If you enjoyed my last post on the June 30, 1952 issue of the Aeta Apostolicae Sedis, then you should enjoy this entry as well.  At 474 pages in length, this document demonstrates the lengths at which the Catholic Church will go to regulate human sexuality to ensure virtually every aspect of sex is filled with guilt and shame.  While, the Aeta Apostolicae Sedis reads like a legal treatise, it is filled with gems of circular reasoning.  The following is an example of the circular logic the Catholic Church uses for its justification for its ban on birth control:

Summary of Conclusions

1. The Church is so completely committed to the doctrine that contraception is intrinsically and gravely immoral that no substantial change in this teaching is possible. It is irrevocable.
2. It is not easy at present to assign a technical dogmatic note to the doctrine. But it is safe to say that it is “at least definable doctrine/’ and it is very likely already taught infallibly ex iugi magisterio.
3. Since the doctrine is at least definable, it must be included in some way within the object of infallibility. At the minimum, therefore, it is a part of the secondary object of infallibility and may be proposed as a truth which is absolutely tenenda. And there are good, though not yet convincing, reasons for holding that this doctrine is a part of the depositum fidei and can thus be infallibly taught as credenda.
4. The basis for recent papal condemnations of contraception is the natural-law principle that the inherent procreative purpose, or procreative design, of the conjugal act must always be respected. This principle has always been a part of the Christian teaching on conjugal morality; hence, in this sense at least, the condemnation of even modern contraceptive techniques may be called traditional doctrine.

Now the Translation!!

1. The Catholic Church believes that the use of Birth Control to be so evil that you will burn in hell if you dare to use them.  Since the Catholic Church thinks Birth Control is so awful it cannot possibly change its stance on the issue.
2. While, the Catholic Church cannot easily come up with the logic on why using Birth Control is so evil, we do figure if we tried real hard that we could come up with  some very hard to understand circular logic to support our position.
3. Since the Catholic Church would be able to come up with at least a bit of logic on why Birth Control is evil, it goes without saying that these beliefs would be infallible and as such could be taught as the divine truth.
4. The Pope completely understands all aspects of natural law (he certainly understands it much better than you, or I can), and as such the Pope can clearly see that Birth Control is in contravention of natural law.  Furthermore, since the Catholic Church has always believed Birth Control to be evil, that belief is thus correct and was never incorrect.

It is a remarkable piece of work complete with lots of circular logic, appeals to natural law and an invocation of infallibility.  One of the astonishing things about this document (all 474 pages of it), is that there was not one single reference to the Bible in it.  None, nada, zero, nothing!  You would think that since the Catholic Church is supposed to be a Christian organization they would at least look at the Bible for their authority on moral matters.

However, there is one small problem should the Catholic Church decide to check their Bibles on the issue of Birth Control; they would not find any scripture condemning or banning birth control.  But then again the lack of any facts or supporting data has never stopped the Catholic Church from banning something before. The Catholic Church’s ingenious approach to this kind of problem is to dream something up out of thin air, throw in a bunch of Latin mumbo jumbo to give it the aura of logic and then get the Pope to sprinkle holy water over it to give it the force of divine law.

In the real world when your facts do not support your thesis, you change your thesis and start over again.  But, in the Catholic world when the facts do not support your thesis, you just make up some new facts to fit your thesis and call it good.  The Catholic Church’s position on Birth Control is a classic example of how the Catholic Church makes up a bunch of gibberish to support a position that is not supported by the facts or even their very own Bibles.