A question was posed to me on Facebook in reference to my status update, which was expressing my hope that the current crisis around the contraception mandate would prompt so-called "Cafeteria Catholics" to take a look at the teachings of the Church regarding contraception to learn what exactly the Church teaches about sexuality and why. There are many facets to this teaching: philosophical, theological, health, natural law, and so on. Contrary to what some may believe, this moral law has nothing to do with the Pope's desire to make as many Catholics as possible to fill up the coffers of the Church. It has nothing to do with the notion that a woman must have as many babies as her body can crank out. Nor is it the whim of a sexually oppressed high-ranking male clergyman who has no understanding of sexuality and wishes to make all of us miserable. (Sidenote: Ever notice how when a priest or religious agrees with the Church's teaching on contraception they "know nothing" and are "out of touch" with reality because of their celibate status, but when they disagree with the teachings on contraception they are "educated" "enlightened" and "understanding"...I suppose *despite* their celibate status? Double standard, anybody? I digress...)
So where I'm going with this is, that in a culture in which the widespread view is that morality is "gray," or even worse, in which black is white and white is black, we tend to rationalize all sorts of evil so that we are never culpable for our actions, our circumstances are. We are losing, very quickly, the understanding that there are some things which are wrong all of the time. One of these things is the use of artificial birth control with the intention of thwarting the natural results of the conjugal act between a man and a woman. In short, contraception.
So the question was posed to me by my friend L: "I am curious.. what is your take on bearing as many babies as God and your body will allow if you are full on welfare, multi generationally and not working and never will, and don't want to. Is it OK to burden tax payers with ten or twenty kids that the parents can't pay for themselves?.. just asking the q and wondering your thoughts in that circumstance re birth control (NFP or other) thanks.. not trying to be argumentative I just really am interested in other perspectives..I like to open my mind, you know?" Well L, the following is the answer I tried to type to you repeatedly and lost on my iPad. It will actually be much more thorough as I can explain more things in the blog format. I want to start at the beginning, and work through it sentence by sentence, as there is no easy answer to the situation which you have proposed.
"What is your take on bearing as many babies as God and your body will allow ..."
The first thing I wish to stress here is that the Catholic Church never has and never will teach that a woman has to bear as many babies as God and her body will allow. The Church leaves the decision of family size, timing and spacing of children up to the parents. We are called to be open, but it is understood that there are circumstances in which it is prudent for a time, and sometimes for an indefinite period of time, for a couple to refrain from having more children. The sin of contraception is not in the intent to avoid bearing a child. It lies in the way in which that avoidance is achieved. When a man needs to support his family, he can go to work and earn the money, or he can rob a bank. It's not his desire to support his family which is remiss, but the way in which he goes about it which can be. So to be clear, have one child, have twenty, the Church is not going to stick her nose into it beyond the extent that all married couples are required to be open to life and not break the natural law or demean the dignity of either each other or the marital embrace in the carrying out of their decision to avoid pregnancy. To go a little further, if a couple enters into a marriage with the intention of never having children, then there exists no marriage at all. This is grounds for an annulment. While a couple needs to be open to having at least one child, for that is the primary purpose of the vocation of Holy Matrimony, they need to remain prayerful and discerning about their situations, and whether God may or may not be calling them to open their hearts to the possibility of another child. Where three, six months ago there may have been a major reason to avoid conception, it could be that things have very much improved. I know that to some, not having the question settled once and for all sounds scary. I find it an energizing injection of life into a marriage. The excitement of, "We could truly co-create another child with God," adds amazing depth to the mutual self-donation that is the act of making love. There is no such thing as "casual sex". Each act can be forever life-changing. This really affects the way I look at my spouse, and the way he looks at me. Each one says to the other, "I love you, I affirm who you are, and am willing for you to be (maybe yet again) the parent of my child. I am willing to subject myself to greater sacrifice, to the laying down of my life, my comfort, etc. in the name of our deep love. This is my body, given for you." I cannot think of a soul who deserves any less in a sexual partner. We all have the deep yearning for unselfish love and affirmation from another. This is where the rubber hits the road--but hopefully not the genitals.
This is the language of the sexual act. Contraception has a language, also. It says, "I will take, but I will not give." It says, "I will not control myself for the sake of making sure that our relations are as unselfish as possible." I am well aware that there are those who, due to serious health conditions, should absolutely NOT get pregnant. Well, they don't belong relying on birth control, which doesn't tell you when you're fertile or not. They need to either abstain completely--rather than turn the sexual act into something purely for physical pleasure--or make sure to reserve it for the infertile times of the woman's cycle. "This is a hard saying; Who can bear it?" Yeah, they said that to Jesus, too, when He told them to eat His Flesh and drink His blood. Then they left, save for the apostles. "Well what if a man is a sex addict? And his wife cannot get pregnant because of a life-threatening condition?" Yup. Abstinence, or recourse to the infertile periods. And therapy for the man. Our fallen natures are not reason to lower the bar of our human dignity. There can be healing, but we must always respect both the dignity and sacredness of the human body, male and especially female, and the dignity and sacredness of the sexual act, which is our lying down ourselves for our spouses in a most unselfish act of complete self-donation. It's not so much, "I'm gonna make you feel GOOD!" as "I am utterly and completely YOURS, and you are utterly and completely MINE. This is the type of unselfish attitude which fosters love and respect between man and woman. You accept each other as-is, fertility and all. You do not change a potentially fertile act into an infertile act. Having recourse to the infertile periods means using those times that have naturally been set aside as infertile; it was never fertile at that time to begin with. There is something very endearing about being married to somebody who thinks, "You know, I certainly would not mind if there was another you around here, and I would put my money and effort where my mouth is."
Moving on...
"if you are full on welfare, multi generationally and not working and never will, and don't want to."
This is unfortunate. I do understand there are people out there who will milk the system for all it is worth. This is where we with good hearts need to step in and try to fill the gaps. Are there some who will never change? Perhaps. I think most everybody is reachable at some point, especially when they are being courted by somebody who is *truly* interested in helping *them* and not just saving a few bucks, or doing a token "good deed". I do not pretend to have the answer for this, but again, these peoples' refusal to act according to the human dignity that was theirs at their conception is no excuse for us to deny that to them. I simply do not believe that the vast majority of those on welfare are this type of person. I have very close friends who are on different kinds of public assistance. They, their spouses, their marriages, their marital beds, deserve as much respect and have as much dignity as that of those with better means. In short, no matter your financial situation, no matter whether or not you act in accordance with your dignity, we are never to treat one another as any less than we would treat Christ. Christ died for each one of us, and each one of us are worthy of having the kind of loving relationship I described above. This is what God desires for us in our relationships, and we should wish for no less for each other, and hold up no less of an ideal, no matter how some behave.
"Is it OK to burden tax payers with ten or twenty kids that the parents can't pay for themselves?."
Do I relish the thought of this? No. Is this an excuse to deny someone the dignity that is their right? No. Nobody should have contraception forced upon them, period. I realize there is a problem with this in our culture. It is one that is not going to be fixed in one presidential term, in a decade, whatever. This problem has taken generations to grow as it did, and it will take generations to get out of. We will get out of this by reaching the youth. They are starving for Truth. They are starving for love, true love. We need to treat every single one of these people, the adults and the children, with respect, and help them understand how special they are. If the children are in a dangerous situation, i.e. neglect, drugs, whatever, then of course we need to help their parents get help, if possible, and rescue the children if the parents persist in maintaining a dangerous situation for the children. But the children are the ones who need to be taught what true love means. They need to NOT have contraceptives shoved at them at 11, 12, 13, and they need to NOT be told that they're "going to do it anyways, so they may as well be 'safe'." No greater lie was ever told. They have then just learned that sex is nothing but a selfish act designed to get pleasure, and nothing more. Children end up having children to be part of the crowd, and these little ones end up being fed into the system. No, this is not working for us. Women are simply objects of pleasure, men are leaving them single with children (and children by multiple dads), and the women are left to provide and pick up the pieces left when Dad is gone. We need young women empowered with the knowledge of their bodies, not trusting in a piece of rubber, not poisoning their bodies with chemicals. We need young women taught what love really is, both by word and by example. However will they take us seriously when we do not practice this selfless giving in our own lives, both inside and outside the bedroom? They need people invested in them, as a group and as individuals, who can lead them to something greater. As I said, this is not something that can be fixed in one generation. It's a tall order indeed, but these disadvantaged youth are deserving of it.
I'm going to end this now, with the promise of one more post to come. I mentioned self-donation, selfless giving, etc etc, and there is a reason for that. I will get into this in the next post. If you got this far, go have a good drink.
bravo!
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