Wednesday, August 17, 2005
I guess there's a time and a place for everything.
Woman has relationship with Catholic seminarian. Woman gets pregnant. Woman has child. Woman recently sues for additional child support. Catholic Church responds that woman should have had the sense to use birth control.
Let the moral and ethical relativism begin.
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2 comments:
"The former archbishop is now chief guardian of Catholic doctrine worldwide."
Figures.
It's all about Eve, I see.
And don't forget about the Pope being busy.
The document that is referred to in that link is here, an explanation, here (there's probably better explanations out here).
From the original article:
"In her relationship with Arturo Uribe, then a seminarian and now a Whittier priest, the child's mother had engaged "in unprotected intercourse … when [she] should have known that could result in pregnancy," the church maintained in its answer to the lawsuit."
and (emphasis added):
The legal proceeding got little attention at the time. And the fact that the church — which considers birth control a sin — SEEMED to be arguing that the woman should have protected herself from pregnancy provoked no comment.
I dont think the church was implying that she should have protected herself at all. It SEEMS to me that the church was saying "she should have known what could happen" and, well, duh, she should have. AND SO SHOULD HE. That is the point of the child support case. He should pay, and the church is continuing its long tradition of ditching the children of its priests.
May we consult history for a moment to recall that celibate, unmarried priesthood came at the Second Lateran Council in 1139 under Pope Gregory VII.
It seems that the assests of the church were subject to claims of in heritance. So as far back as the third century such issues were discusses ata the highest levels of the emerging infrastructure. The Spanish Council of Elvira (between 295 and 302) and the First Council of Aries (314), a kind of general council of the West, both enacted legislation forbidding all bishops, priests, and deacons to have conjugal relations with their wives on penalty of exclusion from the clergy.
The position that a woman is entirely responsible for conception is, unfortunately, a well fortified position of the Catholic legal tradiion.
At least that's how I read it.
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