Cherie Blair in Public Opposition to Church Teaching Shock!

"Yes, Tony. If we continue to publicy defy the Holy See, we will grown in popularity and one day, yes one day, all of this will be ours. Behold, our disciples already gather around us."

Fr Ray of St Mary Magdalen fame has picked up on In Hoc Signo Vinces blog, which picked up an article from the Times Online website, in which Cherie Blair has publicly, once more, defied Church teaching on contraception, because motherhood basically stops women from advancing in their careers. So many women have missed out on earning loads of money like she has because they have been unable to put off mothering children until they are no longer fertile. Cherie offers the World these pearls of wisdom.

"I feel that if you look at what progress women have made in the world one of the reasons they have been able to make progress is because they have been able to control their fertility."

Cherie. Take as an example of 'progress' the Blessed Mother of God, the Virgin Mary. After all, like all 'devout' Catholics you pray to her at Mass every Sunday. If Motherhood was good enough for the Blessed Virgin Mary, who accepted graciously the honour of being the Mother of God, when asked by the Archangel Gabriel, then why is the vocation to Motherhood now being presented by you, as something that undermines a woman's career. Believe me, lady, if the Blessed Virgin had responded to the question posed by the Archangel Gabriel by saying, "Oh blast. This has come at a really bad time! You see, I really had my heart set on being a lawyer and earning a fat pile of cash out of litigation and surrounding myself with houses and the odd yacht. Could you come back in 10 years time after I've done my law training? I am the handmaid of the Lord but the Lord will understand my personal ambitions, won't he?"...then you would not have been given the great Grace of being a Catholic, and neither would I.

“I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with that, and indeed without that being able to control I wouldn’t have been able to achieve the things that I’ve been able to do."

Now I don't doubt that Cherie does some stirling work with people who need their human rights defending and all credit to the girl. I admire her ability to overlook the faults of her husband who, quite incredibly, has made himself one of the most universally hated figures of the 21st century...and look, the century only just really got started! Quite an achievement, really! However, Cherie's work with those who need their human rights defending should not be overshadowed by the fact that she has also raised a family. Not only has she raised about 5 presumably wonderful, healthy and doubtless successful-to-be children, but she has done this while still defending human rights victims.

What we do not seem to hear from Cherie, however, is how wonderful she thinks motherhood is. We hear a lot about how great it is having a high-flying career in law and being the wife of a powerful former Prime Minister, but come on, Cherie...How much joy have your children brought you? Hasn't raising a family been wonderful, if at times difficult? Have you nothing good to say about the vocation of Motherhood? It certainly appears that the World is being presented with a vision of life which rejects outright the benefits, both societally and personally of being mothers and fathers. I know it must be awfully exciting hanging out with aging, tired, botox-faced, has-been popstars on yachts, but hasn't being a mother been quite exciting as well?

“I think it’s a really important issue and personally I would prefer it if the Catholic Church took a more positive attitude towards contraception because I think there’s a lot of difference between preventing a life coming about and actually extinguishing a life when it has come about.”

Now, there is a difference, but Cherie dear, the Church is trying to tackle a culture which the previous Pope John Paul II described as the 'Culture of Death'. You know the one, the one who told your husband not to rain bombs on Baghdad, but who your husband ignored, just like he ignores the current Pontiff when he speaks infallibly from the Throne of St Peter. The culture of contraception is the flip-side or even the embryo of the culture of abortion and human sterility. The use of artificial contraception means that a couple are saying, 'No' to new life.

The reasons for this may be many and varied. It may be because they are too poor to have another child, it may be because there is no support for the family, it may be that there are a myriad reasons why having a child right now is not a great thing in human terms. But the idea that the pursuit of money, status and worldly success is the fundamental reason not to bring new life into the World is frankly, in the light of the Holy Gospel, both laughable and lamentable, because a couple that are saying 'No' to new life through artificial contraception are far more likely to say 'No' to life if a child is conceived as an 'accident'. You may have given birth to your unplanned child and good on you, but, couples who contracept habitually and who are not practising natural family planning are more likely to abort should something go 'wrong' and a new life be conceived because their minds and hearts were not prepared for the eventuality.

And so the Church in Her great wisdom teaches that healthy Catholic couples are open to life because it means they are open to God and His design, His creation. It means that the couple welcome the new life as God's gift, rejoicing saying, "God has given us a child...again!" instead of saying, "Holy s**t! I'm pregnant! What the **** are we going to do?!"

Now, this teaching may be hard, but the Church, as described in Pope Paul VI's prophetic encyclical, Humane Vitae, is fully aware of the weaknesses of the Laity, our temptations and our failures to live fully in accordance to God's Most Holy Will. As St Paul says, something along the lines of, "I see those things that are good that I do not do, and those things which I hate, I do." Cherie, darling, that is why Christ in His Generosity gave the Church the Sacrament of Reconciliation, because we are sinners in need of God's forgiveness. Only with the help of God's Grace can we even think of living in accordance with His Most Holy Will. These treasures of Graces in the Church are given to the Faithful to enrich human lives with the generous love of God, nourish human families, forgive sins, obtain for us salvation and try with God's help to live in His Love. I hope and pray, lady, that you and your misguided not-the-messiah-but-a-very-naughty-boy husband one day understand this essential truth of the Catholic Faith. Get thee to a confessional! God knows I need to go myself! As for the Blairs, who are they worshipping? God or...