For Lent

I have given up posting on the subjects of Birth Control and Abortion on the Oregonian's blog. From the response to this article on Catholic women who use birth control should speak out, my opinion won't be missed in the least.

There are plenty of others to take up this cross. Having said that, my lenten fast is only from the Oregonian's blog, not from my personal blog. And so I post here to Maura Casey- Amen Sister.

Not that I agree with you in the least on your dissent from Church Teaching. But unless dissenters come out of the closet and are loud and vocal in their dissent, there is no opportunity to explain church teaching to them. And if their dissent is accurate and actually has some evidence- well, that's how doctrine develops. Let's *actually have the discussion* that Blessed Pope John Paul The Great wanted Evangelium Vitae to begin- on the dignity and "special genius" of women, and how, in Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, contraception encourages the objectification of women and thus the destruction of that dignity and "special genius".

You can't dissent superficially without knowing what you're dissenting against. You can't believe on faith alone without reason. Far too many American Catholics today are doing both.