conception and contraception calendar

(39 pages)

Beginning Apologetics 5: How to Answer Tough Moral Questions--Abortion, Contraception, Euthanasia, Test-Tube Babies, Cloning, & Sexual Ethics by: Frank Chacon, Jim Burnham publisher: San Juan Catholic Seminars released: 2000-06-01 ISBN: 1930084064 $5.95

Answers questions about abortion, contraception, euthanasia, cloning, and sexual ethics using clear moral principles and the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church.

I highly recommend this book and the entire series.
There are two great things about this series:
1) They are loaded with information and don't pull any punches. everything in them is in strict conformity to the Catholic teachings.
2) They give very clear explanations with out being dumbed down.

I also feel that you could give this book to the average teenager with out worrying that they will see something inappropriate.

As with Beginning Apologetics, this book #5 at less than 40 pages is chock full of concise information about moral reasoning. There is a mini-course on Moral Theology and very well thought out explanations for moral opposition to abortion, contraception, euthanasia, test tube babies etc. I highly recommend this and the whole set.

(40 pages)

The Ovulation Method: Natural Family Planning by: John J. Billings publisher: Liturgical Press released: 1984-12 ISBN: 0814610110 $9.95

I have been on the Billings Ovulation Method for a few years now and beleive me, if you don't cheat it is 99.99% effective. The downfall to this method is that you are not suppose to know exactly how to use it without instruction. There are ways to contact these instructers that can guide you through the process for a fee. Check with your local womens center or life center, they can help. I was able to go through my training course right here in my home for thirty dollars, and you don't have to be Catholic to use it. Good luck to you.

PS.. I did get pregnant during the time of practicing this method but it is because we chose to cheat on my most fertile day. An Anniversary and a few drinks will impair judgement like that so be careful...lol

This slim book promotes the Ovulation Method, profiling its advantages and utility. But it is not an instruction book. I'm only giving it three starts because although it's well-written I'm not sure who the intended audience is, or what group might find it useful.

For someone looking to learn a mucus-only method, I would look to "The Billings Method:Controlling Fertility Without Drugs or Devices" by Evelyn Billings. For someone just interested in any kind of fertility charting, not specifically a mucus-only method, I highly recommend Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler as the definitive book in this category.

The ovulation book was great. The book was a good price, it was packed full of information and came with a chart and pleanty of stickers to get you and your spouse started on the wonderful journey of natural family planning.

I was hoping that the book went into better detail. It did not help me. However, it was informative and an easy read.

You can read this book in 30 minutes and understand it. After ordering this book I was recommended "Taking Charge of your Fertility" by a friend. Taking Charge is more complete but uses this information, however. By the time my amazon.com shipment arrived with the second book, I was already pregnant from the first time trying The Ovulation Method (we had tried to get pregnant approximately a year before getting this book). So read it. You can also use it to avoid getting pregnant. It works!

(172 pages)

Sacred Choices (Sacred Energies Series) by: Daniel, C. Maguire publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers released: 2001-01-03 ISBN: 0800634330 $15.00

Breaking the silence about choice

As the world teeters on the edge of overpopulation, this new addition to the Sacred Energies series aims to show how ten major religious traditions in fact contain strong affirmations of the right to family planning, including contraception and even, when necessary, abortion.

Maguire first shows how interrelated overpopulation is with poverty, ethnic injustice, gender injustice, and the maldistribution of economic resources. Often the world's religions (most notoriously perhaps, Roman Catholicism) are thought to contribute only to the problem, rather than solutions, through their hostility to sex, education and equal rights for women, and birth control. In fact, argues Maguire, the ten scholars who consulted for several years about how these traditions treat issues of contraception and abortion find in them a true religious awe at the sacredness of life, a genuine openness to sexuality as a dimension of the sacred, and “alongside the `no choice' position . . . a `pro-choice' position that is too little known, even by adherents to the religion. That is the key message of this book.”

While Daniel Maguire is one of the few mirthful scholars of religious thought, his writings have serious import in a world too often darkened by religious crime. Maguire and his sources demonstrate quite vividly that while most of the world's religions have often been involved in horrific and destructive actions, that there was and is a serious and awe inspiring underpining to their formation and purpose. My personal opinion is that there was probably much more fear and trembling than awe and reverence at their core beginnings, but Maquire is more generous in his accessment. Maguire takes us through more than ten of the world's great religious traditions with the help of scholars well versed in their own religious traditions, to demonstrate conclusively that although there is much in religious tradtions to comfort Pro-Life adherents, that there is a line of equally orthodox thought in every religious tradition to support the Pro-Choice view, and that government support of one of these religious views over the other is in conflict with the American ideal of resisting governmental intervention into religious matters. Maguire has an obvious bias toward the Pro-Choice religious position, but he is generous in granting legitimacy to the Pro-Life position as well. However, he unabashedly points out the inconsistancies in the lobbying and advocacy efforts by current avowedly Pro-Life activist's positions on multiple fronts in public policy debates. This is an important book for anyone who takes religious matters seriously. And whether or not one is religious or irreligious, I think that none can deny that religion plays a very big part in both national and international policy debates, and therefor, it behooves us all to take seriously matters of religious thought. Maguire shows us in his first few pages exactly why it is so necessary that we do so. An excellent and thoughtful read and a book which belongs on any thinking person's book shelves. wfh

The author, Maguire, is a lapsed Catholic priest who seeks the distruction of the Gospel in Sacred Choices. His thesis is that Catholicism along with other religious traditions acually endorse the right to contraception and abortion! By twisting historical events and moral theology, he presents his heretical views to advance the culture of death. For those who need convincing just look at the word contraception and its associative meaning. Contra = against or Anti; and Ception = Life or Christ. Put it together contra-ception = Anti-Christ. (This semantic play reveals the meaning behind the practice of contraception). This book's thesis is that the Catholic Church, along with other religious traditions, support contraception, or alternativly the Anti-Christ, or that which is agaist Life.

If religion is about the celebration of Life, how could this ex-priest have the (...) to suggest that religions support anti-life devices and proceedures that end life pre-maturely? The mind boggles . . . there is something darker in this author than what can be gleened from the cover of his book!

This book provides much needed information and is a great contribution in refuting the falsehoods spread by the so-called "Christian" Right. It is a good companion to a wonderful new book titled Real Prophecy Unveiled, by Joseph J. Adamson. Thank God for books like these, because they shed light in a world made dark by "religious" bigotry, hypocrisy, and aggression. They give me faith that the humble and meek shall inherit the earth after all.

... Dan McGuire, drawing on a lifetime of study and research, in conjunction with scholars from other religions, finds that Christianity and other faith traditions have many strands of thought expressed over the centuries. The common thread is a passion for the givenness of our human life, and the sacred dimension of making critical decisions affecting reproduction. McGuire and the other writers survey the less well-known attitudes in the historic faiths and suggest that that univocal opposition to planned pregnancy is in sore need of review. He offers cogent, yet powerful reasons for doing more research. The book will be welcomed by all who want more open discussion, including Catholics for Free Choice who want freer dialogue in their religious communities about options for men and women regarding their fertility. ...

Controversial issues in religion are not new, but creative, inclusive, honest ways of dealing with them are. Catholic ethicist Daniel C. Maguire, President of the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics, convened an international, interreligious team of scholars to look at birth control and abortion from a variety of faith-based starting points.
They concluded that in every case, even the most recalcitrant, there is evidence of competing views within each tradition. This volume is a highly readable summary of the findings. It is suitable for college classes, congregational study group and public policy discussions. Do your religious professional a favor and give this book as a gift.
The backdrop for this discussion is the complicated web of population and development issues that has been fanned by religious fervor. Policy makers who leave aside religious views do so at their peril. Worse, when they accept as true the word of those who purport to speak for a faith tradition without examining the practice and beliefs of the majority of its adherents, they miss a great deal and do a grave disservice.
Catholicism is a good example. While it would seem to be the airtight case against both contraceptives and birth control based on the Vatican's pronouncements, Dr. Maguire et al find that the tradition is far more nuanced. Theologians like Professor Christine Gudorf give good Catholic reasons to limit births. They see the teaching in a state of development not fixed, as the Vatican would have it. They take women's well being as a central ethical need, thus approve of abortion as a woman's right to choose.
Islam would seem to be another case where it would be hard to find women-friendly ethics. But Muslim Professor Riffat Hassan offers a feminist challenge to her faith. Indeed many Muslims consider first trimester abortion to be licit; many forms of birth control have long been a part of Islamic culture. Who knew? As these views come to the fore it will be harder and harder to pin anti-choice positions on religions.
Likewise, Chinese religions see these matters in quite open terms. The move toward universal harmony requires some limits on population. This worldview is very practical in claiming the need to put the common good before the desires of individuals. This is admittedly a position many in the West find problematic, but one that has its deep roots in an ancient and venerable culture.
There is no suggestion in this volume that one will agree with all of the positions expressed, nor even find them morally tolerable. Sex selection abortion, for example, is one difficult issue. But what Dr. Maguire, with his scholarly guides, does so brilliantly is make the data accessible, lift the shroud of stereotype, and let the reader decide for her/himself. This methodological point, as opposed to rigid positions as all there is, distinguishes this marvelous volume as one that will launch discussions in a useful direction.

(30 pages)

The ordinary magisterium's infallibility. (teaching on contraception): An article from: Theological Studies by: Germain Grisez, Francis A. Sullivan publisher: The Gale Group released: 2005-07-28 $5.95

This digital document is an article from Theological Studies, published by Theological Studies, Inc. on December 1, 1994. The length of the article is 8718 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Catholic theologians differ over whether the church's teaching on contraception is an infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium, which brings up an issue concerning the significance of theological consensus. The absence of consensus has been taken as an indication that the teaching has not been 'clearly established,' which according to canon law means that it has not been infallibly taught. The opposing position is that the lack of consensus reflects the current state of Catholic theology and thus is not significant for theologians, although the teaching's infallibility has not been clearly established for Catholics who are not theologians.

Citation Details
Title: The ordinary magisterium's infallibility. (teaching on contraception)
Author: Germain Grisez
Publication:Theological Studies (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1994
Publisher: Theological Studies, Inc.
Volume: v55 Issue: n4 Page: p720(19)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

(335 pages)

Catholics And Contraception: An American History (Cushwa Center Studies of Catholicism in Twentieth-Century America) by: Leslie Woodcock Tentler publisher: Cornell University Press released: 2004-09-30 ISBN: 0801440033 $29.95

As Americans rethought sex in the twentieth century, the Catholic Church's teachings on the divisive issue of contraception in marriage were in many ways central. In a fascinating history, Leslie Woodcock Tentler traces changing attitudes: from the late nineteenth century, when religious leaders of every variety were largely united in their opposition to contraception; to the 1920s, when distillations of Freud and the works of family planning reformers like Margaret Sanger began to reach a popular audience; to the Depression years, during which even conservative Protestant denominations quietly dropped prohibitions against marital birth control.

Catholics and Contraception carefully examines the intimate dilemmas of pastoral counseling in matters of sexual conduct. Tentler makes it clear that uneasy negotiations were always necessary between clerical and lay authority. As the Catholic Church found itself isolated in its strictures against contraception—and the object of damaging rhetoric in the public debate over legal birth control—support of the Church's teachings on contraception became a mark of Catholic identity, for better and for worse. Tentler draws on evidence from pastoral literature, sermons, lay writings, private correspondence, and interviews with fifty-six priests ordained between 1938 and 1968, concluding, "the recent history of American Catholicism . . . can only be understood by taking birth control into account."

While browsing through a college bookstore, I recently came across Catholic University of America (CUA) Professor Leslie Woodcock Tentler's "Catholics and Contraception: An American History" (Cornell University Press, 2004) - one of fourteen books from Notre Dame's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. In 335 pages covering 125 years, Tentler offers little evidence of appreciating modern methods of Natural Family Planning or Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. She envisions NFP as repackaged "rhythm" and those who embrace it as likely to be unable to explain its theological rationale, as well as likely to abandon it with experience. Be that said, she does offer some thought-provoking history.

A "cafeteria" mindset is often noted to exist among misguided Catholics. Some have gotten the notion that the Church offers teaching on the sanctity of human life and marriage for "conservatives," while she alternately offers teaching on social concerns for "liberals." Authentic, seamless connections between teachings on the sanctity of human life, marriage and family, and social issues get lost. While no history of "Catholic Social Teaching" would be complete without an extensive discussion of Msgr. John A. Ryan, Ph.D, Msgr. Ryan kept Church teachings on human life, marriage and family, and social issues very much intact.

As director of the social justice department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (now the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) and as a CUA professor, Ryan was the face of Catholic Social Teaching in the first part of the 20th century in the United States. Long before Humanae Vitae discussed the anti-family agendas of those promoting contraceptives, Ryan took on Planned Parenthood founder and eugenics pioneer Margaret Sanger. He recognized that promotion of contraceptives served as an accomplice to selfishness among some wealthy and powerful of this country, who would accept workers' sweat but not their families. To borrow a phrase from Father Cox of 1930s radio fame, Msgr. Ryan fought for wealth control AGAINST birth control. Ryan argued for just family wages, which would allow a worker to properly support his family. While Tentler makes Ryan's passionate fight against contraceptives crystal clear, others seem to whitewash that part of his legacy.

For various reasons, Ryan's forthrightness about contraceptives was often the exception. Tentler tells us that the earliest part of the 20th century was not characterized by regular preaching about contraception from any pulpits. Among non-Catholic clergy, adherents were even quietly gathering to contraceptive promoters. Yet, no Protestant denomination formally supported contraception until the Anglicans in 1930. Tentler sees Pope Pius XI's encyclical of that year as a counterattack to the Anglican position and a call to arms for more proactive promotion of Church teaching. While Tentler might have us believe "Casti Connubii" to be a simplistic prohibition against contraception, it is a profound and beautiful treatise on marriage. Proclaiming marriage's dignity and sanctity, Pius XI shows deep affection and paternal concern that people not be led astray. Preventing such, he calls the "sacred trust" of priests and bishops.

While the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s saw a growing promotion and acceptance of authentic teaching on marriage and marital relations, hints of dissent became ever more present - starting in the late 1950s. Instead of embracing their "sacred trust," more and more priests and bishops seemed to be signaling - often through thundering silence - that a change in teaching was on the horizon. For a number of years, CUA even kept Father Charles Curran - who openly advocated such change - aboard its faculty. It was into a festering chasm of chaos and confusion that Pope Paul VI presented "Humane Vitae." Rather than a Holy spirit inspired and prophetic document, Tentler intimates this encyclical to be the product of minority voices who successfully coerced Paul VI. Yet, she provides an insightful quote about its reception: "'A peculiar, implicit gentleman's agreement has developed between clergy and hierarchy in which the hierarchy commits itself not to try to seriously enforce compliance with Humanae Vitae so long as the clergy is not too open and public in its opposition to the encyclical,' Andrew Greeley asserted in 1972" (p. 263). While no promoter of Humanae Vitae, Tentler acknowledges that this silent treatment has had a devastating impact: "The result was a church where sexual ethics were seldom discussed, despite rapid change in the cultural values.... Divorce rates rose, even among regular churchgoers, as did the practice of premarital cohabitation. Birth and marriage rates declined....Many Catholics...were newly tolerant of abortion" (pp. 276, 277).

The post Humane Vitae silence has continued for a generation and a half. Some Catholics nearing menopause may have never even encountered the clergy's "sacred trust." If we truly love our clergy, don't those of us who embrace the Theology of the Body and NFP bear responsibility to remind them that Pius XI's words were never abrogated? "If any confessor or pastor of souls, which may God forbid, lead the faithful entrusted to him into these errors or should at least confirm them by approval or by guilty silence, let him be mindful of the fact that he must render a strict account to God, the Supreme Judge, for the betrayal of his sacred trust"

(592 pages)

Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (Belknap Press) by: John T., Jr. Noonan publisher: Harvard Univ Pr released: 1986-06 ISBN: 0674168526 $12.95

Every catholic man or woman needs to read this book. No, every Christian who holds the historical Christian faith. Noonan carefully studies the history of contraception without arriving at any facile conclusions. It makes one ponder (indeed, I am not yet done thinking about what the Church's teaching demands...)

A Catholic Handbook for Engaged and Newly Married Couples by: Ph.D. Frederick W. Marks publisher: Emmaus Road Publishing released: 2000-12-29 $7.96

In this practical guide to marriage, learn the "secrets" of building a sound, spiritual relationship with your fiance or spouseâ€"from toothpaste in the sink to natural family planning.