion vs promiscuity is not the choice of the church. It is a reaction to very recent public policy and philosophy sanctioning—even celebrating—abortion, in a way that does not parallel the issues surrounding infidelity. The battle over abortion is more prominent not because the church wants it to be more prominent, but because that’s where policy has recently changed and so is most vulnerable to be changed back with widespread support. Without the church’s strong voice on abortion, we risk developing an entrenched complacency towards it like the what you observe towards male irresponsibility. Why spend all your time and energy trying to heave a boulder when the enemy continues to shovel stones around you?

    As for female “submission”, please read the full chapter in Ephesians on the MUTUAL submission of husbands and wives. Lots of people like to stop early and get it wrong. Has this been abused by people who should have known better. Yes—show me the sin that has never been so excused.

    There’s also a more subtle difference in addressing abortion vs promiscuity. In one sense, it’s easier to clearly and prominently attack abortion because it is by nature an ugly thing. Infidelity, on the other hand, has all sorts of titillating glamour attached to it (so me of which you’ve described). How do you attack it without inadvertently promoting it? I don’t think this is as easy as it might initially seem.

    Anyway, I’m sorry to hear about your frustrations, and I pray for you and for the women who have to suffer in the situations you’ve described.

  25. Fr. Charles A. F. says:

    “Most priests were taught three models of female sexuality… These men were never expected to imagine what a women’s real life was like…” Does the author think priests’ knowledge of all things feminine is limited to some course we were taught? By whom? In seminary? I wonder how exactly she pictures the scene:

    «I say, brother Evethus, did you understand Fr. Credulus’ lecture about women? I found it hard to follow. Where do the babies come out of, exactly?
    – Well, brother Parthenus says it’s the ears, but I think he was holding his diagram upside down.
    – Where does Fr. Credulus get his info from, anyway?
    – Apparently, his course is based mainly on De Ignoto Sexu, by St. Pudibundus of Verecundia, the 6th-century hermit.
    – Oh, jolly good. I hear his visions were very vivid.»

    Believe it or not, most priests have mothers and sisters, some were engaged before entering seminary, and all of them interact with actual, flesh-and-blood women on a daily basis: as confessors, we have a broader picture of the day-to-day problems ordinary women face than most people. When we offer advice on things like contraception, it’s because we’re first-hand witnesses to the havoc it wreaks on couples’ stability and life satisfaction, not to mention their relationship to God.

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  26. FrankWalshingham says:

    That Fishwrap headline is an outrage!

  27. KateD says:

    In response to the posted excerpt about priests only seeing women as saints or whores:

    Yes, because no Catholic priest ever had a mother, a grandmother, a sister, an aunt, a niece, a cousin or a female friend! Therefore they can’t possibly understand what REAL women are like….ROFL

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