Contraception: Confessions of a Boomer Priest

[TheRealJuliane]

Exactly - most conversations go like this - my child is a _________ and makes a lot of money and live in this big house in this exclusive neighborhood. We define ourselves by our work.

Here is a great question that stops them short - Tell me about your child’s character, charities and good works. Dead silence…

I used to experience this directly when I was a mother of younger children and full-time homemaker. Whenever we would go out as a couple, especially to company functions, invariably we would chat with other couples, both of whom were professionals. When someone would ask me, “What do YOU do?” and I would answer, so often, it killed the conversation. Oh, a few of the women would say rather weakly, “Oh, I admire you! I tried but I found it so BORING!” But usually, it was just, “Oh.” and they would turn back to my husband for more career talk. I got to the point where I almost wanted to be a Walter Mitty and just make up a life that would impress people, OR, do the opposite and say, “I am a professional clown,” or “juggler” or “bungee-jumper,” anything that would make their eyes bug out.

 

[Indyann]

I used to experience this directly when I was a mother of younger children and full-time homemaker. Whenever we would go out as a couple, especially to company functions, invariably we would chat with other couples, both of whom were professionals. When someone would ask me, “What do YOU do?” and I would answer, so often, it killed the conversation. Oh, a few of the women would say rather weakly, “Oh, I admire you! I tried but I found it so BORING!” But usually, it was just, “Oh.” and they would turn back to my husband for more career talk. I got to the point where I almost wanted to be a Walter Mitty and just make up a life that would impress people, OR, do the opposite and say, “I am a professional clown,” or “juggler” or “bungee-jumper,” anything that would make their eyes bug out.

I used “domestic engineer” a lot:thumbsup:

 

[cmscms]

Reading it just made me sad. His dismissive tone towards women like me - a woman with a career I’ve worked hard for, that helps me live out the Gospels as best I can, that doing is a kind of prayer for me, and a woman with a husband and family I love and honor more than I can begin to articulate - makes me wonder if there’s a place for me in his Catholic world. To him I’m just a “working drone” who doesn’t define herslef solely by her kinship relationships. And who colors her hair.

Wow.

Luna, I hope you see the genuine caring in my post. The article NEVER said ‘Bad bad Luna for having a career’. The article said ‘Bad bad society for brainwashing women into thinking their value is 100% based on their career and consequently they are better off sinning and using contraceptives’

You have to agree he made some AWESOME points. Contraception use is very common in todays society and so is pornography. I am shoked when I see young women ‘Wow I got to see (fill in name of washboard stomadh actor with nice pecks) with out his shirt in the movie last night’ because they want to get even with men who brag ‘Wow did you see those big bare breast in the movie last night’. What happened to the day when men felt horrid looking at nudity because it made them trash?

If God’s calling for you was to have a career and you did it without using contraceptives, good for you. However, the priest is simply saying ‘Father forgive me if I in anyway am guilty for misleading Luna into sinning’
Luna Lovecraft;9100958:

This Lent I’ve been asking myself some pretty hard questions about my faith and if there’s a place for me at the Catholic table. And I feel as if Fr. Simon just pointed me towards the exit.

Luna

You never had to waste your time asking this question. There is a LOT of room for you at the table

CM

 

[JackyB]

As a working mother I find the Priest’s words liberating, who wouldn’t. I define myself as a wife and mother who works.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I’m inclined to agree with Luna. I found his sentiments horrifying.

Working moms are my heros. When I think of the women I know that are the best moms the ones that come to mind are my SIL, my boss, my fiance’s mom, and my mom. All working mothers. And my mom and boss were single working moms. My mom raised me showing me what a strong, smart woman is capable of. My SIL and boss both continue to be role models for me. I hope to be where they are professionally and in my personal life in just a few years.

I do want children. I love kids, and I know that I would make a great mom. But that’s not what I want to be defined as, not even to my children. I was born able to give birth. I didn’t put in the years of school and long hours at work for that. By virtue of the way I was born I can reproduce. But I worked hard to get where I am and I will continue to work hard. And I hope that my kids will be as proud of me as I was of my own mother. When my kids are grown and building their own families I will still have my own life.

 

[SummerSmiles]

I used to experience this directly when I was a mother of younger children and full-time homemaker. Whenever we would go out as a couple, especially to company functions, invariably we would chat with other couples, both of whom were professionals. When someone would ask me, “What do YOU do?” and I would answer, so often, it killed the conversation. Oh, a few of the women would say rather weakly, “Oh, I admire you! I tried but I found it so BORING!” But usually, it was just, “Oh.” and they would turn back to my husband for more career talk. I got to the point where I almost wanted to be a Walter Mitty and just make up a life that would impress people, OR, do the opposite and say, “I am a professional clown,” or “juggler” or “bungee-jumper,” anything that would make their eyes bug out.

If I tell someone from my parents’ generation that I’m a SAHM, I usually get, “oh, that’s wonderful that your husband can support you like that!”. If I tell someone in my generation, I get, “but aren’t you using your degree?” or “oh my gosh, I couldn’t handle being stuck with the kids all day!”. My SIL asked my husband one time, “so what does your wife actually do all day long?” I’d love to tell her that I play and watch tv all day, but I just don’t have time for that! LOL

 

[exoflare]

Part 4 is out! Can’t wait for the next one.

It seems like a lot of people here didn’t even bother to read the article before they started trying to criticize it.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

TheRealJuliane;9107258:

I used to experience this directly when I was a mother of younger children and full-time homemaker. Whenever we would go out as a couple, especially to company functions, invariably we would chat with other couples, both of whom were professionals. When someone would ask me, “What do YOU do?” and I would answer, so often, it killed the conversation. Oh, a few of the women would say rather weakly, “Oh, I admire you! I tried but I found it so BORING!” But usually, it was just, “Oh.” and they would turn back to my husband for more career talk. I got to the point where I almost wanted to be a Walter Mitty and just make up a life that would impress people, OR, do the opposite and say, “I am a professional clown,” or “juggler” or “bungee-jumper,” anything that would make their eyes bug out.

I used “domestic engineer” a lot:thumbsup:

Operations Manager is a better description that most working drones can understand.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Part 4 is out! Can’t wait for the next one.

It seems like a lot of people here didn’t even bother to read the article before they started trying to criticize it.

Part 4 included this little tid-bit of information about* his mom’s career*.

“Things were tight in the depression, but Mom was a social worker and they managed to hire a girl to act as nanny and housekeeper…”

I really liked the articles and also look forward to the next part. I’m the mother of eight children with a diamond missing from my wedding band who also worked for a while, so I have a few things in common with his mom. (However, unlike his mother, I color my hair. )

It’s really interesting and encouraging to learn that some of the priest who once led people astray now defend the Church teachings on Humanae Vitae. We may have turned a corner.

 

[cmscms]

I do want children. I love kids, and I know that I would make a great mom. But that’s not what I want to be defined as, not even to my children. I was born able to give birth. I didn’t put in the years of school and long hours at work for that. By virtue of the way I was born I can reproduce. But I worked hard to get where I am and I will continue to work hard. And I hope that my kids will be as proud of me as I was of my own mother. When my kids are grown and building their own families I will still have my own life.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you want. I think the point is, you should not sin (ie us contraceptives) to achieve your goals

CM

 

[leonie]

…
When my kids are grown and building their own families I will still have my own life.

This is the difference between a Christian and a nonChristian worldview. Your life is never your own. I want to live for Christ. His Will is my life. I am willing to work or not. My dreams aren’t for this world.

When my kids are grown, if God wills I am still living in this world, I hope to use my time serving others whether in a career or in daily service to my family, neighbors, or church. I hope that my 8 children will embrace the joys of having many children. I want to spend my old age laying down my life helping them in this sacrificial life.

When I was a young woman, I would have found the description of my little life repugnant, but as I have come to love God, I just want to please Him. This life is just dust and ashes. The souls of my children are eternal. I would work to support my family if it was necessary, and I would do it well, to glorify God, but my vocation is in bringing my children to Him.

 

[jwashu]

The pill gave us recreational sex that hasn’t really been as much fun as we had hoped, especially for women who now go to the same dreary jobs that men go to because the tax man demands a double income just to keep a roof over her head and that of 2.3 children. If daddy bails for the trophy wife, then mommy will just have to get a second job. Women can now be lawyers and senators and brick layers and waitresses and anything they want except mothers.

Just tell someone you’ve got eight children, and see the look they give you. It says “Don’t you know that children are a form of pollution, burdening the planet with their disposable diapers and green house gas emissions? Have you no self respect?” or my favorite usually addressed to full time mothers: “You mean you’re just a mom? Don’t you have a real job?”

I am bookmarking this. Thank you SO MUCH!!!

:yup::clapping:

The prevailing sentiment is that children are a disease, preventable through birth control, curable through abortion. Dear Lord Jesus, forgive us!

Actually the article is wrong on the taxes. Once again people assume fiscal liberal means moral liberal. The fact that the far right has duped people into believing that is what is wrong with the nation. We need a new party who offers the balance the Democrats did through the 1960s.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the tax rate was MUCH higher, that it is today. The same social security etc… were there. The difference was the greed promoted by the right. That is what has driven women to work, work multiple jobs, men leave for the trophy wife etc… The taxes on the rich were like 70% in the 1950s… The priest is dead wrong on his understanding because he isn’t looking at the issue from both sides and is taking some information from the right for granted which isn’t true.

I agree with most of what he says but the cause is not the “liberal” taxes, they are the LOWEST in history, Our taxes, right now, are the lowest in history no matter what anyone tells you otherwise. The problem is greed which actually falls in line with the rest of the article.

Our problem is that we buy into that greed and self servin is ok if we are against abortion… it doesn’t work that way. The right NOR the left have the answers, we need a new breed of leadership that will bring back some reality. Articles like this though just, probably unintentionally, make things worse because now, if you agreed with everything else, you probably took for granted that taxes were lower and somehow the Government helping people is bad…

 

[kristacecilia]

This is the difference between a Christian and a nonChristian worldview. Your life is never your own. I want to live for Christ. His Will is my life. I am willing to work or not. My dreams aren’t for this world.

When my kids are grown, if God wills I am still living in this world, I hope to use my time serving others whether in a career or in daily service to my family, neighbors, or church. I hope that my 8 children will embrace the joys of having many children. I want to spend my old age laying down my life helping them in this sacrificial life.

When I was a young woman, I would have found the description of my little life repugnant, but as I have come to love God, I just want to please Him. This life is just dust and ashes. The souls of my children are eternal. I would work to support my family if it was necessary, and I would do it well, to glorify God, but my vocation is in bringing my children to Him.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Actually the article is wrong on the taxes. Once again people assume fiscal liberal means moral liberal. The fact that the far right has duped people into believing that is what is wrong with the nation. We need a new party who offers the balance the Democrats did through the 1960s.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the tax rate was MUCH higher, that it is today. The same social security etc… were there. The difference was the greed promoted by the right. That is what has driven women to work, work multiple jobs, men leave for the trophy wife etc… The taxes on the rich were like 70% in the 1950s… The priest is dead wrong on his understanding because he isn’t looking at the issue from both sides and is taking some information from the right for granted which isn’t true.

I agree with most of what he says but the cause is not the “liberal” taxes, they are the LOWEST in history, Our taxes, right now, are the lowest in history no matter what anyone tells you otherwise. The problem is greed which actually falls in line with the rest of the article.

Our problem is that we buy into that greed and self servin is ok if we are against abortion… it doesn’t work that way. The right NOR the left have the answers, we need a new breed of leadership that will bring back some reality. Articles like this though just, probably unintentionally, make things worse because now, if you agreed with everything else, you probably took for granted that taxes were lower and somehow the Government helping people is bad…

This is not about “left” and “right.” I am not going to respond to you and further politicize this thread. You are cherry-picking and emphasizing your own viewpoint when the SIN of contraception and priests ignoring the Church’s first tenet - LIFE from conception to natural death - is the whole point of the article.

I have no idea why you quoted my post since I was not responding about taxes but about how children are now viewed as a preventable disease.

 

[manualman]

jwashu,

You are welcome to open a new thread about taxes. But do not use one allegedly misplaced comment in a thread unrelated to fiscal political policy to divert focus from the topic.

P.S. If you do start that thread, please substantiate your claim by examining average state, federal, medicare, local, property and sales taxes. I’d be interested to hear if the middle class pays less overall today than in the 1950’s. If it’s true, it’s onlybecause of the massive debt spending we have today compared to then. I’m dubious, but open to facts. Just not in this thread.

 

[sw85]

Reading it just made me sad. His dismissive tone towards women like me - a woman with a career I’ve worked hard for, that helps me live out the Gospels as best I can, that doing is a kind of prayer for me, and a woman with a husband and family I love and honor more than I can begin to articulate - makes me wonder if there’s a place for me in his Catholic world. To him I’m just a “working drone” who doesn’t define herslef solely by her kinship relationships. And who colors her hair.

Wow.

This Lent I’ve been asking myself some pretty hard questions about my faith and if there’s a place for me at the Catholic table. And I feel as if Fr. Simon just pointed me towards the exit.

Luna

I’m afraid I don’t understand this at all.

The Catholic Church claims to be the one, true, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. This claim is either true or it isn’t.

If it’s true, you owe it your obedience, no matter how lousy it might make you feel and no matter how many lousy sinners you’ll be forced to encounter as a result of it.

And if it’s false, you ought not to be part of it, no matter how great it makes you feel or how many wonderful people also subscribe to it.

Either way, your personal feelings on the matter are irrelevant, because they are secondary to truth. Your feelings should be molded in accordance with the truth, not the other way around.

You say you’ve been asking yourself hard questions about your faith for a while now. It seems to me you are perhaps asking the wrong ones. Catholicism is not about making a place for you (although, being minister of the redemption and custodian of the truths revealed to it by Christ, it *does *have a place for you). *You *need to make a place for Catholicism.

Personally, I cannot imagine what you’re going through that the harsh words of a nobody priest would rock your faith so badly. It must not have been very well anchored in the first place (and I say this out of charity, not acc. usation); not knowing what doubts are bothering you, I can’t comment further on them. But for myself, the statement that jobs are a matter of activity and vocations a matter of status has always been true, and uncontroversially so. To say that your identity is formed by your job is to say that you must change your identity every time you change careers, which statistically speaking is 5 or 6 times over the course of your life. That means you become a different you upwards of half a dozen times! What a barbaric situation that must be – indeed, what a barbaric situation it actually is, given what the statistics tell us about the plight of the unemployed, who quickly become alienated, bitter, depressed, and isolated; who, in a very real sense, lose their identity. By contrast, once married, you are always a wife, until your husband dies (as marriage, we know now, is an earthly sacrament only); and once a parent, you are always a parent, even if all your children die. Heaven itself cannot efface that bond.

Marriage and parenthood is a reflection of ontological status: to not be those things when you are actually called to them is to be incomplete. I will be incomplete until I am united to my wife (hopefully later this year) and we begin to discharge the duties of our office by having children. Can you say the same thing of your work, whatever that is? I can’t. I cannot say that I will be incomplete until I am hired on as a tenured researcher somewhere. I like my job and enjoy it, and it enables me to discharge my duties, but that’s it. Attaching any more value to it than that would, I think, be desperately unhealthy.

You say you are a mother and a wife, and good ones. Great. What is there to object to in the article, then? That he does not give sufficient accord to your work? But your work is of secondary importance no matter what it is. Vocations always come first. I would hope you can see that – I would hope you would give up your job if your family needed it. (This is as true of men, by the way, as it is of women, with the sole distinction that their vocation requires them to work in a way it doesn’t require women to).

 

[choose_to_love]

@blue eyed: Would I be guilty of the same thing I think you might be doing WRT Fr.'s article when I notice that you create an implicit contrast between smart, strong woman and SAHM? Since I am familiar with your posts a bit, and Luna’s as well, I don’t think this is what you mean at all. But if I wanted to read that in there, I think there would be a basis for it.

As long as the person, woman or man, has prayerfully considered to what it is God is calling the person to do, one will be OK, no?

 

[Dominique1234]

Reading it just made me sad. His dismissive tone towards women like me - a woman with a career I’ve worked hard for, that helps me live out the Gospels as best I can, that doing is a kind of prayer for me, and a woman with a husband and family I love and honor more than I can begin to articulate - makes me wonder if there’s a place for me in his Catholic world. To him I’m just a “working drone” who doesn’t define herslef solely by her kinship relationships. And who colors her hair.

Wow.

This Lent I’ve been asking myself some pretty hard questions about my faith and if there’s a place for me at the Catholic table. And I feel as if Fr. Simon just pointed me towards the exit.

Luna

That’s too bad. I’m sorry you feel this way. This is where free will comes in. Either you follow what God truly wants from you, or you take your own path. It’s definitely your choice. God wants you to choose, hence free will.

Please don’t hesitate to send me a private message. I’d like to help you on your journey in the right direction. I’d love to know what kinds of things you struggle with, and I can possibly help you in the right direction with the proper literature to read and facts from the Catholic Church and what we are asked to follow as Catholics.

God bless and I will pray for you and for clarity.

Dom

 

[Dominique1234]

I’m afraid I don’t understand this at all.

The Catholic Church claims to be the one, true, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. This claim is either true or it isn’t.

If it’s true, you owe it your obedience, no matter how lousy it might make you feel and no matter how many lousy sinners you’ll be forced to encounter as a result of it.

And if it’s false, you ought not to be part of it, no matter how great it makes you feel or how many wonderful people also subscribe to it.

Either way, your personal feelings on the matter are irrelevant, because they are secondary to truth. Your feelings should be molded in accordance with the truth, not the other way around.

You say you’ve been asking yourself hard questions about your faith for a while now. It seems to me you are perhaps asking the wrong ones. Catholicism is not about making a place for you (although, being minister of the redemption and custodian of the truths revealed to it by Christ, it *does *have a place for you). *You *need to make a place for Catholicism.

Personally, I cannot imagine what you’re going through that the harsh words of a nobody priest would rock your faith so badly. It must not have been very well anchored in the first place (and I say this out of charity, not acc. usation); not knowing what doubts are bothering you, I can’t comment further on them. But for myself, the statement that jobs are a matter of activity and vocations a matter of status has always been true, and uncontroversially so. To say that your identity is formed by your job is to say that you must change your identity every time you change careers, which statistically speaking is 5 or 6 times over the course of your life. That means you become a different you upwards of half a dozen times! What a barbaric situation that must be – indeed, what a barbaric situation it actually is, given what the statistics tell us about the plight of the unemployed, who quickly become alienated, bitter, depressed, and isolated; who, in a very real sense, lose their identity. By contrast, once married, you are always a wife, until your husband dies (as marriage, we know now, is an earthly sacrament only); and once a parent, you are always a parent, even if all your children die. Heaven itself cannot efface that bond.

Marriage and parenthood is a reflection of ontological status: to not be those things when you are actually called to them is to be incomplete. I will be incomplete until I am united to my wife (hopefully later this year) and we begin to discharge the duties of our office by having children. Can you say the same thing of your work, whatever that is? I can’t. I cannot say that I will be incomplete until I am hired on as a tenured researcher somewhere. I like my job and enjoy it, and it enables me to discharge my duties, but that’s it. Attaching any more value to it than that would, I think, be desperately unhealthy.

You say you are a mother and a wife, and good ones. Great. What is there to object to in the article, then? That he does not give sufficient accord to your work? But your work is of secondary importance no matter what it is. Vocations always come first. I would hope you can see that – I would hope you would give up your job if your family needed it. (This is as true of men, by the way, as it is of women, with the sole distinction that their vocation requires them to work in a way it doesn’t require women to).

Amen Brother! Well spoken. I think the Holy Spirit works in you well. Keep it up. !