This is a true story.
A few years ago my wife, Linda, and I were invited to talk to a group of
engaged Pre-Cana couples at a local parish. The woman responsible for
lining up speakers had done charitable work with my wife and thought that we
would be well suited to talking to the soon-to-be married couples about the
Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality, and the place of natural family
planning (NFP) within it (be aware that
our instructions stressed that this wasn't to be a class on the exact details
of how to practice NFP; There were
several couples in the diocese qualified to teach such a class, but we were not
among them, and the invitee knew this).
 |
| A mom and dad enjoying family time with their children. |
Needless to say, we were pleased to be asked. We leapt into preparations:
we read Pius XI’s Casti Connubii, Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, articles by people like Janet Smith from the
website One More Soul, Kimberly Hahn’s Life-Giving Love, information on John Paul II’s Theology of the
Body and I can’t remember what else (I may track down our bibliography and post
it). We did include NFP, but in the context of the
Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality,
which, you’ll remember, is what we were actually asked to do. It was, if I may say so, a dynamite presentation.
Strange
to say, the reaction was not as positive as we had hoped. Monsignor seemed
pleased with our presentation, but our target audience seemed a little, well,
stunned. While we certainly didn’t accuse anyone of anything, we did
share the fact that cohabitation, consummating relationships outside of
marriage, contraception, etc. were sins. It’s a fair bet that a number, most
likely the majority (quite possibly all of them), were doing some of those
things, so it wasn’t welcome news, however gently and
non-confrontationally we put it (which I assure you we did).We did get one
mildly positive comment from one of the women; the only other question was “How
many children did you say you have?” To our answer, “five”, the response
was “and how reliable is NFP supposed to be?” They seemed unconvinced
that none of our children were due to a “failure” of NFP, that all were expected
and welcomed. They had never been taught, or at least never absorbed,
that having children is the norm (we used to call them “a Blessing”!), avoiding
them the exception. In their written feedback afterwards, they related
that they liked us personally, but found our presentation too “judgmental”, too "black and white".
The gentle and kindly woman who had asked us seemed as stunned as the
couples. Apparently, she thought we
had gone too far by actually saying that contraception was a sin; her vision of
the presentation was that we would talk in glowing terms about how natural NFP
is, how free from chemical side-effects, etc. and we would somehow win them
over to NFP by sheer green-appeal. Then,
having been won over to NFP by its greenness, they might someday be inclined to
learn more about the theology behind it and the fullness of the church's
teaching on the blessing of children. My lovely bride answered that we
could not, in good conscience, go in to talk about the Church’s teaching on
marriage and sexuality without, you know, talking about the Church’s teaching
on marriage and sexuality. Linda recalls
saying with incredulity, "But they're all getting married in a few weeks,
and this is supposed to be the official instruction they are receiving from their
church about contraception. If we don't
tell them now, when are we going to tell them?
Are we going to wait and let St. Peter do it at the gate?" Really, if they never knew any better, they wouldn’t be the ones breaking out
into a cold sweat when giving an account of themselves someday. As we were "hired" for this job,
and knew better, if we didn’t share the fullness of the Church's teaching with
them, we were the ones who'd have
some 'splainin' to do.
This all happened seven or eight years ago.
Would you be surprised if I told you that,
despite the fact that they claimed to be desperate to find speakers willing to
help out with this topic, we haven’t been asked back?
So, as they say, what have we learned here? If you’ve read many of my
posts on this site, you know that I take the importance of the family very
seriously. On the level of Natural Law, it is the essential building
block of a healthy society; as Catholics, we know that it is an image, an icon,
however imperfect (even in the best families), of the perfect love of the
Trinity. Let me amend that: as Catholics, we should know.
In my experience, most Catholics don’t. My wife at one point gave a copy
of Kimberly Hahn’s Life-Giving Love to a young mother,
a faithful Mass attendee, after she heard her talking to another regular Mass
goer, also a young mother, and it was clear that neither knew anything about
the Catholic teaching on contraception, sterilization, and our proper
disposition toward child-bearing. I’m
sure both young women were trying to be a faithful Catholics, but having
absorbed the secular “conventional wisdom” about having babies, they were
unaware of a serious alternative.
Some
will criticize priests for not preaching on this topic, and there’s some justice
to the complaint: I can’t recall a single homily even mentioning contraception
in my adult life (although there are some bishops who have spoken out boldly,
particularly the incomparable Archbishop Charles Chaput, link here). Many priests will respond that, in this skeptical age,
they simply lack the credibility to say anything too demanding about marriage;
and they also have a valid point. I can hear it now: “Who is he to tell
me about sex? He’s a celibate male!” What’s the solution?
It seems to me that, given the age in which we live, leadership in this area
has to come from the laity. We do need the explicit support of the
clergy, yes, but right now they’re talking to a blank wall (when they’re talking
at all). We lay Catholics, especially those called to marriage, need to
learn about the true nature of marriage and the true place of sexuality (the
Theology of the Body is a great place to start). We need to live
according to that knowledge, joyfully receiving the children the Lord sends our
way (using NFP, if we discern that it’s appropriate, according to the
principles laid out by the Church), publicly demonstrating the importance we
place on our families, and always remembering that we are to be an Icon of Love;
never underestimate the Power of Example. The power of example, however,
is not enough: after all, to many people our traditional family, however
loving, will appear to be simply another “lifestyle choice” among the many on
offer (“That’s fine for them, of course, but not for us”). We need to be
willing to share the content of Catholic teaching, in a loving way that
respects people where they are, with the goal of lifting them up. If more
priests feel that they have the support of a large part of the laity, they will
be able to speak out with more confidence.
The state of the family is not a tangential matter, it is a key component of
every major problem facing both the Church and society at large. We have
the truth: we need to live it.
(This was co-written by
my lovely bride, Linda. It is a revision of an earlier post entitled
“A True Story: The Importance Of The Family”)
Resources: this is not a full bibliography from the
talk I describe above, but these are links to sources I mention in my post:
Pope Pius XI’s Casti
Connubii – amazingly relevant eighty-three years later:
The “notorious” Humanae
Vitae” – the encyclical that launched a thousand dissents - read it and see how
accurately Pope Paul predicted the baleful results of wide-spread
contraception:
Janet Smith’s One More
Soul – well worth the time you spend there:
Kimberly Hahn’s
Life-Giving Love – an excellent popular resource on the Catholic vision of
marriage:
There is no one resource
to go to for the Theology of the Body, but the USCCB site is a good place to
start – closely follows John Paul the Great’s series of talks on TOB from
1979-1984:
Text of Pastoral Letter
published in 1998 by Charles Chaput, then Archbishop of Denver (Currently
heading the See of Philadelphia) – absolutely the best explanation of Humanae
Vitae I’ve come across by anyone, cleric or layperson:
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