Via the Catholic Herald’s daily Catholic must-reads, Francis Phillips writes:
Following the election of Pope Francis an excellent initiative has sprung up: a new blog called Catholic Women Rising. I don’t see these two events as coincidental. We have a new Pope and thus a fresh and distinctive way of expressing the ancient pontifical role; this in turn will give impetus to other novel ways of articulating the truth, beauty and goodness of God in his Church.
Caroline Farrow of Catholic Voices began this blog “as a place where faithful, practising women may register their support for Catholic doctrine regarding women, in particular issues relating to sex, contraception, abortion, marriage and the male priesthood”. She goes on to emphasise that the blog is “for women who accept that the teaching of the Catholic Church was revealed to us by Jesus Christ and handed down by the apostles, expressed in sacred Scripture and tradition and is therefore not able to be modified or deleted. This is a place where women can joyfully testify to the freedom from oppression that accompanies an authentic, God-given expression of sexuality and chastity.”
Caroline asks those who agree with this initiative to register their support in the comment box under the statement, “I am a faithful practising Roman Catholic woman who attends Mass at least once a week and who believes in and practises the Church’s teachings, specifically pertaining to matters on sexuality, contraception, abortion, marriage and the ordination of women. I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is sympathetic to and representative of the needs and concerns of women and their children, wherever they may be in the world. I would like to offer our new Pope Francis my prayers and support and thank him for his continued protection and support of mothers and their unborn children. I fully endorse Church doctrine in relation to women’s issues.”
Well, I’m heading on over to register my assent at Catholic Women Rising! Ladies?
Foolishness to the world 
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This blog will not draw very many sexually active Catholic women of child-bearing age if acceptance of Church teaching on contraception is a requirement.
Acceptance of Church teaching on contraception should be required of all Catholics, male and female, regardless of whether they are child bearing age.
And along with that teaching, training in Natural Family Planning
Acceptance of all that which the Catholic Church teaches to be revealed by God is a requirement for all Catholics, not just converts, and the idea that this authoritative teaching will somehow “fade away” is long past its sell by date.
Well, of course it’s easy to accept if it has no bearing on your life. I’m sure 70 year old confirmed bachelors are extremely keen.
Actually, young married couples (in their twenties or thirties) are much more keen on Catholic way of life than their now middle-aged parents used to be. At least here, in Central and Eastern Europe, it is increasingly polarised and one tends to accept either all or none of Catholic teaching. Cafeteria-type Catholics gradually disappear.
Did you know that e.g. in Poland the aggregate membership of Catholic renewal movements has reached 5% of the entire population (that is Catholics plus non-Catholics)? And polls show that pro-life attutudes in the broad sense (i.e. rejection of contraception mentality) are strongest in the old generation but also in the young generation. So, do not worry too much about the Church as the gates of hell shall not prevail.
BTW, EPMS, what Church do you belong to? One of continuing Anglican bodies? That would explain your disdain for the Ordinariates.
EPMS,
You wrote: Well, of course it’s easy to accept if it has no bearing on your life. I’m sure 70 year old confirmed bachelors are extremely keen.
This issue is not nearly as simple as many in the media portray it.
>> 1. Statistically, “Natural Family Planning” is THE most effective means of birth control — even more effective than “the pill.”
>> 2. There is NO artificial means of birth control that does not pose some risk of complication for its user(s). The “interuterine device” (IUD) is perhaps the most notorious in this regard, and thus has been mostly abandoned, but even condoms pose risk of abrasion of the vaginal lips and walls due to insufficient lubrication (here noting that the man’s “pre-release,” contained within a condom, is part of the natural lubricant). The risks of “the pill” are frequently understated by its proponents — the reality is that “the pill” completely disrupts a woman’s natural body chemisty and that the consequences of this disruption in the long term are completely unknown. The increase in use of “the pill” correlates with a major rise in incidence of breast cancer, and we don’t know why. I really would prefer that people who are dear to me not become test subjects for medical studies that might analyze the data fifty years from now — and I’m not a “70 year old confirmed bachelor,” to use your terminology.
Norm.
The fact remains that studies show, and a quick look around a Catholic school confirms, that the birthrate among Catholics is identical to that of the general population. The use of NFP, meanwhile, is in single digits among Catholic couples. How many sermons have you heard recently exhorting couples to adhere to the Church’s teaching in this regard?
EPMS,
You asked: The use of NFP, meanwhile, is in single digits among Catholic couples.
How do you know this to be the case?
Also, what’s true in one locale might not be true in another.
How many sermons have you heard recently exhorting couples to adhere to the Church’s teaching in this regard?
None — and hopefully it will stay that way, because preaching on birth control is both an exercise in futility and missing the bigger picture. People who have fully submitted their lives to the Lord live by the moral law because that’s what the Holy Spirit leads them to do, while those who are not fully submitted to the Lord won’t obey the moral law because they are not following the Holy Spirit’s lead. Baptism is supposed to signify submission of one’s life to the Lord — or, as the apostle says, death to self and resurrection to new life in Christ Jesus. Where that submission has not occurred, it needs to — and indeed that submission needs to be be the focus of the homily.
Norm.
Disdain? Not at all. The Ordinariates are fragile start-ups at the moment, but the Church behind them is robust. I think Mrs Gyapong is interested in promoting respectful discussion and even debate on issues of interest to her constituency, not in erecting a Potemkin village of PR and spin.
Norm, the source of my figure for NFP was the website, updated 2012, of the National Family Planning Teachers’ Association.
And in response to your second point of March 28, I do not think sermons should focus exclusively on abstract notions like “submission.” I think this is what the Pope referred to when he said that we do not encounter the Lord in “constant soul-searching and introspection.” People need practical direction in what a Christ-centred life looks like, and clergy should preach this by word as well as example.
EPMS,
You wrote: People need practical direction in what a Christ-centred life looks like, and clergy should preach this by word as well as example.
I agree, but there’s a danger of putting the proverbial cart before the horse here. If one’s life is not submitted to the Lord, and thus guided by the Holy Spirit, one’s attempts to evangelize or to live a Christ-centered life will fail miserably.
Norm.
Actually I can think of many conflicted, messed-up priests who have nonetheless won souls to Christ. If only saints could evangelise successfully the Church would be extremely small.