Priest speaking out against contraception!

This is hot off the press & a good watch!

There is some guy in America called "Sean Hannity" who hosts a talk show. Apparently he is openly Catholic and talks about it on his radio show, but frequently professes anti-Catholic teaching.

and, well, why don't I let Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, the President of Human Life International explain what happened last week...(read below or click link)

...Last Friday Sean Hannity took a few moments out of his afternoon radio show to make an apology. At first he sounded very sincere in saying we have to take responsibility for our mistakes. Fine so far. Then he went on to tell his hearers that he had taken two bites of a chicken sandwich that day because he had been traveling and literally forgot it was a Friday of Lent. He stopped eating it when he
realized it was a Friday, but he used the opportunity on the show to make a fairly big deal about the "eat meat on Friday and you can go to hell" issue.

Well, even though he claims to be a "good Catholic," Hannity is hardly a credible commentator on Catholic matters. The chicken sandwich scandal was fairly trivial in the overall scheme of his show, but it said much more about the depth of his faith than anything else. I suspect that a great number of Catholics live their faith in the same way—rule-bound and juvenile—but we need something better from a public "Catholic" like Hannity. We need a vibrant witness of someone who knows and embraces his Faith as deeply as he articulates his political passions.

Just for the record, he did not commit a sin when he ate the chicken sandwich—he had no intention to violate the Church precept, and he corrected himself immediately when he realized what he did. That's not a sin, and issuing a dramatic "apology" for doing that is, well, entertainment, not witness. This, unfortunately, is what passes for a deep discussion of the Catholic Faith in the public forum nowadays.

If apologies are the order of the day, then the repentance I would like to hear out of Sean Hannity's mouth is for his shameless—even scandalous—promotion of birth control. Yes, I have heard him personally say, "I have no problem with birth control. It's a good thing." (Another bit of profound theological reasoning.) Given the size of his audience and the importance of his status in pop culture, Hannity's anti-witness to a fundamental tenet of Catholic moral doctrine is just devastating for the faith of others who may be weak or vacillating in this area. His impact is greater, and so his judgment will be stricter. "To those who have been given more, more will be required…"

~~

So this Hannity dude & one of his co-presenters invited Fr. Thomas onto their show....

and here is a clip of their encounter! (you can watch the whole thing on the fox site for as long as it stays there)



Why does Hannity need to bring the 'sex abuse scandal' into the discussion?!!
That has nothing to do with anything!

Only a loser drags up irrelevant issues into an argument to try and deflect from the fact that they actually have no defence.

It's pathetic.

Also, I really dislike it when people use the whole "You don't know me" argument!
No, only God knows the motives in people's hearts; but if one claims to be Catholic and PUBLICALLY says 'Birth-control is a good thing, people should use it'...what else is there to know?!
It is totally justified to take issue with that!!


Anyway, Hannity's reasoning about contraception shows his lack of understanding of the Church's teaching.

His only real comment about his pro-contraception stance is:

"Because not everyone is Catholic, not everyone will agree with the Church about contraception, and so we should encourage them to use it to prevent huge numbers of abortions."

hmmm...

a) a good chunk of people who have abortions have them because contraception fails (60% of women having abortions in America say that 'contraception faliure' is the reason).
In no country in the world have abortion rates fallen as contraception rates have risen (in fact, quite the contrary).

b) other than condoms, all other forms of contraception work by preventing any embryos present from implanting, so they are abortifacient anyway. They are still killing a human being, just in a different stage of development.

c) Contraception is not wrong 'because the Catholic Church says so', but rather it is wrong because of what it does to the sexual act in itself. All Christian Churches agreed with this untill the early 1930s when the Protestants decided it wasn't the case (...for no good reason. You should read their documents, basically it was public pressure that persuaded them to change their stance, it wans't any theological reasoning).
Contraception damages sex and the relationship of the spouses who use it. It is therefore against 'Natural Law' and applies to every human being who has sex, and not just Catholics.

It's like murder; murder isn't wrong just for Christians because 'the Bible says so'. Murder is wrong because it ends the life of another human, and so applies to all humans, no matter what their religion.
It's part of Natural Law.

As a Catholic, should be ashamed to encourage other people to sin.


Plus he couldn't see any moral difference between NFP & contraception; another indicator that he has never thought about it or read any Church document about it.

anyway, I don't want to insult Hannity. It's just all very sad when you see Catholics in the public eye who openly contradict the Church's teaching and so lead others astray.


But good on the Priest for being brave and speaking up!

I've always like Human Life International!
I have signed up to Fr. Thomas's mailing list!