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Dear Polycarp,

I read your #36. Whatever has passed in other threads, or in other places, the criticisms of Mr. Popcak on the specific threads involved were mostly coherent, sane, and intelligent, notwithstanding the mandatory kook posts, as per FR rules. ;-)

I'm working from memory here, a dangerous thing, I know, but I recall that there were reasoned posts about the relative merits and demerits of NFP, but that they were mostly articulate, rational, and reasonable.

The threads concerning Mr. Popcak's lukewarm endorsement of teenaged boys charting their moms and sisters were mostly reasonsed, calm, and rational, and mostly did not include wholesale, hysterical denunciations of NFP. Yet these "parodies" and "satires" exaggerate greatly the bad posts, and refuse to acknowledge the good posts which predominated in these threads.

Further, of what I've seen, Mr. Popcak and his defenders have refused to even acknowledge that opposition to this bizarre idea is not just rooted in emotional response, but is reasoned and rational.

I didn't mind Mr. Popcak's negative reaction to the posters who were trashing him. I don't mind criticism by others of folks who have acted uncharitably. But first, those who have defended Mr. Popcak have made it seem like only the "radtrads" (gee, I hate that term) oppose Mr. Popcak's recommendation. That is untrue. Just about everyone who commented at FR on this issue has commented negatively about Mr. Popcak's recommendation, from the most rad of the trads to even evil neoCatholic Novus Ordoites like sinkspur and me.

It seems, too, that these others, in defense of their friend (a noble act in itself, by the way), have themselves gone too far, and are themselves guilty of the same sorts of things of which they accuse the "radtrads".

So, there isn't equal guilt here. Folks at FR were having a discussion which easily fell within the broad parameters of accepted FR speech, in which most folks agreed, "rad", "trad", "neo", or otherwise. Then, these others came mocking. After a day or two, most folks here dropped it. Mr. Madrid dropped his own reference to it to "promote peace".

And then these others seemed unable to resist taking more potshots.

sitetest

I must stress again! that I agree fully with everything you said here and in your previous post.

I apologize for making what has proven to be a false moral equivalency between the Free Republic critics of Popcak and NFP in general, and Popcak's and his defenders' responses.

My criticism of the radtrad resistence to the NFP movement is based solely on their false assertion that NFP is TAUGHT in a contraceptive-mentality manner devoid of mention of the necessity of having "grave reason." I agree that the NFP movement has failed miserably in its promotional efforts to convey this truth that is so intrinsic to the teaching and practice of NFP.

Furthermore, my opposition to this erroneous position of radtrads has clearly confused the debate over Popcak's comments, which are indeed grossly imprudent and immodest, to say the least, and the vicious and slanderous remarks of his defenders on the various blogs, which are a greater offense against charity than any of the remarks that were posted here (with maybe one or two notable exceptions) against Popcak's comments.

On the other hand, Maximilan claims:In contrast to the dearth of "extreme trads" claiming what you say they do...There are many, many examples of non-traditional Catholics who promote:
- NFP for any reason,
- who claim that NFP is superior,
- who claim that NFP is necessary for true "personalist" marriage,
- who claim the requirement of grave reasons no longer applies,
- who claim that those who accept children from God are "providentialists"
- who claim that conceiving children without using NFP is "less than human" and "animal-like."

So it's not really even-handed to equate a non-existent error that's wholly imaginary with an entire industry promoting the opposite error.

Sorry, this blows my bloodpressure through the roof! There is simply no evidence of an entire industry promoting the opposite error. There are individual cases of moronic, even heterodox statements by a handful of well-meaning NFP promoters.

But Maximilian's statement is simply further PROOF of my assertion that radtrads make blanket statements about the entire NFP movement that are just as offensive and wrong as the statement he claims I made that are wrong! These exceptions he lists are not representative of what is taught in 99% of NFP courses or NFP manuals!

As such, I find such statements highly offensive, and misleading if not calumnious!

I hope I have clarified my muddled and emotional opinions previously expressed so poorly. I'm not sure what else I could say to do so.