Hermann the Cherusker: The shirking of the four children teaching by modern NFP promoters is the cause of all the confusion over this issue. If people clearly understood the traditional teaching laid out from 1860-1960 which I have brought to your attention before, that there is only a duty to society to provide for the replacement rate of reproduction (taking into account sterile couples and unmarried persons) plus some modest growth, this wouldn't even be an issue.
The whole NFP brouhaha is greatly clarified by sticking to the former consensus of moral theologians discarded by the anti-Humane Vitae heretics, and ignored by the "you must have 12 children" crowd.
5 posted on 09/23/2003 9:54 PM EDT by Hermann the Cherusker.
Maximilian,
Comments? Hermann would seem to come under the same criticism you level against TaxChick's post.
Yes, you are right on the substantive issue, but Tax-chick used the exact buzz words under discussion.
Far be it from me to leave Hermann out of the well-deserved criticism. I find that Hermann gets some idea in his head and becomes a monomaniac on the subject and it's useless to debate with him. One example is when he carelessly tosses around numbers about baptisms, showing a lack of rigor with the statistics.
Another example is his 4-child rule. There's no such thing, one way or the other. The relevant moral principles are not based upon numbers. Hermann says "which I have brought to your attention before." Yes, you have Hermann, ad nauseum, but it's still just as bogus as the first time you mentioned it. He mentions the period 1860 - 1960, during which time the Vatican released "Arcanum," "Casti Connubii," "Allocution to the Italian Midwives" and "Address to Large Families" on the subject. None of them mention a 4-child rule. Neither did contemporary moral manuals of the time aimed at the average layman and woman. Several are available on EWTN, and the concept of a 4-child replacement rule is never mentioned.