Posted on 08/16/2005 1:48:10 PM PDT by NYer
Having married in 1985 when both were medical students, Ann and Michael Moell had their life together planned out.
Once they established medical practices and had a big house with a sprawling back yard, they would begin to have children. Until then, Ann would take the birth-control pill.
Although both had grown up in large Catholic families in Ohio, neither was well versed or much interested in the Church’s teaching on birth regulation.
“While we were in medical school and residency, we didn’t think we had time for a child,” Ann says. “We had the American dream in mind, not just for ourselves but for the children we would have.”
Their plans began to unravel four years into the marriage, when Ann stopped taking the pill because of persistent headaches.
“Here we were, both studying medicine, and neither of us knew anything about the pill and its side effects,” she recalls. “It just isn’t a topic in medical school because the pill is assumed to be a good thing.”
They used periodic abstinence, condoms and other barrier methods but, within a year Ann became pregnant. They welcomed the child into their lives, yet continued to contracept.
After their third child arrived, Ann says, “That was it. We were still young, with three children and growing medical practices. We thought we had to do something foolproof that would keep us from having more children.”
They discussed the possibility of a vasectomy for Michael.
“We thought it would be the best thing for our family,” Michael explains.
Something happened, though, in the Moells’ pursuit of the American dream. Ann began to pray. The couple had begun attending Mass again with the birth and baptism of their first child, but they were “just doing the Catholic thing,” Michael says. “We didn’t know anything about contraception being sinful or that Jesus is present in the Eucharist. We were missing so much.”
“To actually ask God to give us an answer was something new,” Ann admits. “I was praying at Mass, ‘God, show us what to do about this issue.’ A month later, I was pregnant. It was God’s answer. It was so immediate, so direct, and I was elated. It changed our whole attitude about who was in charge of our lives and our marriage.”
They began using natural family planning, and have welcomed two more children into their lives.
But God was not finished with them yet. Ann was a family-practice physician who prescribed the pill. Michael was a pediatrician who was prescribing the pill for young girls. Someone gave them the videotape “Contraception: Why Not?” by Janet Smith. “It changed the whole direction of our practices,” Ann says. “We started looking into the side effects of the pill and I knew I had to stop prescribing.”
Now Dr. Ann Moell is a stay-at-home mother who volunteers as a prenatal-care physician at a pro-life pregnancy center in Dayton, Ohio. Michael left a pediatric partnership to open Holy Family Pediatrics, in the same building as the pregnancy center. About half his patients are pregnant teens referred by his wife. They recommend abstinence before marriage and NFP in marriage to their young patients. Many Catholic parents travel long distances to bring their children for routine care to Holy Family Pediatrics.
“This has been a huge spiritual journey as well as a growth and learning experience in proper health care,” says Ann.
“It was a huge financial leap and leap of faith, to give up the partnership and open my own medical practice,” Michael adds. “Four months after I opened the door, our fourth child was born. I was questioning God the whole way. But it’s worked out better than I could have dreamed.”
Conversion is a word Penny and John Harrison use often to describe their experience with birth control. They were married in 1983 in Penny’s Protestant church; a Catholic priest witnessed the ceremony for John, who was raised in a Catholic family.
They used various forms of contraception for the first 10 years of marriage and had two children “pre-conversion,” as John describes it.
A Catholic Marriage Encounter weekend opened Penny’s heart to the Church, and, when she decided to become a Catholic, all the assumptions of their lives were uprooted. While she was going through a parish RCIA program in their hometown of Kansas City, Mo., John began looking at his own faith and asking questions. He had no problems with the sacraments or the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, but his vague knowledge of the Church’s teaching on contraception nagged at him.
When he and Penny asked a priest about the issue, “we got some confusing and unspecific answers,” John recalls. “We ultimately were told to ‘follow our conscience.’ Unfortunately, that’s the answer too many Catholic couples get today, and they’re not being told the full beauty of the truth.”
Penny entered the Church at the Easter Vigil in 1993 and shortly thereafter she and her husband went on a 10th-anniversary vacation without their two children.
“We were both very uncomfortable using contraception on that trip,” John said. “We came back and just stopped using contraception of any kind, and prayed and hoped for another child.”
Key to their decision was hearing a talk by Catholic evangelist Scott Hahn, a former Protestant minister, and reading Rome Sweet Home, in which Hahn and his wife, Kimberly, defend the Church’s teaching on contraception.
“We date our deeper conversion to the heart of the Church primarily from the fervor we took from listening to Scott Hahn’s talks,” John says.
Since their conversion, the Harrisons have had three more children, including twins in 1999.
“I come from a Protestant background where it is considered irresponsible not to practice contraception, so I’ve come a long way,” Penny says. “The problem was that when I was preparing to enter the Church, we knew what Catholics were supposed to believe but we couldn’t find any Catholics who actually lived the teaching on contraception.”
As teachers with the Couple to Couple League, which promotes NFP, John and Penny are seeing “more and more couples open to the gift of life,” she says. “I tell them that, in the Nicene Creed, we call the Holy Spirit ‘Lord and Giver of Life.’ If we take that title seriously, we cannot shut the Holy Spirit out of our marriages.”
John says he tells couples who are not particularly religious that contraception is “disrespectful to your wife’s body. You expect a woman to take these hormones that make her body think she’s pregnant just so she can be available to you sexually all the time. And it goes the other way too. Your wife expects you to put on a special device. That’s not very respectful of the man, either.”
“Love means giving your whole self to your spouse,” adds Penny. “And that’s the great gift of NFP.”
Dear bornacatholic,
Thanks!
However, it may be more of the reverse - I'm very blessed to have them as children.
God knows I'm weak, so He sent me very easy children.
As well as a saint for a wife.
Between them all, there is hope for me yet!!!
sitetest
![](http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:42Ps9RYn_HIJ:www.choiceshirts.com/images/A9/73/A9732A-lg.jpg")
Lust is somewhat a term of art in Catholicism. You may want to take it up with the poster, -- I did not post it. Certainly, a healthy sexual appetite directed at the spouse is salutary. Some may refer to that as "lust". However, technically, "lust" is a disposition where the unitive and the procreative aspect of the intercourse are ignored and only the physical pleasure starts to matter. This is indeed considered sinful. But it is not sunful because the pleasure per se is sinful, but because it is not ordered toward love of God and love of the spouse, even though the spouse is the physical partner.
women are more "receptive" during their fertile times, exactly when one abstains in NFP
NFP is not a method of contraception. In NFP one abstains either during infertile time in order to store up sexual energy for the fertile time, or one abstains during fertile time in order to avoid a pregnancy. However, a valid moral excuse is necessary in order to avoid pregnancy. One who wishes to avoid pregnancy for frivolous reasons is not practicing NFP correctly. Please read the thread form the beginning if you feel like understanding what these valid excuses are. The fact that the female body is naturally oriented toward achieving pregnancy points to the fact that in natural law, any attempt to avoid pregnancy needs a valid morally excuse.
bttt
What if you have enough children in your family? For that reason a woman should abstain, for the rest of her fertile life, from sex during the time she is most excitable? And of course it is God's plan that women are the most interested during their fertile time.
I do realize that NFP should not be used to avoid pregnancy except for grave reasons.
I see from your posts that you feel we should have as many children as we can afford, but not to the point of bankrupcy. Or I should say that is God's wish for us.
I guess my question to you, and other very devout Catholics, is what constitutes a grave reason not to have more? I know four to a bedroom isn't a reason. Is the inability to pay for a Catholic school a valid reason? Are stressful pregnancies with much medical intervention a valid reason? What if you are not a very good mother/father and cannot handle more? Or is it up to the individual conscience?
It seems from reading this thread there are so many interpretations of "be fruitful and multiply."
I agree with Maximilian.
Will wonders never cease. Hopefully no one will bookmark this thread to use as evidence against you in the future.
the minimum stupidity content on any thread is mandated at 15%, and threads will be removed that don't abide by this quota
Finally we are given the reason for this phenomenon -- it's actually an FR rule! No other reason could explain its consistency.
40 posted on 08/29/2003 12:32:35 PM EDT by Maximilian
sitetest
There is a simple reason for this. The typical Catholic in pre-Cana is probably already in a premarital sexual relationship involving the pill. The pastors of the Church feel that if we could at least get the faithful to return to the situation of the 1920's through 1960's, where Catholics who wanted to limit their family size used the rhythm method, this would be a great step forward in eradicating sin. This may be a poor prudential judgement on their part, but it is the path they feel they need to follow.
You cannot use NFP to avoid pregnancy for any reason other than a "grave" one. Illness, financial strain, etc. Using NFP just because you don't want more that 3 or 4 kids is just as sinful as using a condom.
This is totally mistaken, but we've discussed this before, and I can't expect you to produce any more proof of this assertion now than you were able to back then, namely none.
You are always informative, Hermann. I learn a great deal from your posts.
Well, you've certainly demonstrated you're not perceptive, decent or smart.
Can't win 'em all but you've completely struck out.
Poor you.
Perhaps I have mistken some of the thrust of your comments on this thread and been overly harsh towards your point of view. If so, I apoogize. If what you have been attacking is more the position of the Greg Popczak's of the world in their deformation of NFP and Rhythm and the actual weirdness of their presentation, I am 100% with you.
I noted my own position on providentialism before, but perhaps you missed it.
Because there is not an obligation to have as many children as naturally are conceived by purposefully not planning out a family, and because children are a great good for a family as well as being our greatest work of patience and love as a family, to have more children than one is obliged to is a great work of supererogation that brings enormous merit in heaven.
Someone who limits themselves to only doing what is necessary is cheating themselves out of the great blessings God is offering to them.
Again, I would liken it to attending daily Mass. To attend Mass daily and receive communion daily is a wonderful act of supererogation. All the faithful are warmly encouraged to do this, and there is a marvelous spiritual bounty for those who do. But ... BUT! ... there is no obligation to do anymore than attend Mass on Sundays and Holydays and receive communion just once at Easter. So no one should be made to feel guilty if they do nothing more than that. That minimum is sufficient for salvation, just as having a minimal number of children is sufficient to fulfill the obligations of the married state and be saved as a married couple.
The question really becomes to what extent do you as a Christian want to do more than the bare minimum to increase your glory in heaven, and your happiness while here on earth?
If we are Providentialists, we do like what Christ asked of the rich young man - "if you want to be perfect, sell what you have and give to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come follow me." (St. Matthew 19.21). But while Christ asked this of the rich young man, he did not condemn Zaccheus, when Zaccheus informed him that he only gave "one half of his possessions to the poor" (St. Luke 19.8), rather He praised him fully for this lesser effort.
Thanks Max.For all-be open to life.
This is so sad!
I keep repeating the reality of the situation in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Catholic elementary school in the diocese will run around $1800 per year for 1 child and $2400 per year for 2 or more children. The extensive Catholic High School system (I think we have 21 diocesean High Schools) cost $3800 per year for 1 child and $7600 per year for 2 or more children. So at current rates, the most any family will ever pay at one time for schooling as $10,000 per year, and for the first 13 years of anyones marriage, they will never pay more than $2400 per year, so it is extremely reasonable for young families.
Given the rates of Property Taxes in the suburbs versus those in the city, 50-75% of that cost will be covered for city residents by the different in property taxes. Most of the rest of the cost is covered by the differential on property values. The same thing holds for a number of the suburbs with poor public school districts and hence low poprety values, and also large Catholic populations (Upper Darby, Ridley Park, Norristown, Coatesville, Bristol come to mind).
Is Philadelphia the last Catholic diocese in the US to take the education of young Catholics seriously by providing it in a manner almost anyone can afford? The Philadelphia area is 40% Catholic, and at least 25% of all children are in the Catholic school system.
I attempted to answer that in #72. Hermann gave a very detailed answer in #75. The differences I have with Hermann are probably differences in emphasis or wording, at most -- differences in corner cases not likely to present themselves to real people often. The universal answer is, when in doubt, talk to a priest, and if you feel the priest is one of those liberal pat-on-the-back servers at the Amchurch Cafeteria, find another priest. In that sense it is not up to individual conscience but rather to an honestly examined conscience. For example, if a parent does not work on his parenting skills, and then says, -- I am not a very good father, let's not have more children -- is not using a just reason, but I suppose circumstances exist when inability to properly parent children is a just reason.
Another distinction is between an obligation and virtue. I made some posts even here, where I did not carefully distinguish between the two. To love your spouse and to love God is an obligation. This is why artificial birth control, or generally sex excluding a possibility of procreation is a moral impossibility. To give of yourself in order to put forth more fruit, -- for example, have another child, when the effort is legitimate (no welfare, no artificial insemination) but extraordinary, is virtuous while not obligatory.
Self-examination is also needed to distinguish between ordered and disordered sexual drive. A strong sexual urge during fertile time might be a call from God to have another child. But sometimes we have sexual urges that are disordered, this includes sexual urges that are badly timed; it is then an obligatory thing to suppress them. Suppression of the sexual urge in order to fulfill a commandment of God, such as vows of celibacy or monogamy, or abstinence due to fasting are in that category, but abstinence due to inability to support another child is there as well.
Generally speaking, of course, the sexual urge is a signal from God that He wants us to procreate.
Rudness is uncalled for. I appreciate your respect as I offer the same to you.
Perhaps, but that is a defect of teaching rather than of the subject matter.
I appreciate your reasoned and thoughtful response. And that you take the time to express it fully.
As to sexual urges--can they not also be there to further the connection between spouses, not just as a signal to procreate? And I guess oral sex is out of the question, too? (Don't mean to be graphic, sorry, but I think it's a part of this whole discussion.)
I think the emphasis on PREVENTION of pregnancy for NFP is the hang-up here. For those of us of younger years, that is how we view NFP--another bc method, albeit one that is sanctioned by the Church. I think that is why many of us fail to grasp the difference b/t NFP and condoms or such.
Not agreeing, just stating fact.
Dear Hermann the Cherusker,
It is, indeed, sad. Very sad.
To me, a good, solid Catholic education is one of the cheapest, easiest ways of helping young Catholics become old Catholics.
It used to be that the parishes very heavily subsidized the Catholic schools. Wwhen I was a child, about 80% of the cost of my elementary school education was borne by the parish, now, the maximum is 25%. I'd happily give more to make sure that every Catholic parent could afford a Catholic education for his Catholic children.
But, the prior Ordinary of Washington disagreed with me, as does, apparently, the Ordinary of Baltimore. And they weren't much concerned with my opinion.
However, you folks up in Philadelphia have a tremendous advantage in that the state (or local govt?) picks up some of the costs associated with Catholic education. Here in Maryland, we passed a law a few years ago to provide about $60 per child subsidy for non-religious textbooks for private schoolchildren. You'da thought we were asking that the Pope be appointed President of the United States, the opponents screamed so loud.
However, even at the very high prices, there are still a fair number of kids in Catholic schools. About one out of five Catholic children attends Catholic school (large numbers of Protestants also go to our schools).
But for large families, it's tough. I sit on the board of a small scholarship fund that gives small grants to Catholic families for Catholic education. I see applicants paying close to $30,000, or even more, annually for Catholic school tuition. Ouch, that's tough. I always aim my vote for the families with the most kids. I'm prejudiced that way. ;-)
The bright side is we have a fair number of dedicated, really wonderful homeschoolers who are very serious about the practice of their Catholic faith. These are the children around which my own sons are growing up. It could be a whole lot worse.
sitetest
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