Artificial Birth Control QUESTION from Ellen April 12, 2001 If I choose to use artificial birth control, can I still receive Communion? If I confess my use of birth control in Confession, and still take the pill after going to Confession, am I forgiven? Do I continue to confess this every time I go to Confession?
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, OLSM on July 8, 2001 Dear Miss Ellen:
No, if you use artificial birth control you will be in grave sin and cannot properly receive communion until you honestly and genuinely confess it in the Sacrament of Confession.
If you confess your sin in Confession without any intention of actually stopping your sin, then you have given a bad confession and are NOT absolved. You have, in that case, lied to the priest and to God.
In order to be absolved of your sins you must be sorry for your sins, you must desire to not sin again. If a person commits the same sin it can be forgiven again, because it is a new sin, BUT there MUST be a genuine and honest sorrow for the sin whenever committed, and desire to not sin again. One must repent (turn away) from their sin.
If one is not really trying to overcome their sin, or really does not want to stop their sin, and is going to Confession without true contrition, then they are fooling maybe the priest and themselves, but they ain't fooling God.
To tell you the truth, the way you are asking these questions does not smack me with the idea that you are sorry for your sin. It smacks more like a person trying to do an end run around God -- trying to find a loophole to continue sinning and get by with it.
One cannot purposely commit a sin with the express intention that it is alright to commit the sin because you can confess it on Saturday and expect the confession to be a good one. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
The old joke about Catholics doing as they please on the weekdays and confessing on the weekend and then going right back to the same behavior on Monday, only to confess again on the weekend if actually followed with no honest contrition or intention of repentance could lead one to hell, not salvation
Bottom line: stop using artificial birth control and you won't have to worry about it.
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