9. Married Love

"This love is above all fully human." This line really stuck with me after I read paragraph nine on Married Love. The entire paragraph explains how this love is a personal friendship between partners and is, basically, the ultimate high in life. The couple shares everything with each other and they do not solely think of themselves once married. The Pope clearly states that marriage is 'forever,' which is what a couple promises to each other when they say their vows. They now have to provide, care, and essentially give their all to someone else.

For the most part, I completely agree with this paragraph. On the other hand, I believe it is a little outdated. Nowadays, less couples are "tying the knot" because more and more homosexual relationships are coming out into the open. These couples are not allowed to get married, but that does not mean that they cannot share the same love and passion as a man and women who get hitched. After reading more intently, I realized that the pope does not always assume a man and woman in his paragraph. For example, "Whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself," does not specifically refer to a heterosexual couple. This aspect of the the Pope's paragraph can be applied to society today. Not only can it be applied, but it would be more widely accepted as well. Finally, the Pope claims that marriage must result in procreation in order for the couple to reach their highest degree of welfare. I think that in society today, a couple reaches satisfaction in many other ways like reaching a high point in a career or traveling together. This being said, I do believe that marriage shows love in a very impressive way, but this paragraph has flaws that do not apply to society today.

Paragraph 14 of the Pope's Encyclical states that "Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means. (16)"
This statement refers to any form of preventative birth control- condoms, the pill, the patch, "family planning", anything. Obviously, being a young woman in college, this offends me. The body practices I choose to do with my own body are my decisions and my decisions only. I was raised my entire life in a very strictly Catholic way, so I understand WHY the Pope must establish this stance. However, being raised in this way allows me to see both sides of the situation. While I don't think that everyone should be exploiting their bodies and having sex with whomever they want, I believe that it is their choice to do (or not do) so. Being on birth control does not necessarily mean that someone is going to be promiscuous. And where does this word, "promiscuous" come from anyway? What does it really mean? This is another social construct. What one person views as promiscuous behavior may not be promiscuous to someone else. It all depends on the way we were raised and the things we believe. So, while the Pope believes that any form of sexual contact is inappropriate, or promiscuous, if it is not with a spouse, many people disagree with this statement. I still believe in God. I still believe that Jesus died for us, and I still believe that there is a Heaven. Just because I choose to go on "the pill" or wear "the patch" doesn't mean Jesus doesn't love me. Thanks, Pope.

I found paragraph nine about Married Love very interesting. I liked how it described love, not necessarily the relationship between a man and woman. The words "husband" and "wife" were used, but it mainly focused on the love that develops between two people. "This love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit. It is not, then, merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of the free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow..." I think this is a perfet defintion of true love, but then it goes on to say... "so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment." This also describes love, but only narrowly. The use of the words "human fulfillment" make it seem unnatural and insincere. Then to label married love as only being capable for a husband and wife makes it biased. One line that I think sums it up well was, "whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself." Gender aside from all of these claims on love, it applies to everyone, not just a man and a woman. There was only one exception though, "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the procreation and education of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute in the highest degree to their parents' welfare." (8) I thought this statement was a little exagerated, because procreation is not the only way for a couple to have children and I felt the debate on the purpose for "marital acts" contradicted itself later.

Love is a capacity that cannot be limited to gender and that is where the debate of homosexuality lies. I disagree with this "married love" because it is biased and I think that is unfair to those who feel love, but aren't necessarily allowed to love in the eyes of the Catholic Church. I think 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 even explains this.

Another reason why I found this interesting was because of a recent campaign ad by Rick Perry. Here is the link if you have not already seen it: http://www.youtube.com/user/RPerry2012?v=0PAJNntoRgA.

I was appalled when I saw this because I don't think I have ever seen such a forward presidential campaign. A lot of people have criticized him for this ad specifically for his comment, "gays can serve openly in the military." With all of this going on in the news, I felt this was a significant paragraph that could relate to a variety of topics.

Procreation: feeding a baby while millions of others die of hunger

Under Unlawful Birth Control Methods, paragraph 14, it states that "it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (18)—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general" (Supreme Pontiff Paul VI). He is talking about using "the pill", plan B, a condom, or getting an abortion and saying that because that child is a natural thing, it could be so precious that it must be brought into the world. For instance, let's say we lived in a world in which the richest 20% of people account for 3/4 of the world's income- we do- having a consistently growing population would be justified by the romanticized birth of one baby.

I found the above diagram from globalissues.org. If we were to take the Church's views on birth control as something other than irony, that would mean the allowance of our 7billion person population to grow, as well as the amount of people living in poverty with nothing to keep them from dying. Michel Foucault might put this under his term Biopolitical. The church Biopowerful Subject, demanding a mass population to continue to live, and maintain population growth- regardless of the unlivable conditions we are haunted by already. The church thus, takes control of the human body; it defies for us what sex is, what is should be, and how we should have it. Anything contrary, no matter the circumstances, would be to go against the natural law which keeps us within what Bordo would call our Docile Bodies.

This picture looks at procreation with a strong sense of feeling. The image represents procreation as a romantic, cheerful, and all around 'good thing'.


This Image shows children literally starving to death, dying in the desert. What becomes clear is the Church's Romanticizing about procreation, and disregard to the masses of people dying right under our noses.

What Birth Control methods allow us humans to do, is take control of the overpopulated planet. We have taken control over human sexuality. To allow the church to remain in domination of very bodies, we give up the rights to genitalia, while at the same time, allowing our resources to be controlled by the rich, and kept away from the massive populations with nothing but their own deaths.