The People Speak Out

Local voices connecting globally

This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.  (Pope Francis)

Canon Law 212 calls upon the laity to speak up:

2 - The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.

§3. - According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.

La morale della Chiesa cattolica è stata sempre ambigua e continuare ad esserlo.
VMR Chianese{jcomments on}

I have been married to a non-catholic for 55 years. I had three children in two and a half years. The stress of this nearly destroyed my marriage. We went on to have a planned fourth child seven years later. I knew personally a couple who were invited to be part of the consultation on HV and their witness and wisdom was disregarded. This ban has resulted in none of my wonderful children practising their faith or bringing up their children in the faith either. I have done my best to serve the church all my life, but this teaching has been a heavy burden{jcomments on}

I obviously didn’t use birth-control. I had 10 pregnancies, 9 living.. I had absolutely– no help—NONE!

By the grace of God i made it and all children doing well . I am glad it isn’t retroactive ,but I believe in artificial birth control. Women should be able to choose how many children she can emotionally handle and afford. My sister said she would commit suicide if she had more than 2. I have another acquaintance that had 8 children in a short period of time who killed one, injured another, and killed herself. In my time it seemed as though everything was a sin. I never had a loving God. Nuns were paranoid about mentioning sex , even seeing a picture of a back was sinful. Getting married, trying to recycle your thought on sex was interesting. . Good Pope Francis—No more rabbits.! I wish he would talk about over population and the use of birth control. One priest in our church talked about the fact that artificial birth control hurt relationships? What planet did he come from? we know 95% use birth control but when priests talk it is still sinful, even though most couples can think for themselves. Children need to be wanted and loved.{jcomments on}

Married in 1968 at age 31 I gave birth to a son a year later. At that time the Austrian bishops declared that deciding on how many children to have was a matter of conscience (“Königsteiner Erklärung”). So my husband and I used contraceptives without any pangs of remorse, since I needed all my energy to raise my child according to our high mental and emotional standards… Five years later I lost our second child through miscarriage and, sadly, didn’t get pregnant again after that. Our son has developed into a very positive, social-minded, loving person, and I look back on my life as well spent with the right decisions. In all matters it is God-given conscience that counts!{jcomments on}