Ecclesia Militans: Natural Family Planning and the Christian Moral Code

RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD

The propagandist uses catch words and slogans to appeal to and seduce his prey. Among these is the expression, "responsible parenthood." Advocates of NFP claim that when Pope Paul VI used this utterance, he meant that we should use our God-given intelligence to become aware of ourselves in a physiological sense. We are then to manipulate the basic principle of sex to avoid conception and thus serve what society comprehends as the common good.

Certainly Catholic parents must be responsible in the fulfillment of their vocation and the raising of their family for the honor and glory of God. That includes the temporal needs as well as the spiritual ones-to say nothing of education. And this is what "responsible parenthood" should mean. Society, however, thinks rather in terms of worldly values, such as "convenience" and "the common good" (i.e., read "population control").

God on the contrary, thinks of souls with Him in the everlasting bliss of Heaven. In this lies true wisdom and the way to proceed in the matter. Even if a child dies before birth because, say, of the starvation of the mother, its soul is nevertheless alive and has a chance for Heaven - with us waiting upon the Providence of God regarding its necessary baptism.

Father Leo Trese, a columnist of some years past, asked mothers to write their thoughts to a wife who was troubled about accepting the family that God sent. Here are some of the many replies received:

From Minnesota, a mother writes:

I would say your problem is frightening, but trust in God always. After the birth of my second child, I was told that it was doubtful whether I ever again would become pregnant, and that if I did it would be fatal.

I went on to have eight more children in eleven years, all healthy, happy, and intelligent. Two already have full scholarships to take them through college.

As for Rhythm, it did not work for me either and we were not strong enough to practice it long. I decided that it would be better to go to heaven young than to hell old. Our house is rather decrepit and lacks plumbing (almost a sin these days) but it is comfortable and neat with lawn and flowers .... Now I am 45 and feel that it was worth it all.

Here is another reply:

I am a mother of nineteen children and am living proof that the Church is right and the prophets of doom wrong.

I was a registered nurse before my marriage -- and know the methods of preventing conception, if I believed that this was the thing to do. As it is, I thank God for every one of my precious children and almost twelve grandchildren. May God help us to get back to seeing the beauty and wonder of a marriage lived in intimate union with our Maker, even though we have to walk in footsteps red with His blood for many years. "Sow in sorrow, reap in joy" is so very true in my case.

At 52 I am stronger and healthier than I have been in years in spite of a chronic kidney infection which plagued me all during my years of childbearing.

One letter that will (if we read between the lines) make us ashamed of ever complaining about our own crosses, is this one from an Ohio mother:

Really it is not so difficult. Those who have the courage to follow God's Laws will live their faith in a wonderful happiness.

That I speak from experience. I had to face this problem many years ago. I felt that I must decide to live with Christ or without Him. I accepted everything from God's hands confiding completely in Divine Providence. He gave us ten little souls under circumstances very doubtful from a natural point of view. We are refugees from behind the Iron Curtain. We had to go through many hardships, needs, fright, cold and starvation.

My husband died in consequence of the persecution, but the children were saved and led by God in a wonderful manner. Some of the children have received vocations, and the peace and joy I got even among the biggest difficulties are not to be compared to any hardships. I can only agree that His yoke is sweet and His burden light.

Still another mother speaks:

I would tell her to go ahead and have her babies as God sends them and she will never be sorry. If we put our trust in the Mother of God and St. Gerard (Patron Saint of expectant mothers), they will see us through unless it is the Will of God that we die an early death. In that case if we did not die in childbirth we would die in some other way.

I had thirteen babies of any own and raised an adopted one besides. When I was expecting any third child, specialists had to be called in and I was told that I must never have another child if I wanted to live to raise my family.

Of course, I did not die when the next one was born and now she is a professed Franciscan nun. As to the financial part, we never have been on relief and never went hungry, although sometimes we did not have much choice in what we ate. I made over clothes that relatives gave me, and one of the nicest things that children have told me is that they never "felt poor". Remember that the children you have will soon leave your lap, but the children you prevent will never leave your mind. I am past 50 now and active as a young person.

Let another mother speak:

My first three children came within less than three years. A Caesarean section was necessary for my fourth child. Due to this and to the development of severe varicose veins, my doctor advocated sterilization. My husband and I would not consent. I told the doctor that if God wanted me to be a cripple He would choose His own way.

My fifth baby was delivered normally and was one of my easiest. Now I have eight-and to think that if I had said the word to the doctor I would not have these last four babies. I am 43 now and not a cripple. It is a great battle but I definitely do not feel like a martyr.

I am proud to think that God gave me the strength to carry on and to have these little ones who give me so much courage as I held them in my arms every day. But my battle is only partly won and I must go on now and encourage my own daughters in their duties of motherhood; the world is so demanding today....

Now, these are responsible parents! They did it God's way! What foolishness to doubt God's promise and reject His Providence. That can only be what the devil wants us to do.

St. John Marie Vianney, the "Cure d' Ars," and patron saint of parish priests due to his holy life 'and work in that French town, once had this written about him regarding Holy Matrimony:

Both in the pulpit and in the confessional he had never ceased from proclaiming the strictness and the sweetness of the laws of Christian marriage. He had been heard and understood. God's blessing 7-ested upon the homesteads of the village. To use the imagery of the Bible, "the wife was as a fruitful vine, on the sides of the house," and "the children as olive plants, round about the table of their fathers."

Facing the church stood the house of the Ciniers with their ten children; pere Mandy was the father of twelve; twelve children formed a crown of honour for the des Garets; the families of Pertinand and Fleury Treve had fifteen children each. During the pastorate of St. John Marie, the population of Ars was more than doubled. Between 1818 and 1824 there were ninety-eight baptisms as against forty burials.

... Married people were shown the nobility of their calling, and he exhorted them to fulfill holily its duties. A lady of the name of Ruet... had already a large family, and was about to become a mother once more. She came to Ars in order to seek courage at the feet of its holy Cure'. She had not long to wait, for St. John Marie summoned her from amid the crowd. "You look very sad, my child," he said, when she was on her knees in the confessional. "Oh, I so advanced in years, Father!" exclaimed this expectant mother. "Be comforted, my child," he warned, "if you on knew the women who will go to hell because they did not bring into the world the children they should have given to it!"

"Come now, my little one, " he said to another with fatherly kindliness' who confided to him her anxiety because of her large family. "Do not be alarmed at your burden; Our Lord carries it with you. The good God does well all that He does: When he gives many children to a young mother it is that He deems her worthy to rear them. It is a mark of confidence on His part. "

Now, there must be some couples in Heaven who bless their decision to accept all the children God willed to send them as this balanced and kept their finances modest, thus preventing indulgence in vanity and excess material goods. It also made them stay humbly close to God in supplication that He supply their needs. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter Heaven, Our Lord has told us. For some, being "rich" in children was the loving sign of a Provident God, Who knows both our weaknesses as well as our needs. He will do what it takes for us to make it to Heaven. It seems risky to want it any other way, as those now in Hell through deliberately planning few children (thus having a correspondingly greater material but subsequently soul-destroying affluence) should well testify.

The obligation in married life consists of being a good, helping partner and of taking care of the children God sends as best one can. We are then to trust that God will fill in where human nature fails. In this way, we will be able to face God unashamedly concerning our conduct. To twist it around is Godless. And to say that this thinking is too "simplistic" and "naive" --- catch-words again --- to put into practice, is to slap God in the face. For He is the One Who designed that way of life in His creation of man. Man has only one way to go, and that is to be subject to God's way For man will some day die and be required to answer to God for his conduct.

Webster's Dictionary defines responsible as: 'Able to answer for one's conduct and obligations. What is the proper conduct in marriage? As Catholics following Christ's laws, the Divine Magisterium tells us that we are to leave each and every act of marriage open to the transmission of life, and trust that God will take care of the child He may create. The Our Father is the supreme prayer for teaching us trust in God and in His paternal care, for reminding us of this His role in our lives, and to ask for His continued help and the grace we need to property do our part.

There doubtless is more than one set of parents who turned to using birth control in order to "keep a handle" on their circumstances, and not bring into the world more children than they were comfortable having. How many of them later found that one of the children they did have was, for whatever reason, a greater deal of trouble than what twelve put together would have been? Consequently, they did not get out of the stress they sought to avoid after all! There may be both for them and for us, a lesson in this. For sure, it is better "to fall into the hands of the living God" than into our own. He will not be mocked.

Chapter VI