The Tablet Purity And Complementarity

Following my previous post and that of other priests concerning The Tablet's editorial on Archbishop Nichols, I have received the following from Father Gregory Charnock, a priest from South Africa whom I had the great pleasure of meeting at the Latin Mass Society Merton College Conference last year. We have kept up an email and telephone correspondence since then. He works in a very challenging parish and I would ask you for your prayers for him and his parish. He has introduced the extraordinary form to his people. Because of poor internet connection, I presume he was unable to put the following as a comment to the post and so he sent it as an email. Here are his comments which I fully endorse.

In view of the wide circulation being given to the Tablet editorial of 8/8/09 and your competent responses, please permit the following additional observation.

In opposing the constant teaching of the Church against artificial contraception, as set forth in Humanae Vitae, the Tablet is no doubt guilty of misleading many of its readers into believing that purity and chastity are somehow no longer the manly, Christian and Catholic values they were universally held to be by all Christians until that Lambeth Conference of +- 1931 left this open to "personal conscience", an unfortunate decision quickly contradicted by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

The consequent loss of "respect for the woman" and consideration of her as "a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment" which is now very widespread, were prophesied by Pope Paul VI in paragraph 17 of Humanae Vitae, along with the increase of immorality,and imposition by governments of "solutions" such as we now see in the horrors of the one child policy in China with forced abortions.

The harm done to countless women by the culture of death, by chemical and other contraceptives, as well as by abortion, all fruit of the same rotten tree, amounts to a program of misogynism on the most massive scale ever in human history. The increased unhappiness resulting from divorce is another result.

No, the illusionary "freedom" from restraint offered to men by the (il)liberals of the Tablet is a misogynism which has left us to face the distorted feminism of broken women suffering the consquences of the arrogance of those who still claim to know better (2 Timothy 4:3).

These same people now seek to impose their errors regarding purity and complementarity on the Church, making her very sanctuaries and altars places where this confusion can be exhibited.

The Church does not like sex. She loves it, therefore surrounding it with reverence for the Creator's loving design (one could say procreation not recreation). Similarly, the Church loves women, with reverence and the deepest respect for their unique and complementary roles.

Credit: thelema-and-faith.blogspot.com