Why We Quit Contracepting (Two couples tell their ‘conversion’ stories)

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.”

Not having converted to Catholicism until after my fertility years (and marriage) were things of the past, all I know is what I've observed.

NFP couples learn to know each other on a deeper level than "roll over, I need you, now" type coupling. The man learns to appreciate his wife for who she is and not just for the bedroom. He knows that sometimes, she just needs some hugs with nothing more expected. He learns to anticipate her PMS and defuse at least some of it. She learns how his body really works and certain things or words or ways are reserved for private time. She learns not to sexually tease him.

There's a 'feeling' that I get around happily married Catholic couples with children. Maybe it is the "Spirit of Life" or perhaps the calm assurance in each other's love. They seem to "know" each other on deeper levels than I ever knew my husband.

Catholics see marriage as a Covenant relationship not a civil union. Marriage is HOLY matrimony. It's like a new pair of doeskin gloves. You put them on, stretch them, flex your knuckles, and they seem to become a second skin on your hands. They're still the precious doeskin gloves and always will be, but they're also comfortable and when you take them off, they retain the shape of your hands. You don't drop them in the mud. You don't leave them in the sun. You keep them in a protected place. You put neets foot oil on them to make them 'better' -- not a really good analogy, but I think you get the picture. I hope you do, anyway.

The difference is very simple.

NFP involves the use of abstinence. It forces the couple to control and curb their sexual appetite, the lust of which along with gluttony and hatred is at the root of the concupiscence of original sin. It is always good for a Christian couple to abstain from sexual intercourse every so often to devote themselves more to prayer. If we do not curb our sexual appetite, our mind will become overwhelmed with thoughts of lust to the exclusion of God.

Artifical contraception involves the use of various measures to thwart the proper working of the human body. Its purpose is to allow full throttle indulgment in the sexual appetite.

Can you see the difference? Its not the end, but the means.

There is nothing per se wrong with the end of being married and not wanting a child right now, provided one does want children, and there in fact may be very good reasons for it because of finances or medical conditions. But the proper way of attaining that end is abstinence.

Sitetests comparison of artificial birth control to bullimia is spot on. These are identical disorders.

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.

EXcuse Me!!!!

I feel as if I need to get a group together to instruct you in how to have consistent and multiple orgasms.
Do I?

This is a Family Forum, is it not?

All the orgasmic feeling is in the brain, not in the two gender parts that match so well due to the graphic design of the great Mathemetician we call God.

Jim, don't ban me please.

For those who are married, let me take you on a little journey (you can even keep your clothes on). Get comfortably dressed and sit beside your spouse but don't touch each other. Turn your heads so you can look at each other. Examine her/his face. Get to know that face, pixel by pixel. Study it for at least fifteen minutes. Then, close your eyes and envision that face in front of you. Fall in love with that face. Start breathing as you do when you see that face after he.she has been away for a weekend. Your eyes are closed, but you're beginning to smile. You'd really like to go 'couple' but you are not ready. Neither of you are.

Okay, when your chest is heaving a little, open your eyes and look at your spouse. Place your hand on his/her palm. One hand first. Feel the heat, the intensity. Let your palms caress each other. Look at the face of your spouse as your sensual feelings pass through your palms. Put your other palm together with hers/his. Move your bodies so that you're comfortable. Feel the love in the heat of your palms.

Take one hand and begin to travel up your spouse's arm, slowly caressing it. Gently massaging the other's arm. The MAN with his other hand, slips it behind his wife and into her panties from the back. At the the place where the gluteus maximus meets, below the waist, there is a VERY sensitive spot. The man finds this spot GENTLY and caresses it. Make circles, very very lightly. The WIFE takes her free hand and begins massaging her spouse's chest, slowly, in circles starting high and ending low.

Your breathing becomes sensual, your lips want to touch, your body is screaming at you, but not yet. No my dears, not yet.

Maneuver so that you're laying side by side on the sofa, bed whatever (make sure the top of the grand piano has been put down and be sure that you closed the blinds BEFORE you initiated this "educational course.")

You each have one palm that appears glued to the other's palm. You each have a hand that is making sensuous circles on your spouses body. Her lower back, his chest. Breathing becomes heavy. Kisses start, gently, gently. Let the desire build up until you think you'll explode -- you want each other soooo badly.

Now the rest of the lesson: orgasms for a woman start in the head. The brain is your friend. Let it bubble over with the synthesis of serotonin, dopamine, and norephinepherine for use by brain neurons within your head to bring you to orgasm -- many many orgasms. Wife, relax, let that feeling from your brain travel through your body to the point where you're thinking that if your husband doesn't rip your clothes off, you'll rip his off. When he touches you, allow yourself to shudder, let your breath come into your lungs in small gasps. Direct your husband's hand(s) to where you want him to touch to make you feel those brain synapses spewing all that good serotonin, dopamine, and norephinepherine inside your head.

And enjoy. Not only will you be "ready" for coupling, you'll enjoy it because you prepared your brain to accept the synthesis of the serotonin, dopamine, and norephinepherine.

Eventually you'll learn that you can come to orgasm while your husband plays with your nipples. And other special places on your body.

Guys, remember in the movie "When Harry met Sally" where they're in the restaurant and she tells him women fake orgasms all the time and he doubts it? Well, when you get to know your spouse, she won't have to fake it. She'll be able to look at you, her eyes go soft and her breathing starts in small gasps and all you have to do is touch her and all the juices start flowing because her brain likes to be "high" on serotonin, dopamine, and norephinepherine!

Couple "A" practices NFP from the beginning of their marriage to the end of their fertile lives never having conceived, never having bore a child but having followed the letter of the law of the Catholic Faith to a "T." Couple "B" practices interrupted coitus during every single love making act. During the course of their lives they have 4 mistakes and bring each of these pregnancies to full term and birth. They raise the children happily ever after and those children go on to give them grandchildren. Which couple has done God's work?

Neither.

Couple A is especially abominable because they obviously had an intention to avoid all conception of children, which effectively renders their marriage null and void, since they effectively make themselves eunuchs.

There is an obligation for married couples to have children. This is not a part of sexual morality, but social justice arising from obligations towards society - "Be frutiful and multiply". Catholic Moralists had much discussion of this question in the middle of the last century. In North America, they came to the conclusion that there is a requirement to at least have 4-5 children if possible given the age of the couple at marriage. In Europe, they came to the conclusion that a couple should not abstain from allowing conception for a period of longer than 4-5 years. Both sets of moralists held this out as proper conditions only for our time and lands, noting they might be different in other times and other places. For example, in the time of the Holy Fathers of the Church while Rome still ruled the world, it was quite common for a couple to only have 1-3 children and then to abstain from sexual intercourse for the rest of their marriage to allow greater devotion to prayer.

As I said in my opening post, I think the spiritual difference between NFPer's and those practicing artificial birth control are very, very minute. The bottom line for me, they both are INTENT on preventing a pregnancy/bringing life into the world at a particular time in their lives. The method by which they accomplish this is, at least to me, simply splitting hairs.

The morality of human acts is judged based first on whether the end is worthy, neutral, or unworthy, and then whether the means used to achieve the end are worthy, neutral, or unworthy. The intent of a married coupld to not have children is a neutral end. It may or may not be acceptable depending upon the circumstances. The means of accomplishing this end must be at least neutral, and preferrably worthy.

The Catholic Church has ruled that it is unworthy to accomplish the end of avoiding a pregnancy by use of artifical methods, since this involves the act of giving in to unbridled lust and the frustration of a natural act.

The Catholic Church has also ruled that it is worthy to accomplish the end of avoiding a pregnancy by abstaining, since this tends to bring the sexual appertite under the control of right reason.

I don't understand why you cannot see this difference.

If you are in doubt whether avoidance of pregnancy is valid, you can ask a priest. I am not one, and, like with any moral consideration, an insight into your internal disposition is required.

A general principle, I guess, is that if avoiding pregnancy is done for fear of true economic hardship, or health reasons, then it is valid. If some practical consideration is used as an excuse, and the real reason is selfishness, then it is not valid. It is God, not a police department that your need to find peace with.

My horse sense is that spacing the children to geve the mother a break form serial pregnancies is valid, and waiting till you get a raise so that each child has a separate bedroom is not valid.

The issue confounds you because it is countercultural, as is, in fact, all of Catholicism. For some reason you are not inclined to split hairs over Do Not Kill commandment in the same way you look for excuses with Be Fruitful and Multiply commandment. But they are both equally simple. If you want a hard issue, try Do Not Be Prideful. Imagine the hairs split over that. Yet, Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. We are simply conditioned to let some moral issues slide.

That is untrue! NFP allows couples to engage on a very calculating method....the pleasure of love-making WITHOUT the probability of conception. Yes, I know there is a time where there is a cease and desist. But there is also a time where the pleasure of love-making is engaged WITHOUT the chance of conception.

What you're saying is objectively untrue. NFP'ers have no more ability than any other non-contracepting couple to engage in "the pleasure of love-making WITHOUT the probability of conception" -- a woman using NFP has exactly the same number of infertile days in a month as a woman not using NFP.

The only difference is that the couple on NFP chooses to (a) discover when their fertile time is; and (b) abstain during that fertile time. They aren't "having sex without making a baby" anymore than anyone else is; they are simply not having sex when conception is more likely.

They are essentially bragging about the ability to NOT BRING LIFE INTO THE WORLD!

Are people who are single, chaste, and happy also "bragging about the ability to NOT BRING LIFE INTO THE WORLD"? Like NFP'ers, they also aren't having sexual relations during their fertile days. (In their case, they aren't having sexual relations during their infertile days, either.)

A basic principle of Catholic moral theology is that both the end and the means to bring about that end must be in accord with the moral law. "Not having babies" in some circumstances is a morally licit end. NFP is a morally licit means to that end; ABC is not.

In any case, if you're really a "diehard Catholic," you understand that the Church is the oracle of God, and you ought to trust what the Magisterium has said on the topic.

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?

Every reason you give above is valid.

Catholic Moral Theologians have stated that the obligation to procreate children is a matter of social justice, and is limited by right reason to what society actually needs from you in the way of children. During the middle of the last century (~1930-1975) when there was some intense discussion on this topic, this was held to be at least 4 children. This provides for the replacement of the parents, making-up the deficit of those who never marry, marry late in life, or are infertile, and providing for a modest increase and an ability of society to absorb the vocations of celibate priests, monks, and nuns without causing a population decline. I don't see any reason this judgement needs to be changed, nor have any Moral Theologians suggested such.

The method of achieving this aim is then a matter of sexual morality, which dictates that artifical contraceptives and sterilization may not be used, but abstinence (whether periodic, longer term, or permanent) may be used.

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.

I sympathize with you brother. Catholic morality, no thanks to the casuists, is often presented as a Talmudic like quest for legalistic perfection in the face of problems. On the contrary, it is really the living of the basic norms of the Lord Jesus, and it neither involves nor needs a legalistic inquest.

That being said, the questions you first ask are poorly phrased. It is not a matter of whether or not your reasons are "valid", but whether they are "just". Something is "just" if it is aimed towards an end which is not immoral, and does not vitiate formal obligations of Christian life.

As I stated above, one obligation of Christian life for a married couple in the United States is to attempt to have at least 4 children, based on the divine command at our creation "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it". Provided that you intend to accomplish this if temporally possible given your wife's age at marriage, and provided that her health is okay, and that you have sufficient time left in the fertile years of your wife to actually accomplish it, nearly any reason that might occur to a normal couple, such as those you give above, could be a just cause for using NFP for some time. The only reasons that would be unworthy would be a desire to avoid having at least 4 children out of misplaced financial reasoning as if everyone cannot afford to raise at least 4 children, or an active dislike for children, or various false beliefs that there are too many people or children in the world, etc., in other words a debased view of marriage and family life, an overly frugal view of financial reality, or a deranged view of the actual population situation in the world.

It follows from all of this that purposefully having more than 4 children is an act of supererogation - that is, a meritorious act above and beyond what everyone is obliged to fulfill which gives an increase of merit with regard to eternal salvation. Hence the glowing descriptions and praise of the Popes regarding large families. It is a wonderful thing to have a large family, but it is not an obligation, just like it is a wonderful thing to go to daily Mass, but not an obligation.

Unfortunately, the way too many Catholics present this issue is that NFP is illegitimate unless you are on the verge of starvation or foreclosure on your home or your wife would die in childbirth during the next delivery or you are actually homeless. That simply is not the case at all.

The real practical application is one of freedom in the Lord. Provided you are acting uprightly towards your marriage obligations towards society to have children and each other to maintain marital affection and prevent alienation or solitary sins, you and your spouse may choose to have intercourse as often or infrequently as you wish, and no one should judge you or the results, providing you never frustrate the natural act. This last proviso referring not only to the use of artifical birth control and sterilization and onanism, but also the disgusting practices of heterosexual consummated male passive oral or female passive rectal sodomy.

I hope this helps.

Pope Pius XII authoritatively taught that "engaging in sexual intercourse while avoiding the will to fecundity without a sufficiently grave reason is a sin against the very nature of married life." Do you object to the Church's teaching on this issue because it took place before "V2"?

Max, I've continually invited you to allow Pius XII and others to be read based on the interpretation given by the approved Theologians of the Church, in harmony with the pronouncements of his predecessors and sucessors in the Pontificate, rather than attempting to make an interpretation by ourselves.

Your continued promotion of the view that all Catholics are obliged on pain of mortal sin to have as large a family as naturally occurs without ever attempting to limit it in numbers short of extremely severe medical or economic indicators is simply wrong and in total contradiction to the unanimous opinion of Catholic Moralists and the express views of the Holy See in the decisions of the Sacred Penitentiary which began the whole discussion of periodic abstinence in modern times.

You are laying up non-existant burdens upon people. The Sacred Penitentiary in its response of June 16, 1880 said "Married couples who use their marriage rights in the aforesaid manner are not to be disturbed". But you continue to disturb them by accusing them of non-existant sins and making them equivalent to users of artifical contraceptives. Why? Do you really think you have a better grasp on Catholic moral law than the Sacred Penitentiary, and the approved theologians?

You are laying up non-existant burdens upon people.

Reliance upon God's divine providence is not a burden -- quite the opposite -- it is a joy. Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII were clear and consistent in their teaching. I have already provided links to their 3 most relevant documents -- documents that were cited numerous times in Vatican II's "Gaudium et Spes," to cite just one significant magisterial example.

The links are there -- I encourage everyone to read them for themselves and then to decide for themselves. See what Pope Pius XI really said in Casti Connubii and what Pope Pius XII really said in his Allocution to Italian Midwives and his Address to Large Families.

http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=5370&longdesc

http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P11CASTI.HTM

http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P511029.HTM

I believe that everyone who takes the time to read these authoritative statements for themselves will discover a Catholic theology of marriage that is reasonable, consistent, liberating, joyful, and faithful to 2000 years of Christian teaching. Unfortunately, it's hard to see how any of those terms can be applied to the currently-popular cheese-paring approach to marriage.

For those, and perhaps this may include you Hermann, who say, "It would fulfill the deepest wishes of my heart if only I could accept children joyfully and gratefully from God in whatever number He chooses to send them, but alas it is impossible in this day and age," I urge you to attend a Traditional Catholic chapel where you are likely to meet many inspiring examples of families who are proving that it is not impossible. Our own chapel has literally dozens of families who have not limited their fruitfulness in any way, and who have been privileged to receive many blessings from God.

Rather than search for exceptions and excuses, they have wholeheartedly accepted the admonition of the Church:

Infuse into the spirit and heart of the mother and father the esteem, desire, joy, and the loving welcome of the newly born right from its first cry. The child, formed in the mother's womb, is a gift of God, Who entrusts its care to the parents.
With what delicacy and charm does the Sacred Scripture show the gracious crown of children united around the father's table! Children are the recompense of the just, as sterility is very often the punishment for the sinner.
Hearken to the divine word expressed with the insuperable poetry of the Psalm: "Your wife, as a fruitful vine within your house, your children as olive shoots round about your table. Behold, thus is that man blessed, who fears the Lord!", while of the wicked it is written: "May his posterity be given over to destruction; may their name be blotted out in the next generation".

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