[HappyinAZ]

Nope...more concern for the millions of abject poor that are deprived of birth-contol methods and watch their children hunt for garbage to eat...take a nice visit to the poor of Mexico City..the Church can stop some of it and won’t. I’m passionate...you (and many others) just take the easy road and blindly follow without thought.

[Campion]

Nope...more concern for the millions of abject poor that are deprived of birth-contol methods

Test question: what method of family planning costs nothing, is >99% effective, and has been successfully taught to poor women in India?

[maryz]

take a nice visit to the poor of Mexico City

Then may we assume you're pro-abortion, too? Just as effective in "preventing" poor people! Such compassion! /s

[bdeaner]

Humanae Vitae - A Witness to Christ's Faithfulness

by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted

As the 39th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae approaches, a new study by the Pew Research Center informs us that a significant sampling of Americans considers children to be eighth in importance on a list of nine “Components of Marital Success.”

According to the study, “Sharing household chores” (3rd), “Good housing” (5th) and “Shared tastes and interests” (7th) all rank higher in importance to a marriage than having children. This is a fairly radical shift. As recently as 1990, a similar study had shown that children were much higher up on the priority list for couples in America.

The missing link between marriage and children

What is happening here? It should be natural to link a successful marriage and children. The Catechism of the Catholic Church simply points out what was once obvious when it teaches (#2366), “Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment.” Sadly, the average person, less and less, assumes this natural link between marriage and children.

Humanae Vitae did not explicitly predict that the logical link between marriage and children would unravel in the late 20th century. But Paul VI gave grounds for understanding this unraveling with his four remarkable predictions. In section 17, he claimed that widespread acceptance of contraception would:

1. Cause an increase in marital infidelity;

2. Result in a general lowering of morality, especially affecting the young;

3. Reduce men’s respect for women, who would be treated more commonly as objects; and

4. Risk giving power to government officials who would impose contraceptive methods on entire groups of their citizens.

Can these predictions now be disputed? Have we not seen precisely these foreshadowed disasters come to pass? Have not our young people inherited a culture immersed in the contraceptive mentality and the unnatural disconnect between sexual behavior and children? Have not China, the United Nations, and even our own government in the 1990s used contraception to manipulate nations and peoples? The argument for Humanae Vitae’s prophetic accuracy has become self-evident.

More...

[Desdemona]

I’m passionate...you (and many others) just take the easy road and blindly follow without thought.

I've thought about it. I've thought about the millions of women out there who were "test subjects" for hormonal control methods. They were (and still are) the poor and ignorant in what we call 3rd World countries who are used like lab rats, in many cases dying, to find the optimum level of artificial hormones to prevent a newly formed life, sent by God, from taking root.

I've thought a lot about how these women were made into things by doctors and pharmaceutical companies to sell - for enormous profit - pill systems that effectively turn "modern" women into objects for men's sexual gratification. Women might gain some pleasure, but the organs are not being used for their primary purpose - the transmission of life.

Yes, there are many families out there who sacrifice tremendously by bringing many children into the world. What the Church teaches is that each of these lives is precious in the eyes of God - we are made in His image - and we must TRUST in Him for our necessities. Just as we must follow the Church in knowing that the sacrifice and practice of abstinence is far healthier than poisoning ourselves.

[maryz]

abject poor that are deprived of birth-contol methods

Seems to me what they're deprived of is a reasonably honest government. Though you're not the first to propose solving poverty by getting rid of the poor. Have you read Swift's A Modest Proposal? Granted Swift was a satirist.

[Miss Marple]

When I was younger I used to think as you.

I have learned, as I have gotten older, that the Church has a point.

When people choose to use birth control, what should be a sanctified and serious act becomes nothing more than entertainment. And a child born through entertainment isn’t really valued.

Much better, I think, to help those people who are in poor countries, which is what I do, and which is encouraged by Catholic charities.

I personally don’t think birth control has made our nation more caring about children. All you have to do is read the newspapers.

[Jaded]

Do you mean there were no abject poor before 1930? Don’t know a whole lot about Mexico either.