Hugh Hewitt mentioned Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput on The Sean Hannity and Colmes and he is the Expert ATheologian on Birth Control Pills

Dear Sean Hannity: Hugh Heiwtt mentioned Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver on your TV program last night. He is a Catholic Bishop who will not give Communion to Catholics who support Abortion and support the use Birth Control Pills. The Pope has left it up to individual Bishops to do this because he his spreading the heat to his brother Apostles.

Conversation Between Archbishop Charles Chaput and other US Bishops

Vol. XVIII No. 4 Christmastide 2003 - Epiphany 2004

USCCB ­ November Meeting Report
Bishops to Produce Teaching Guide on Contraception

http://www.wf-f.org/03-4-Contraception.html

Bishop Michael Pfeifer (San Angelo): I also support the good work of your Committee. And so much of what I was going to say has already been said. The document should give strong focus to a culture of life, to building up the family, building up married life. Today I believe we have to recognize and state more clearly for our people, our married people, that there is a connection between abortion and contraception because more and more contraceptive pills and other contraceptive devices are designed to be abortifacient. And that is another great moral problem for all of us. So I support this good effort and would ask that this dimension be brought into the document in a very clear way, and that this document, or statement, would be designed where our married people can understand it. That is, has a biblical -- a theological -- base, and it's very pastoral and practical for our married people.

Archbishop Chaput Answers Common Questions on Contraception

by Archbishop Charles Chaput

http://www.culture-of-life.org/?Control=ArticleMaster&aid=1417&c=3&p=2

2. I still don't see the big difference between a couple using "artificial" birth control and a couple using "natural" family planning. Don't both couples have the same intentions, and isn't this what determines morality?
It's hard to see the difference when the emphasis is placed on 'artificial' versus 'natural' methods. People rightly point out that many things we use are artificial but not immoral. So it's important to realize that the Church doesn't oppose artificial birth control because it's artificial. Rather, what the Church opposes is any method of birth control which is contraceptive, whether artificial devices, pills, etc., are used or not.
Contraception is the choice, by any means, to sterilize a given act of intercourse. In other words, a contracepting couple chooses to engage in intercourse and, knowing that it may result in a new life, they intentionally and willfully suppress their fertility. Herein lies a key distinction: Natural family planning (NFP) is in no way contraceptive. The choice to abstain from a fertile act of intercourse is completely different from the willful choice to sterilize a fertile act of intercourse. NFP simply accepts from God's hand the natural cycle of infertility that he has built into the nature of woman.

5. Why is the Church so obsessed with sex?
You know the old saying about the pot calling the kettle black--well, here's a great example. Questions like this one may very well be honest, but they conceal where the real obsessions lie. American society is drowning in a sea of disordered sexuality. In such circumstances, it's hardly an 'obsession' for the Church to speak clearly and forcefully about how to swim. It's her responsibility and mission.
God created our sexuality to be a sign the world of his own life and love, and to reveal to us that we can only fulfill ourselves by loving as He loves. When sexuality becomes distorted, however, it's no longer able to communicate God's life and love. Empty or true love, life lacks meaning and people soon seem disposable. Sex becomes a pursuit of selfish gratification at the expense of others. Children are no longer welcomed as the natural fruit of married love, but are seen as a burden to be avoided. We don't even shrink from killing (through abortion) thousands of innocent preborn lives a day in satisfying our convenience and appetites.
It's no exaggeration, then, to say that disordered sexuality is the beginning of what Pope John Paul II calls 'the culture of death'. In fact, we'll never build a culture of life and love without first restoring the true meaning of human sexuality. If the Church is so concerned about sex, it's because she seeks to defend the dignity of the human person, and to safeguard the true meaning of life and love which sexuality is meant to reveal.
6. How can I preach against contraception and praise the virtues of NFP? As a priest, I'm not married.
First, the truth is the truth, no matter who speaks it. Second, preaching isn't about the preacher; it's about the message. Third, in his promise of celibacy, a priest doesn't forget or deny his sexuality. Instead, he dedicates it to a different--but equally fertile--kind of fruitfulness. In other words, priestly celibacy is an affirmation, not a rejection; a strength, not a weakness. It's a 'yes' to God which enables us to understand and serve our people better. Remember that marriage, religious life, the single vocation and the priesthood are all designed to fit together and complement each other in the life of the Church. Each needs the other. Each, in its own proper way, fulfils the fundamental human vocation to give ourselves away in love.
I think we priests often underestimate how effective our pastoral counsel can be on issues like contraception. People want and need the truth, and over time, the human heart naturally responds to it. But our people can't respond if they don't hear the message of Humanae Vitae faithfully and persuasively from their pastors. That's our job, and we should embrace it joyfully.

Archbishop Chaput's Pastoral on Humanae Vitae

by Archbishop Charles Chaput
http://www.culture-of-life.org/?Control=ArticleMaster&aid=1418&c=3&p=2



12. But why can't a married couple simply choose the unitive aspect of marriage and temporarily block or even permanently prevent its procreative nature? The answer is as simple and radical as the Gospel itself. When spouses give themselves honestly and entirely to each other, as the nature of married love implies and even demands, that must include their whole selves -- and the most intimate, powerful part of each person is his or her fertility. Contraception not only denies this fertility and attacks procreation; in doing so, it necessarily damages unity as well. It is the equivalent of spouses saying: "I'll give you all I am -- except my fertility; I'll accept all you are -- except your fertility." This withholding of self inevitably works to isolate and divide the spouses, and unravel the holy friendship between them . . . maybe not immediately and overtly, but deeply, and in the long run often fatally for the marriage.
13. This is why the Church is not against "artificial" contraception. She is against all contraception. The notion of "artificial" has nothing to do with the issue. In fact, it tends to confuse discussion by implying that the debate is about a mechanical intrusion into the body's organic system. It is not. The Church has no problem with science appropriately intervening to heal or enhance bodily health. Rather, the Church teaches that all contraception is morally wrong; and not only wrong, but seriously wrong. The covenant which husband and wife enter at marriage requires that all intercourse remain open to the transmission of new life. This is what becoming "one flesh" implies: complete self-giving, without reservation or exception, just as Christ withheld nothing of Himself from His bride, the Church, by dying for her on the cross. Any intentional interference with the procreative nature of intercourse necessarily involves spouses' withholding themselves from each other and from God, who is their partner in sacramental love. In effect, they steal something infinitely precious -- themselves -- from each other and from their Creator.
14. And this is why natural family planning (NFP) differs not merely in style but in moral substance from contraception as a means of regulating family size. NFP is not contraception. Rather, it is a method of fertility awareness and appreciation. It is an entirely different approach to regulating birth. NFP does nothing to attack fertility, withhold the gift of oneself from one's spouse, or block the procreative nature of intercourse. The marriage covenant requires that each act of intercourse be fully an act of self-giving, and therefore open to the possibility of new life. But when, for good reasons, a husband and wife limit their intercourse to the wife's natural periods of infertility during a month, they are simply observing a cycle which God Himself created in the woman. They are not subverting it. And so they are living within the law of God's love.

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