How old were you when you learned the Church's teaching on contraception?

[mark_a]

I read the package insert and understood that OCs may prevent implantation of a baby.

Wow. I never would have thought of that. Sometimes things aren’t as tough as they seem.

 

[jmcrae]

Wow. I never would have thought of that. Sometimes things aren’t as tough as they seem.

Sometimes they’re so simple that it takes a child to explain them.

 

[Nun_ofthe_Above]

I knew for quite some time, the Catholic Church took a dim view on artificial contraception, but had no idea why.
It was not until I first started looking into becoming Catholic, 5 years ago, that I learned WHY they took that view.
I am only sorry, I didn’t know before I took ABC, and before my husband had a vasectomy after our two children were born.

 

[wjp984]

I was in high school and had a liberal religion teacher and a conservative religion teacher. One taught that it was not necessarily wrong and the other taught that it was. They got into some crazy arguments over whether other things were sinful as well like various sexual sins and others. It was hilarious. The two hated each other. One was Republican the other Democrat. One was a capitalist the other a socialist. One supported the death penalty the other opposed it. Great drama. In fact they would give us a warning about how the next year the other one is going to try and refute everything they teach us and then we can make up our own minds.

 

[Kepha15]

When I was 18.

 

[laariii]

When i was 19, shortly before i conveted from Pentacostalism.

 

[Brenda_V]

I learned in High School when I was 16 (32 years ago) but really didn’t understand it until I was married 20 years. We never used OC’s though because of their abortifacent nature as well as what they can do to the woman’s body (well, I took them for about a year for another medical issue but they caused me to gain an excessive amount of weight and for my bp to get dangerously high!)

I had learned about NFP in High School too. What I didn’t know was that the actual practice was in its infancy at the time.

So, that “use your Conscience” and “NFP is the only approved method of birth control by the Church” really didn’t mesh for many years for me.

Brenda V.

 

[Rach620]

I learned either in middle school or high school. I don’t remember a time when I thought artificial birth control was acceptable by Church teaching, but I only grew to understand NFP around junior year of HS.

God bless good Catholic parents who aren’t afraid to give this very important message to their children! My mom has always been very open in talking about this with me, and my parents have been great witnesses (even when my youngest brother was born 5 years ago!).

 

[mrs_abbott]

And how did you learn it?

I am in my late 40’s. I learned from Catholic radio which has been in the area only a few years. I learned about oral contraception for women and its possible abortificient proprties from Catholic radio also.

How about you?

religion class in the Catholic high school I attended

 

[Chris_Jacobsen]

Around age 14. Of course contraception was illegal back then.

 

[rayne89]

I am a cradle Catholic but only learned about the teaching when I was 24 through EWTN. All I knew in my teen years was the church looked down on contraception. I did not know it was a mortal sin to used it, nor did I know about the abortifacient qualities.

 

[Maria1212]

I learned about it while attending a Catholic highschool. They taught about the various methods of birth control but also explained why they were against Church teaching. It was helpful that they explained the different methods rather than solely condemning them. Dont get me wrong--we were taught that all birth control is wrong--but I think some parents do their children a mis-service by not educating them about birth control. If you know the facts, you wont be fooled by myths down the road.

I appreciated that our teachers explained why the Catholic Church does not permit birth control, rather than just saying it is “wrong.”

Sending me to Catholic Schoool was the best gift my parents ever gave me!!

Sincerely,
Maria1212

 

[Chovy]

I learned in eighth grade during my Catholic School’s presentation on chastity. Our prior sex-ed was really just preparing us for menstruation and separately preparing the boys for puberty.

Contraception was covered again in each year of Catholic high school, as it related to the different themes of religion class, self esteem and moral growth(Freshman Year), the Bible (Sophomore year), The history of the Church (Junior year) and Discerning a vocation (Senior Year). The senior year class went into much more detail about the abortifacent nature of birth control pills and IUDs, and the specific non-unitive, non-procreative nature of the other types of contraceptives along with their failure rates.

I’ve read a lot of nice things about the Jesuits and the Franciscans on here but give me a Marianist school any day.

 

[Orionthehunter]

I am a cradle Catholic but only learned about the teaching when I was 24 through EWTN. All I knew in my teen years was the church looked down on contraception. I did not know it was a mortal sin to used it, nor did I know about the abortifacient qualities.

I know I was out of high school and possibly out of college when I came to understand its gravity. Prior to that I thought it was in the venial category.

And I don’t really blame the Church for the misunderstanding but related to the culture. In my day, sex issues were just not discussed in any great detail with high school students. My mother was a bit of a Puritan with regard to talking about sex (never talked about, never thought about), and my parents were divorced and my non-Catholic father was pretty libertine about sexual matters. And when I got to college, I don’t recall anyone ever saying anything negative about ABC and at that time, I wasn’t reading anything Catholic (text books was it).

 

[st_ignatius110]

When I was about 20 years old during RCIA classes. We had an awesome teacher Our priest also discussed it with us along with NFP during our marriage prep classes.

 

[GrillotErinM]

I learned about NFP in our senior year religion class in high school and they talked some about the Church being against ABCs (this was a one day unit mind you) but it was badly explained and actually turned me against NFP at the time. In college I began to understand it more and accept it. And then studying more and taking classes through CCL… Definitely didn’t learn it from my parents! I am 23 now, so I guess I first heard about it when I was 17, so about 6 years ago.

 

[Detroit_Sue]

I was in my early thirties when I came back to the Church. I was a cradle Catholic, but my mother was a total liberal, and my father did not practice the faith since I was about 8. (Thanks be to God he came Home). When I started back in the faith, the priest NEVER spoke about abortion or life issues.

I was a pro-abortion advocate until my pro-life conversion, which happened in 1996