Excuse me, but I think these beads are all sqwewed up.
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.”
"There is *always* a possibility of conception."
Yes, we are on the same page! As a matter of fact, pregnancy is much more likely in artificial birth control then it is with NFP. As I've said, those that teach NFP assert the effectiveness of preventing pregnancy using said method.
The difference is that in order to heal an illness, to use an artificial device is ethical. If your intent is to defeat the healthy operation of your body, you cannot use anything that is not inherent to that very operation.
Is it too abstract? Your body is made to procreate, and the female body is made to be periodically infertile, and is has a brain to count days, take temperature, etc. It is OK to follow the way God designed the body toward an otherwise moral goal.
"The difference is roughly, between coming to church to pray and coming to church, turning your back to the altar, plugging in earphones and listening to Smashing Pumpkins. The intent in both cases is to be in church..."
Thanks for your imput. But that is simply Hyperbole! Please read my posts more thoroughly.
I need to leave. Will check back later.
Fruitfully yours.
Well, prolife conservative, this is a good honest question. For me, it was like one of those optical illusion pictures where all you see is squiggly lines and then after you stare at it for about 5 minutes, you see the letters
"J-E-S-U-S" or whatever, and then you're thumping our brow and saying, "Why didn't I see it? It's always been there!" And from that point on, you can't NOT see it, it's so obvious.
I'm sending this link so you can take a look at an article I posted on this:
And I refer you also to Post #6 which has more links.
I gotta get off now because I got some stuff in the oven... but I'll get back on the thread later and try to post some things that might be helpful.
I think that's a very unfortunate direction to be taking, and the director of the Couple-to-Couple League has recently addressed this question. The teaching of NFP has been driven by the fact that the majority of Catholic married couples do use artificial birth control, do drastically limit the number of their children. The majority of engaged couples plan to do the same. The thinking is that if NFP instruction takes the position of "same result, morally-approved (and healthier) means," eventually couples will come to see the blessing of an abundant family.
This has been my personal experience. My husband and I started using NFP for practical reasons (insurance didn't cover birth control pills), and over time came to see (numerous) children as the ultimate reward of our marriage.
As the article mentioned, and earlier comments emphasized, a big problem is that many, many couples come to marriage with absolutely no Catholic or Biblical foundation. Their beliefs, practices, and expectations are strictly a function of the culture. This formation should start at Baptism, but it isn't ... starting with NFP as "birth control" is at least starting *somewhere*!
Good points. Though my interpretation of a 'strong reason' is probably different, since I would include the couple's intent. Parenting is our biggest responsibility, and IMHO not to be entered into lightly or unprepared, if possible, though obviously sometimes unexpected blessings do occur. Of course once the child is on the way previous intent gets thrown out the window, because then the only option is to provide the best care possible. But for those not yet pregnant, who would prefer to wait so as to reach a point where they can afford a child(s), I would consider waiting to likely be in the future child's best interest. Love can overcome a lot, but given a choice why bring a child into a very difficult situation, if they can wait a few years and avoid that?
Ultimately it comes down to how we each intepret scripture.
BTW, you have some really cute kids. Congratulations!
"The use of NFP to avoid pregancy is invalid if the intent is invalid, namely if the intent is, for example, to have two uninterrupted careers."
What if the intent is to space the children? Is that valid? What if there are only two bedrooms in the house and the couple is going on the fourth child? Is that valid? What if the husband is expecting a decrease in pay? Is that valid? What if the wife is having trouble raising so many children, she finds the task daunting? Is that valid? What if the couple is in the middle of a move to another city soon? Is that valid? I'm not trying to be cute, I'm really not. I just have a problem, to a very large degree, with Letter of the law Catholics, and the NFP issue brings it to the fore more than any other Catholic issue I can think of. It is the splitting of hairs and that's where our discussion has gone here. No one, as much as they have tried, has put my questions to bed in a very practical and reasonable content which would squash all my doubts. I have studied this NFP issue intensively and it's the practical application that just gives me fits. I know I'm supposed to buy into NFP as a good Catholic and to fortify my faith with it's practice. But on an intellectual basis I am not getting it. I understand "Do NOT KILL." , "Do Not steal" and the other 99.99% of our simple and strighforward Roman Catholic Faith." I understand it's moral applications, the intent, the consequences, etc. It all makes sense. However, this one issue still confounds me to no end. Maybe one day the proverbial light bulb will illuminate in my soul.
No!
Now do your homework. There's plenty of information posted to this thread by other freepers.
Thank you ... they are cute! I didn't realize until the 3rd or 4th one how absolutely insane I was about babies ... and I like them even when they're older. The intellectual companionship of my 14-year-old more than outweighs the teenage hormonal whoop-de-do! She is simply an exciting person - like my own youth, only much better.
The Church says that "strong reasons" are up to the discernment of the couple. It's not for me to judge another couple's motivation, or them to judge me. My husband and I did not think that his being unemployed, with six children, was sufficient reason to avoid another. We had a miscarriage, and then I was expecting again, before he found a new position. We simply trusted in God's provision, and found that it carried us. However, I would never say that another couple in the same situation was morally obligated to do the same! We might look at things differently, ourselves, if a similar situation arose in the future.
Only the people "on the ground" can evaluate their reasons for abstinence to avoid pregnancy ... but from a Biblical standpoint, they should evaluate with the heart of Christ, who said, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my Name, welcomes Me."
Something I have always wondered is whether men and women who practice NFP after having used artificial contraception experience a qualitatively different orgasm.
Someone suggested that to me once, but it is not dinner table talk.
Maybe we can get some info in this relatively anonymous forum.
Excuse me, but I think these beads are all sqwewed up.
later pingout.
Everyone is discussing very well, just adding a little 02.
With NFP, there is always the possibility that the wife's cycle may be a little different this month... an egg may get ripe a little later or earlier, sometimes symptoms are a tad ambiguous, some sperm may be extra vigorous, etc. There is always the POSSIBLITY of life.
I am surprised that you are still confused.
I'm confused. Are you starting from scratch, here?
Have you read "Familiaris Consortio" and "Humanae Vitae," and the "Catechism of the Catholic Church"? How about Pope John Paul II's "Love and Responsibility" and "Theology of the Body." Scott and Kimberly Hahn's "Life Giving Love." Janet Smith's (tape), "Contraception ... Why Not?" John and Sheila Kippley's "Art of Natural Family Planning," which is not just a "how-to," but a "What's it all about?". Charles Provan's "The Bible and Birth Control." Sam and Bethany Torode's "An Open Embrace." Rick and Jan Hess's "A Full Quiver."
This is just a start of Catholic and Protestant resources on the subject ... just the ones I can remember the author and title of at the end of a long, 100+ day. If you've done the basic intellectual groundwork, what do you expect this thread to add? If not, well ... what?
Your intuition on this point is very accurate. While it's true that NFP and artificial contraception use different methods, it's really splitting hairs to distinguish between them in most cases, as you point out.
In contrast to the false distinction between "natural" versus "artificial" methods of birth control, the true distinction is between the Catholic approach to new life and the non-Catholic approach. The Catholic approach means "willingly to accept from God children in whatever number He chooses to send them." This requires real faith and true submission to God's divine providence. It means putting God in charge of my life, rather than myself. It means placing spiritual values above material values. It requires a complete revolution in my way of thinking, believing and living.
NFP, in contrast, only requires me to trade my pills for a basal thermometer and some graph paper.
You are quite correct on this point as well. Promoters of NFP never fail to trumpet the "effectiveness" of the method. The "possibility of conception" is said to be extremely remote, at least according to the literature of the Couple-to-Couple League and others of that sort. So that argument in favor of NFP is clearly specious.
Each married couple faces a fundamental choice to opt either for fruitfulness as God commanded them in the Garden of Eden, or to opt for "planned parenthood," whether it is accomplished via one means or another. Calling it "responsible parenthood" instead of "planned parenthood," and calling it "natural" family planning instead of "artificial" birth control does not alter the reality. I must choose whether I will accept children from God with joy, or whether I believe that I can do better than Him by "planning" it myself.
Your sincerity is more than clear. These are excellent questions. The reality is that once I have taken these decisions into my own hands, rather than leaving them in God's hands, then the questions never stop, and there really aren't any good answers to them. This is literally true, since the Catholic Church has never provided concrete answers to your questions, and has deliberately steered clear of answering the obvious question "What precisely qualifies as 'grave reasons'?"
The only really good answer to your questions is to place my entire confidence in God's divine providence, and for me to realize that I made my choice on the day that I said "I do" -- on that day I made the choice for fruitfulness and generosity and submission, and I no longer have to reconsider my decision on a month-by-month basis.
I just have a problem, to a very large degree, with Letter of the law Catholics, and the NFP issue brings it to the fore more than any other Catholic issue I can think of. It is the splitting of hairs and that's where our discussion has gone here.
Your insight is valid regarding the tendency towards being a "letter of the law Catholic." I know I've often felt that temptation. The solution is not to split hairs ever more finely, but to accept as many children as God wants to send you. If you come to Mass at a traditional Catholic chapel, you will meet many families who are doing just that. They have given up splitting hairs and following the letter of the law, and have given their lives over to God.
However, this one issue still confounds me to no end. Maybe one day the proverbial light bulb will illuminate in my soul.
Perhaps the light bulb will go on when you read Pope Pius XII's beautiful "Address to Large Families." Given in 1958, the final year of his pontificate, it contains not even a whiff of legalistic hair-splitting. Instead it describes in beatifully poetic language the joys of obeying God's law by "being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth."
http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=5370&longdesc
I am unable to speak to the issue what orgasms are like when using artificial contraception, so I can't make a true comparison, but it is a fact that NFP requires the couple to have sex only during the times when the wife is not really in the mood. On the days when she is very fertile and receptive, those are the days when they must abstain. But on the days when she is dry and non-receptive, those are the days when they are encouraged to have sex. That definitely affects the quality of the sexual intercourse and the woman's response, especially her ability to reach a climax.
Clearly Prolifeconservative's questions are the fruit of research and thought. It's uncharitable to dismiss his/her concerns cavalierly.
Have you read "Familiaris Consortio" and "Humanae Vitae," and the "Catechism of the Catholic Church"? How about Pope John Paul II's "Love and Responsibility" and "Theology of the Body." Scott and Kimberly Hahn's "Life Giving Love." Janet Smith's (tape), "Contraception ... Why Not?" John and Sheila Kippley's "Art of Natural Family Planning," which is not just a "how-to," but a "What's it all about?". Charles Provan's "The Bible and Birth Control." Sam and Bethany Torode's "An Open Embrace." Rick and Jan Hess's "A Full Quiver."
The vast majority of people who have read the above works end up more confused afterwards than when they started. Your above-listed titles do not resolve the inherent dilemmas pointed out by Prolifeconservative. Your own posts have discussed the fact that NFP is really little more than a Catholic alternative for those who are already using artificial birth control. It cannot resolve the fundamental moral issues at stake.
For that, one would be much better off reading the following authoritative works of the magisterium which present a truly Catholic perspective on the issue:
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