Is it just me...

[LongingSoul]

As a mother of soon to be eleven children, I am utterly appalled at your irrational judgement!

xantippe is demonstrating that having a large family does not translate as a guarantee of healthy or holy. Why do you think that is irrational? It’s just the truth.

Your family is no doubt a lovely example of Catholic faith, but that’s not to do with the number of your children. It’s to do with your personal capacity to raise and educate them in the Catholic way.

 

[UbiCaritas]

xantippe is demonstrating that having a large family does not translate as a guarantee of healthy or holy. Why do you think that is irrational? It’s just the truth.

Your family is no doubt a lovely example of Catholic faith, but that’s not to do with the number of your children. It’s to do with your personal capacity to raise and educate them in the Catholic way.

Exactly.

The unfortunate and uncomfortable fact is that, as parents, there just is no way to guarantee how our kids will turn out. We can be, quite literally, saints…and still have kids who make bad choices. Of course, we do our best to raise them well, to demonstrate by example how to live a good Catholic life, to teach them about the truths of our faith. Large families offer, by definition, more opportunities for practicing many of the virtues, and large families can be, and often are, truly wonderful things. Yet no number of children will guarantee that all the kids will turn out holy and good, just like a family with just one child to focus resources and energy on won’t de facto guarantee that that kid will turn out to be a success at college or life. It eventually comes down to choices by the individual.

 

[MomaMary8]

Amazing. This post was about the lack of respect. Then a poster gives examples of holy families that are small and a vile family that is large. NO one in this thread denied that a small family could be rich in grace, but over and over a poster must knock large families to the point of emphasizing a family of 11 who had a child turn into what she did. That’s uncalled for. Debates should never go personal. If others gave examples of evil small families, what would be the reaction?

As one poster said, pot meet kettle.

I have found posters on this board very unfriendly to larger families. Very. But that is the cross I carry in our society that does not value life.

 

[Xantippe]

If pointing out that Margaret Sanger came out of a large family with a mother that was constantly pregnant is personally offensive to posters with large families, what isn’t personal?

It isn’t knocking large families to point out that 1) they aren’t automatically holy and 2) at least a minority of children that grow up in large families come out determined not to have one 3) there are a lot of examples of smaller families that produce saints or other admirable persons.

Those are just facts, not personal criticism of anybody.

(MarkinOregon, I hope you’re paying attention! People take subjects that are personal to them personally, without there being any sort of bad conscience or guilt involved.)

Amazing. This post was about the lack of respect. Then a poster gives examples of holy families that are small and a vile family that is large. NO one in this thread denied that a small family could be rich in grace, but over and over a poster must knock large families to the point of emphasizing a family of 11 who had a child turn into what she did. That’s uncalled for. Debates should never go personal. If others gave examples of evil small families, what would be the reaction?

As one poster said, pot meet kettle.

I have found posters on this board very unfriendly to larger families. Very. But that is the cross I carry in our society that does not value life.

 

[ThePCWife]

O.k. I am baffled. Please explain how I “knocked” breastfeeding. I simply pointed out that my wife didn’t breastfeed, and that we didn’t worry about those who looked down on us for doing so or thought that our failure to breastfeed was some kind of moral flaw. I also pointed out that medically our kids are doing fine–i…e. no ill effects from not being breast fed. I am not knocking breastfeeding–if anything I would say I was sticking up for those who, for whatever reason, end up bottle feeding. I was not making a value judgment one way or the other. Or do we have a different definitions of “knock”.

The peace of Christ,
Mark

It was that you couldn’t mention your wife’s bottle feeding of formula without making sure to note that the breastfed children you know have allergies and food intolerances (and by linking them effectively implying that breastfeeding was the source/cause of those things).

I think all mothers should try to breastfeed for at least a few weeks and in my own life help women breastfeed more who might otherwise put their babies entirely on formula. I think it’s a shame that breastfeeding is often not considered part of the total package of being open to life. But I don’t, when discussing my breastfeeding experiences, throw in a bunch of stuff about formula fed kids having colds all the time or being allergy-prone. It may sometimes be true in either direction, but so many other things go on with children (like how often everyone is leaving the house or having other people come to the house, or genetic predisposition to certain allergies) that I tend to react poorly when either breastfeeders or formula feeders pull that out, as you did.

 

[Convert_in_99]

There is another issue I found that gets ugly quick. Mixed marriages, even when done through the Church. We get treated like lepers sometimes and that our marriages are “lesser” in God’s eyes, etc.

 

[jmjZelie]

There is another issue I found that gets ugly quick. Mixed marriages, even when done through the Church. We get treated like lepers sometimes and that our marriages are “lesser” in God’s eyes, etc.

And yet the Church has some beloved saints that were in precisely that situation. They were in a mixed marriage and by living out their Catholic faith and being faithful to their marriage vows, they brought about the conversion and salvation of their non-Catholic spouse.

It is typically considered to be a harder path, when spouses do not share the faith, however, unless the unbeliever or non-Catholic Christian happens to be rather docile toward the Catholic spouse’s faith.

 

[dedo]

It seems like the biggest problem in religion today is that people don’t show up.

They cannot overcome their issues without the strength that comes from the sacraments, prayer, etc.

Thus, if when curious, they meet judgement, they then walk away since they are already likely beating up on themselves. Why on Earth would they stay around for more of the same?

So the person who believes his ministry is to root out the imperfections of other people is really just driving people away from religion.

 

[MarkInOregon]

That sounds like a very healthy method for self-examination. I think I will try to work on this. I tend to give too much weight to those who would criticize me or judge me poorly.

It might not work for everyone, but it seems to be working for me. It’s something that I had to work at and continue to work at. I find for the most part it leaves me happier and more peaceful.

The peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[EasterJoy]

What was the question, again?

 

[MarkInOregon]

But are you suggesting that when Jesus responded to the Pharisees with emotional force ie “you brood of vipers” or even physical force as with the traders at the Temple, that it must have been the response of a guilty conscience? I know that you aren’t. There can be genuine emotion in defense of moral truth.

I would put this more into the category of dealing with anti-catholics or those knowingly misrepresenting the teachings or our faith–which I clearly stated I was not addressing. I also don’t believe that I have said there cannot be genuine emotion in defense of moral truth–I have simply pointed out something, in myself, that I must guard against or at least have the willingness to examine. I also don’t have the authority of Christ and I find in most of my dealing with people–a response such as above–I don’t believe would ultimately be fruitful–it might leave me feeling better–but I don’t think it would help in the long-term–if my goal is to help this person see and understand our teachings and either help bring them to His Church or to Christ and His Church. My interactions with people are not along the lines of Christ and his dealing with the pharisees.

The peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[LongingSoul]

I would put this more into the category of dealing with anti-catholics or those knowingly misrepresenting the teachings or our faith–which I clearly stated I was not addressing. I also don’t believe that I have said there cannot be genuine emotion in defense of moral truth–I have simply pointed out something, in myself, that I must guard against or at least have the willingness to examine. I also don’t have the authority of Christ and I find in most of my dealing with people–a response such as above–I don’t believe would ultimately be fruitful–it might leave me feeling better–but I don’t think it would help in the long-term–if my goal is to help this person see and understand our teachings and either help bring them to His Church or to Christ and His Church. My interactions with people are not along the lines of Christ and his dealing with the pharisees.

The peace of Christ,
Mark

The situations that this thread was addressing in the OP are a specific type that far from being edifying for others, are divisive. They promote a type of lifestyle choice that one might identify as ‘traditionalist’ and try to impose it on others as the true or at least superior Catholic lifestyle. You might say well why would you be disturbed by that. Just ignore it. I’ll give you an example of a situation that disturbs and actually angers me.

I’ve had a lifelong mission to expose the anti life nature of contraception. I’ve always taken opportunities to speak about it in as orthodox way as possible when the subject has come up with friends and to my children. You can’t force people to accept a belief but what you can do is plant the seeds to truth that I believe will be what eventually overcomes the general acceptance of contraception as a staple of sexual relationships. I value those seeds very much.

Now there is a particularly insidious theory that often pops up in discussions here that in fact NFP can be ‘used contraceptively’ and therefore NFP is just an emergency measure when there are ‘grave’ as in life or death reasons. I can’t stand seeing that promoted as an orthodox Catholic teaching because it simply isn’t true, but worse, it undermines the seeds already planted to combat the* true *contraceptive mentality that supports peoples guiltless use of it.

That raises my hackles because when you see a lifetime of ‘work’ being undermined by a theory purporting to be orthodox and not even taught by the Church… a lot is at stake.

I don’t feel there is any measure of guilt there on my part. In fact I’ve never used contraception in my life. I was a virgin on my wedding day and I’ve done NFP to the point were I could pretty much read my own body like a book. Maybe objectively, I am selfish for only having 4 children (one in heaven). I don’t feel selfish considering the trials that I’ve subsequently had raising two autistic spectrum children to adulthood… but who on Gods green earth has the power to identify me as someone needing to examine my conscience because there is a woman in Africa in a mud hut with more children? The answer is nobody. The Church teaching is all that we need and no ones elses interpretation of it.