Priest: You've contracepted our parochial school out of existence

[manualman]

Do you have evidence that it is not?

Only indirectly. Rather little web search data will show that white, non-hispanic women in the USA have a TFR of about 1.8 on average. African Americans aren’t any higher. Other than the Phillipines, no south Asian country sending immigrants our way has a TFR above 2. The overall USA TFR is about 2. Mexico these days has a TFR not much higher than 2 either. Somebody is offsetting all those 1.8 Americans. My own informal observations suggest that muslim families here have more than 2 kids on average. I can’t send you a link on that, but the readily available data is consistent with it, if not direct proof.

But again (we’ve had this conversation before) culture isn’t static these days. Muslim families are recent immigrants from cultures in which contraception is NOT readily available and socially respectable like it is here. Again, I have no web link for you, but I find it rather hard to believe that nations that don’t let women go out without being covered head to toe in a sack let them make an appointment with an OBGYN to get the pill upon request. More likely, the husband decides. It will be interesting to see what the third generation descendents of muslim immigrants do. But that’s rather off topic…

 

[Spyral]

Pity the priest couldn’t have children he could lead by example.

I hope all the people who are infertile or had miscarriages feel sufficiently judged by his assumptions.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

Only indirectly. Rather little web search data will show that white, non-hispanic women in the USA have a TFR of about 1.8 on average. African Americans aren’t any higher. Other than the Phillipines, no south Asian country sending immigrants our way has a TFR above 2. The overall USA TFR is about 2. Mexico these days has a TFR not much higher than 2 either. Somebody is offsetting all those 1.8 Americans. My own informal observations suggest that muslim families here have more than 2 kids on average. I can’t send you a link on that, but the readily available data is consistent with it, if not direct proof.

But again (we’ve had this conversation before) culture isn’t static these days. Muslim families are recent immigrants from cultures in which contraception is NOT readily available and socially respectable like it is here. Again, I have no web link for you, but I find it rather hard to believe that nations that don’t let women go out without being covered head to toe in a sack let them make an appointment with an OBGYN to get the pill upon request. More likely, the husband decides. It will be interesting to see what the third generation descendents of muslim immigrants do. But that’s rather off topic…

The issue is shutting down schools. Do Muslims have a vastly highly TFR relative to the rest of the world. If not, why aren’t there schools shutting down? That’s this issue. If the TFR rates are similar and their schools aren’t shutting down at the same rate, the contraception argument just went out the window.

 

[Estevao]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770

As much as you might not like these methods, this is the only example in the last 50 years in the hedonistic west where our moribund birth rates had a rebound. If we did something about contraception, birth rates would stop falling.

I really don’t know why people are getting so angry with what the priest said here. Even if they found it was simplistic, it still remains that artificial contraception is an intrinsic evil and he was perfectly right to speak out against it.

And as a 20 year old man I can tell you how destructive it was for my moral formation to attend a public school (and a public university). I would certainly not want to wish this upon my kids if I had the intention of doing all that I could to make sure they went to heaven.

 

[ProVobis]

He is writing from Westville, IL, a town of 3,175 people in an agricultural part of the State. Contraception is not the problem. Economics is.

Whether it’s Westville or elsewhere, economics is still part of the equation. And should be IMO. One has to look at the returns of any investment, and private school is such an investment. Just sayin.

 

[Debora123]

No offense, but this is kinda silly IMHO.

The priest is blaming Catholics who have less children for his school going out of business?? Really?

 

[JimG]

Fewer Catholic kids mean fewer Catholic schools. But the school is just a sample of the problem facing the nation as a whole, which seems intent, along with other western nations, of contracepting itself out of existence.

 

[Country_Gal]

I personally would love to see fewer people. Since I was a kid the population keeps growing. There are fewer open spaces, more rules, more competition for housing, land etc.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770I really don’t know why people are getting so angry with what the priest said here. Even if they found it was simplistic, it still remains that artificial contraception is an intrinsic evil and he was perfectly right to speak out against it.

I’m not angry about in the least, but I don’t think he’s drawing the correct conclusion. Regardless of contraception, population has still been increasing. Therefore it makes no sense to conclude that contraception is causing the significant decline while population is still increasing. In fact, many of the public schools in my area have expanded because of the increasing number of children, while Catholic school attendance continues to decline.

In many cases, the problem is economic. If fact, just from what I’ve observed that seems to be the case. The Catholic High Schools seem to have no problem, whereas the elementary schools are. That is indicative of economic issues. Couples in the early 20s often don’t have the money to send their kids to school. But by the time they are 13/14, and the parents are in their mid-30s/40s, they have the means to do so.

 

[JimG]

I personally would love to see fewer people. Since I was a kid the population keeps growing. There are fewer open spaces, more rules, more competition for housing, land etc.

If you can hold out for awhile you will get your wish. Population will continue to increase for another several decades due to momentum, but then the falling fertility rates will catch up to it, and population will begin to decline. There will be fewer people, but also economic stagnation. Governments will try to encourage childbirth.

 

[MJJean]

No offense, but this is kinda silly IMHO.

The priest is blaming Catholics who have less children for his school going out of business?? Really?

I know! Record unemployment, disappearing middle class, record numbers of people on food assistance, etc. and this priest think’s it’s contraception that’s causing the problem?

I have 3 children. My sister has 6, my brother 3. My closest friends have 9, 6, 5 and 4 children respectively.

Trust me, we aren’t contracepting the Catholic schools out of business. We just can’t afford to provide food, shelter, clothing, and necessities plus pay for parochial school no matter how much we’d like to. And this is coming from someone who owns a house free and clear, has paid off their cars, has no credit cards, doesn’t buy brand name anything unless it’s marked down below off brand prices and shops at the resale shops.

 

[Debora123]

I know! Record unemployment, disappearing middle class, record numbers of people on food assistance, etc. and this priest think’s it’s contraception that’s causing the problem?

I have 3 children. My sister has 6, my brother 3. My closest friends have 9, 6, 5 and 4 children respectively.

Trust me, we aren’t contracepting the Catholic schools out of business. We just can’t afford to provide food, shelter, clothing, and necessities plus pay for parochial school no matter how much we’d like to. And this is coming from someone who owns a house free and clear, has paid off their cars, has no credit cards, doesn’t buy brand name anything unless it’s marked down below off brand prices and shops at the resale shops.

Yup. It’s almost insulting that he’d point the finger at Catholics who have less than 4 kids for his school going out of business. Catholic school is NOT cheap. And likewise if you have 9 children maybe you won’t be able to afford paying a few thousand a year for tuition for each child. And besides, don’t people who have a ton of kids like that normally home school anyway? That article was so off on so many levels.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

We checked into Catholic school for our children. It’s actually cheaper than public schools, but that’s irrelevant since we pay for the public schools out of our real estate taxes. We simply couldn’t afford the thousands of dollars a year extra sending our kids to Catholic school unless we resorted to eating grass and tree bark. Also, the schools are very spartan and don’t have the programs that public schools have.

 

[Mulligan2]

He is writing from Westville, IL, a town of 3,175 people in an agricultural part of the State. Contraception is not the problem. Economics is.

Great point. In fact, there have been many good points on this thread about why the comments by the priest are perhaps a bit simplistic and/or misguided.

On a related note, there used to be priest in our diocese who was always speaking out on birth control - that it is the sole source of our societal problems, etc. He came across as a very bitter person who was always upset at society. He’s no longer in our diocese, but I hope he’s happy wherever he’s at.

 

[JimG]

If seems that contraception could not possibly cause any problems. Before accepting that conclusion I’d recommend pondering this book.

 

[manualman]

Yup. It’s almost insulting that he’d point the finger at Catholics who have less than 4 kids for his school going out of business. Catholic school is NOT cheap. And likewise if you have 9 children maybe you won’t be able to afford paying a few thousand a year for tuition for each child. And besides, don’t people who have a ton of kids like that normally home school anyway? That article was so off on so many levels.

It seems terribly off because he remembers a world that you apparently never experienced and cannot imagine. And yet it existed in many people alive today’s lifetime. When catholics routinely had big families, they DID have smaller houses and fewer cars, it’s true. But they also produced abundant vocations, which resulted in catholic schools being affordable to any catholics who wanted them. This isn’t a pipe dream, it was the routine not that long ago.

Listen to yourself. The catholics who came to this country had nothing and were a half step above poverty and yet they built the mightiest private educational system earth has ever seen. Today’s catholics are objectively the richest in our nation’s history, but we pretend that we’re too poor to even maintain what our immigrant forefathers built and whine that we can’t afford it.

It’s baloney. We could easily afford it, but we think we have better things to do with our lives (and money). I’m sure I just made a lot of people mad who will sound off on how “judgemental” I am about them. Get over yourselves. Catholicism doesn’t work with American individualism. It works when we see ourselves as the body of Christ. That’s how they did it back in the days of Know-Nothing America and we could easily do it the same way today if we had that sort of unity. But we don’t. We each look out for #1 first. Contraception IS a big part of that.

 

[CradleJourney]

The problem may be not so much contraception - but the lack of value we (as a society) place on having children. This seemed to be hinted at in the article and this I agree with.

I deal daily with the reality that this culture is supportive of the idea that you can/should/must only have the number of children you can afford (with the cost of what’s ‘needed’ increasing constantly), while opposing the idea of having the number of children you think you can afford - and having a supportive community step in when there are unexpected or unforeseen costs that exceed your ability.

Ex. Gas is very expensive. Our budget is very tight. Son now rides his bike 10 miles round trip to get back and forth to the high school for conditioning because parents (around here) fundamentally dislike the idea of car-pooling (considered a major bother and very low-class). One group will read that and agree that it’s wonderful he rides, good for the environment, promotes independence, they did it in their day, etc. Another group however, equally loud, will criticize - how could I let him ride so far without supervision? And past registered sex-offender houses? On narrow busy roads? Without a cell phone?!? Cleary I am endangering his safety and health (and trust me, I worry every day he does it).

So did I have too many kids (if I’d had one less then there’d be money for this)? Or because my child is one of six, he doesn’t deserve to play sports since we’re not wealthy? Or is it so wrong to think that a bike lane built alongside the narrow road or a school supportive of carpooling is out of line? See - things like that are where society can become more supportive of children as a whole - and make things better for families of all sizes.

Note: I just picked the first example that popped in my head. I have literally hundreds of others (Another quick example - our city recently limited us to using only “their” trashcans - and each house gets only one. If we want another one it’s $65. If we want to recycle it’s an additional monthly fee. Would it have been so expensive to allow for a second trashcan for residences with more than 5 people? Or to allow people to buy a similar style from a different vendor at a lower cost?)

Thus, my contention that society is more and more intolerant of those with more than one or two children whether conception is used or not, and I’d like to see him address that issue more clearly than simply implying that conception only is the issue.

 

[Country_Gal]

The problem may be not so much contraception - but the lack of value we (as a society) place on having children. This seemed to be hinted at in the article and this I agree with.

I deal daily with the reality that this culture is supportive of the idea that you can/should/must only have the number of children you can afford (with the cost of what’s ‘needed’ increasing constantly), while opposing the idea of having the number of children you think you can afford - and having a supportive community step in when there are unexpected or unforeseen costs that exceed your ability.

Ex. Gas is very expensive. Our budget is very tight. Son now rides his bike 10 miles round trip to get back and forth to the high school for conditioning because parents (around here) fundamentally dislike the idea of car-pooling (considered a major bother and very low-class). One group will read that and agree that it’s wonderful he rides, good for the environment, promotes independence, they did it in their day, etc. Another group however, equally loud, will criticize - how could I let him ride so far without supervision? And past registered sex-offender houses? On narrow busy roads? Without a cell phone?!? Cleary I am endangering his safety and health (and trust me, I worry every day he does it).

So did I have too many kids (if I’d had one less then there’d be money for this)? Or because my child is one of six, he doesn’t deserve to play sports since we’re not wealthy? Or is it so wrong to think that a bike lane built alongside the narrow road or a school supportive of carpooling is out of line? See - things like that are where society can become more supportive of children as a whole - and make things better for families of all sizes.

Note: I just picked the first example that popped in my head. I have literally hundreds of others (Another quick example - our city recently limited us to using only “their” trashcans - and each house gets only one. If we want another one it’s $65. If we want to recycle it’s an additional monthly fee. Would it have been so expensive to allow for a second trashcan for residences with more than 5 people? Or to allow people to buy a similar style from a different vendor at a lower cost?)

Thus, my contention that society is more and more intolerant of those with more than one or two children whether conception is used or not, and I’d like to see him address that issue more clearly than simply implying that conception only is the issue.

Well stated:thumbsup:

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

It seems terribly off because he remembers a world that you apparently never experienced and cannot imagine.

I’m juuuuust old enough to remember glimpses of that world. I also knew, and went to public school with, many kids that had 4-14 siblings (mostly Irish or Polish Catholic).

Note that I said I went to “public” school with them. Why? The parents had too many kids and couldn’t afford to send, say, a dozen kids to private school at the same time. They bought the clothes at thrift shops, and were happy if they had enough money left over to put food on the table. One of my very best friends had strict Catholic parents. Two parents, five kids, all in a small two bedroom home. The parents had one bedroom, the sister had her own private bedroom, and the brothers slept in bunkbeds on the the front porch. Catholic school for them? Are you kidding me???

I actually had a lot of friends that went to Catholic school. The vast majority of them were middle class with small families; 2-4 kids. They could afford to send them to school back then, unlike the larger families. Today, even those same smaller families would be unlikely to send their kids to school, given the very high real estate taxes (the vast majority of which are school taxes), the much higher home prices relative to income, and the significantly higher state and other taxes relative to the past.

While other areas may be different, here the main reason is economic. If youire making $100,000 a year with a wife and two kids, you’re just getting by. Private school, Catholic or otherwise, is a luxury.

 

[manualman]

I’m juuuuust old enough to remember glimpses of that world. I also knew, and went to public school with, many kids that had 4-14 siblings (mostly Irish or Polish Catholic).

Based on the rest of your post, youre aren’t old enough then. In the thriving days, they simply didn’t turn people away due to money issues. They didn’t have to.

I went to catholic schools with kids whose family was fed off government cheese and powdered milk. The pastor waived their tuition, but the family volunteered to cut grass and tend flower beds at the parish. They didn’t just take, they gave to the best of their ability.

What this priest gets that many people don’t is that contraception does MORE than just prevent conception. It causes (or arguably the desire for it is an effect of) selfishness that spreads throughout the soul. All those selfish attitudes in society these days that undermine generous parenthood didn’t arise in a vacuum. Contraceptive mentality is a part of all that.

My favorite soapbox: Sins aren’t just actions on an arbitrary list, folks. Sins are things that DAMAGE us and others. Contraception is a sin. It damages the human soul and that damage manifests in many and surprising ways (just like all other sins do).