Birth Control = No Birth + No Control

My wife and I have practice NFP (Natural Family Planning) our entire fourteen year marriage. We have three children and used NFP to help achieve our first pregnancy; our son was born about eighteen months after the wedding. Not long after, we used NFP again to achieve our second pregnancy. Our first daughter was born twenty five months after our son. Around this time a co-worker said something to me (in jest).

Co-worker:  Nicely done; you have your boy & your girl. You’re getting “fixed” now, right?

Me: I’m not broken.

Co-worker: Sounds like something is working a little too well.

Me: I’ll see a doctor about a medical procedure when something is wrong with me, not when things are working well.

We both laughed, but it brings up the point that we treat fertility much like a disease; we get prescriptions, have surgery and buy “gadgets”.  If fertility is a gift designed by God, it would not be reasonable to treat it this way. Going beyond unreasonable, we have actually reached the point where not using artificial contraception is viewed as ignorant and irresponsible. My wife and I take the precise opposite view. Many are ignorant about natural law and irresponsible about sex, so what is the result? No birth & no control. Seems the houses where we live are getting bigger and bigger while the families inside getting smaller and smaller.

 

Look ma, no kids!!

 

My wife and I now give talks on sex & intimacy to engaged couples at our parish as part of their pre-Cana. We cover some theology of the body, and once couples hear the logic, they may think it’s a nice theory that belongs in the heavens somewhere, but it’s not practical for real people on earth. We then get into the practical benefits of NFP which have benefitted us, but many have never heard before:

More knowledge fosters better family planning: It’s not only for avoiding pregnancy and spacing children, but also achieving pregnancy. When a couple has trouble conceiving, one of the first things a doctor may do is have them try some aspects of NFP.

You’ll know if you’re pregnant before a doctor can know. Many women miscarry without even knowing they were pregnant.  We knew we were pregnant with our 3rd child not long after conception and noticed some unusual signs, so my wife consulted with a doctor. A prescription to boost a hormone may have prevented the miscarriage of our youngest daughter.

It’s “Green”: It’s free & natural. In fact, there are those who use NFP simply because they prefer to do things naturally instead of artificially (no theological reason). It’s really just common sense. Ironically, as we become more health conscious, we’ll avoid natural things like fat, salt, sugar and pay extra for organic foods, but at the same time, gladly encourage women to pump themselves with artificial hormones via pills and patches.

Communication: It fosters better communication between couples. NFP couples have very low divorce rates. Think about it; whether avoiding or achieving pregnancy, if you’re going to be intimate with each other, you’ll need to stay in “intimate” communication on a fairly regular basis.

It only gets better: We experienced how a women’s cycle can become more regular after having children, which makes NFP easier to do. As you start having children, spacing them out can become more and more important, so the woman’s cycle becomes easier to read. God knows what he’s doing when he designs something. Also, if avoiding pregnancy, the cycles of abstaining and being together mirror a natural dating-honeymoon cycle that continually breathes new life into a marriage.

From here we get into the two purposes of sex that should not be separated (babies & bonding). We use an analogy with food. Food has two purposes; nutrition and social bonding. Suppose you go to a party for pleasure and eat all the food you want, but you don’t want all those calories, so you head over to the restroom afterwards and make yourself throw-up. That’s NOT the purpose of food! Now consider the other extreme, suppose a new one-a-day pill was invented which provides all the nutrition you would ever need and you decided never to eat again. No restaurants, no party food, no dining with family & friends, nothing at holidays, no food ever. This would disorder your social life.

We also explain how NFP is not like artificial contraception when avoiding pregnancy because you are using the gift of fertility the way God designed it. It’s the difference between intentionally blocking something vs. just not participating in something.

When we look throughout salvation history we see a reoccurring theme that is really a reoccurring question. It started with Adam & Eve and continued with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, his son Joseph, Moses, all the Israelites, the kings of Israel, Mary & Joseph in the New Testament, all the way up to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The question was and still is: Will you trust God?

My wife and I were also in a “trusting” situation when we started NFP.  All we had was a Church teaching and a class we took; no one we knew was using it back then. No family; no friends. It was hard at times, so we had to face the question head on; will you trust God? We did and we are forever grateful.

 

 

 

The War on Terror vs. The War on Women

It’s interesting to note that those who think the term “war on terror” is politically incorrect seem to be very comfortable with the term “war on women”.

The war on terror should be called “overseas contingency operation”, but the war on women, happening right here at home, is a real war and The Catholic Church is a top aggressor. How dare they not help pay for the contraception of others; to help them deface their natural & healthy fertility!? How dare the Church want legal protection for every human life!? Have you ever heard of such madness!? While this travesty is happening in the U.S, there are some actually worried about a few extremists in the Middle East who get carried away sometimes.  If we could be a little nicer to them, I’m sure they would lighten-up so we could focus more on the real war happening in our own backyard.

 

In case you can’t tell, I’m being sarcastic. What would a real war on women look like? Consider a scenario where men kill innocent women and call it an “honor killing” or a land where men will relieve a woman of her nose with a knife if she removes her veil in public. Now that is a war on women if I ever heard of one.

Is the Catholic Church an enemy of women or did the Catholic Church actually begin woman’s liberation? In a book called How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Ph.D., we read about some interesting things that may not be taught in our public schools (or Catholic schools for that matter).

Ø  After the promiscuity of the ancient Romans, the early Church taught that intimate relations were only for husband and wife restoring dignity to women and marriage in general.

Ø  The Church also sanctified marriage elevating it to the level of a sacrament and prohibited divorce. This was a huge benefit to the women of the ancient world. Men could not leave their wives with nothing to run off and marry another woman.

Ø  Adultery, according to the Church was not confined to only a wife’s infidelity, as the ancient world so often had it. The men were held equally accountable.

Ø  The Catholic Church helped women gain autonomy. Women were allowed to form self-governing communities. Where in history were women able to run their own schools, convents, colleges, hospitals and orphanages outside Catholicism?

 

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE:

So numerous were the women joining the Church in the early centuries, the Romans thought Christianity was a religion for women.

 

As mentioned before on this blog, every problem has a cause and an effect and it is important to know which is which. Do we really understand the cause of the problem or are we only fixated on the effects? A root-cause of many societal problems is a misunderstanding of the word “freedom”. The supposed war on woman is about people thinking rights are being taken away and taking away rights would be akin to losing freedom, but if we understand true freedom we understand this: Freedom is NOT being able to do what we want; freedom is being able to do what we ought.

Fight for true freedom

Bill O’Reilly, Rick Santorum & Artificial Contraception

I was struck last night by some comments by Bill O’Reilly about the Catholic Church’s teaching on artificial contraception while interviewing Senator Rick Santorum on Fox News. Rick Santorum was defending his statement that states have the right to ban artificial contraception. He thinks they should not do it, but he feels they have the right. Bill O’Reilly, who is Catholic, went on to say some interesting things……..

• 98% of Catholics don’t follow the teaching: What’s the point here? If 98% of the people in the 1700’s thought slavery was OK, then it must have been OK. If 98% of people think you should jump off a bridge, you should do it.

• It’s like eating meat on Friday: Abstaining from meat on Friday is a simple church discipline, not a moral teaching. The only sin in eating the meat is disobeying the authority that Christ left on earth. “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven….” (see Mat 16:19).

• It’s a man-made doctrine; Jesus didn’t say it:  Contraception, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, cloning, etc. were not an issue of controversy for the Jewish people in Jesus’ time, so it makes sense that He would not talk about it. Further, if Jesus said nothing about these things, we must conclude they are all OK?

Sometimes we need to step way back and look at the big picture. Jesus founded a Church, not a book. If there really is a God and He really cares about us, He would make sure we have a way to know what is true and what is not true, in terms of what to believe (faith) and how to behave (morals). He would not leave us orphans. He would give us an authoritative Church to guide us; One Holy, Universal and Apostolic Church (Catholic means universal by the way).