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Dear Adam and similar faith-seekers who visit our site with questions of a pastoral nature.
Speaking for my team, while it has been a joy to assist visitors on their faith journey, we are limited in what we are trained to do. We are not:
- Priests
- Pastors
- Religious order priests
- Spiritual directors or counselors
- Nor do we specialize in any medical field related to the human body.
If we do know something in one of these five areas, it is only through life experiences with other trained, certified instructors.
We do have a team that is made up of theologians, philosophers, non-certified historians, Scripture scholars, and Grammarians.
Rather than asking us questions that we are not qualified to answer (especially in pro-creative sexual ethics), it would be best to seek out a faithful spiritual counselor who is faithful to the Church who can help answer your nuanced question.
Most, if not, all the time we will refer people who have questions related to sexual ethics to the National Catholic Bioethics Center or Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers, MD of NaProTechnology.
As stated in our “Questions we don’t answer” page: (Number 2):
Questions that can be answered:
- by the natural law
(that's that law inside of our conscience, that tells us what is right and wrong.)
- by your parents, the primary educator of some one’s faith, or
- by going to your own (pastor or parish priests):
- for advice and guidance in Confession, or
- for any issues related to the morality of any medical issues you may have.
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Again, none of us are priests, counselors, nor medical doctors but addressing these pastoral issues with them, will allow you to address any nuances, in your specific (situation or question).
Some on the team have expressed a concern that questioners are abusing our service to the Church when, for instant, a penitent hears a penance or advice in Confession (that they didn't like) so they ask us what our opinion is.
This would truly be an abusive of our evangelistic, apologetic work.
One of my colleagues said:
On moral questions with no specific Church doctrine, we can offer the questioner moral principles the Church uses and follow reason from them, as long as we are clear that this is what we're doing. It takes us into the realm of:
"Based on solid moral principles the Church uses, it seems reasonable to me that...."
Yet, if he wants to talk about his life and how his behavior may fit into it on a subjective level, he should contact a priest or spiritual director. |
I agree!!!
Whenever we receive an e-mail with [a] question(s), we have no idea whether the question is being asked by a 7-year-old or an 87-year-old. There is a lot we miss because we can't see their "body English" and hear their voices. With this in mind, we would be irresponsible to address a set of questions that are pastoral in nature. We are not trained to do that; a priest or spiritual councilor is.
Going forward, maybe one of the questions we should ask when we get pastoral questions is:
- Have you discussed this issue with your pastor, priest or a spiritual councilor?
- If so, what answer did you get?
So the ball is in our court on that point.
Other than that, we welcome all Catholic questions worldwide from anyone!!!
| In a few replies, I've received from my colleagues, some of them can come across with a chastising tone because of the type of question you've asked. For this I personally apologize. Know that at our site, your question about the Catholic faith is always warmly welcome!!! |
Except for the questions we don’t answer, the only dumb question is the one not asked, so we welcome your questions.
And Yes, we did answer Adam's question privately.
Mike Humphrey (and the AAC Team)
Web Admin. for AskACatholic.com
Resources we use and recommend:
National Catholic Bioethics Center
https://www.ncbcenter.org/
Submit A Question:
https://www.ncbcenter.org/consultation-form
Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers, M.D.
NaProTECHNOLOGY
https://naprotechnology.com/
Catholic Answers
Catholic Cultureccli.org
popepaulvi.com
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