The Protestant taint in American Catholicism that nobody is talking about

[St_Francis]

Am I misreading your comment?

My intent… I wanted to show that this way of thinking, that married couples should discern if they are called to have large families, would imply that for centuries people were sinning by having large families without discerning if they were called to that–clearly, as you point out, a silly position.

The line of thinking Longing Soul suggests here is one I have encountered elsewhere–it is a among certain Catholics.

How could they possibly have been sinning not to use something that required new technological knowledge to attain? It is like suggesting someone is accusing them of sinning for not using cell phones. Obviously not. The person is simply suggesting that using cellphones is not itself immoral; in this case, the suggestion is that choosing not to have children by using NFP is not in itself immoral.

 

[St_Francis]

Once you start thinking like that, how far back in Christian history should we go to find the perfect model of family? In the first century women never worked and were all stay at home family raisers. Some might suggest the Holy Family didn’t set a good example of Christian family only having one child.

This is not really responding to what I am saying, which is that the attitude of families’ needing to “discern” if they are “called” to a certain size of family–because discerning if they are called to a large one will end up meaning that they discern a number or size they are called to–doesn’t work as an idea because it’s inconsistent. Suppose they discern a call to a small family and God keeps sending them more?

I’m not saying there’s some ideal that everyone should aspire to, iust that the idea that families should “discern” this is not only illogical, but could lead to an expansion of thr problem the OP is talking about: Obviously they were called to have only a small fsmily since God did not send the financial resources for a large family, so they should not have had so many children.

In first century Rome 25% of children died in the first year and 50% before age 10. That sort of statistic would naturally influence the social mentality towards family size. After major wars there is a social trend towards larger families.

Women in the workforce is considered a positive thing for civilisation and the growth of equality between the sexes and the rights and protections for children. If every woman were to leave the workforce and return to the home to large families and less modern conveniences, do you really think equality, access to medical care and children having childhoods before being forced into the workforce could remain?

I think this is a very large question which woudl require 2 or 3 separate threads, so I will just say that my being against the particular idea you proposed in no way means I have any problem with the idea of parents using NFP to limit or increase their family size. I think that a familiy’s decisions are between them and God, not to be considered by other people.

The Church is convinced enough that nature and social society are in tune enough with human survival and wellbeing, that the decision about family sizes should be left strictly to the couples involved without undue influence from ideological bullying.

Right, and I see the idea of discerning a call to a large family as first, some new requirement, and second, another way in which ideological bullying could occur.

 

[Edmundus1581]

"Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called “indications,” may exempt husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life.” - Address to Midwives. Pope Pius XII

That’s a great quote on this subject! Occasionally (but not too often), I encounter traditionalists who are vehement that NFP is not to be used for such reasons.

 

[Xantippe]

I do not agree with this at all. For 1800 years, people did not even know that there were feetile and infertile times, much less the details of NFP. People accepted the children God sent them. Now we all of a sudden have to “discern” if we are “called” to have x-number of children? Were all those who lived through the 18 preceeding centuries sinning?

ISTM that we just live in a time which does not value and prioritize family and family life, and as a result, we are pressured to have fewer children by society, economics, etc.

People in the past knew darn well what caused babies and in case of necessity, at least a percentage were capable of not doing it.

I think one thing that has changed in modern times is that there’s much more of a sense of entitlement to marital sex than there ever was before (although there have always been selfish individuals). I think that every time I see somebody online refer to having sex once a month as a “sexless marriage” or every time I see some guy whining about only once a week.

 

[Abide_in_Love]

A word to the wise, I would delete this thread and start another one with a more appropriate title. There are a lot of Protestant members on CAF who will most likely not take kindly to the “protestant taint” in your title. As it is, the title makes it appear as if the purpose of the thread is to stir up strife. Imagine if you were on a Protestant forum and you saw a thread entitled “Catholic taint in American Protestantism that is not being talked about”. I doubt you would like it.

Protestantism is a heresy. Heresy taints the soul. It’s important to keep Catholicism free of Protestant elements. The reason why the phrase “Catholic taint” makes no sense is because Jesus founded the Catholic Church.

 

[St_Francis]

People in the past knew darn well what caused babies and in case of necessity, at least a percentage were capable of not doing it.

So do you think that every married couple in medieval times was “discerning” whether or not they were “called” to have a large family? For the most part, I doubt the question ever came up for them. They just had babies, and if they really needed to postpone or stop, they knew what they had to do.

I think one thing that has changed in modern times is that there’s much more of a sense of entitlement to marital sex than there ever was before (although there have always been selfish individuals). I think that every time I see somebody online refer to having sex once a month as a “sexless marriage” or every time I see some guy whining about only once a week.

Very interesting point! Do you think that people’s being exposed to a lot more sexual stimulation and role modeling has anything to do with that?

 

[TK421]

Catholic reproductive ethics is something I accepted with the attitude of, “This genuinely confuses me, but I accept that the Catholic Church is right because it isn’t possible for it be wrong about it unless the Catholic Church as a whole is fallible, which I’ve already been convinced can’t be true.” So it just falls down to me valuing the collective wisdom of the Church over my own meager & limited reasoning faculties.

I’ll just say this much: for the 1900+ years prior to the 20th century, people had lots of children not only because they might have loved children, but because it was economically advantageous for them to do so. Their kids worked, apprenticed, and overall were only an economic burden for the first several years before they started pulling their weight and then some, and then they were financial security for the parents in later years when they were old and feeble. So in addition to any supernatural charity that (hopefully) was at work within the heart & souls of the parents, large families were also a practical investment that paralleled the dignity & merit of parenthood.

Right now that longstanding reality has reversed itself, as the OP explained in his drawn-out example, and probably has a lot to do with why the protestant church collapsed on this issue in the 20th century. The answer to this? I have absolutely no idea. I’m just here, and hopefully somebody will post something insightful that I haven’t considered or wasn’t aware of. I need to start studying about this matter in my private time because it’s an intellectual pimple on my nose that I would rather be rid of. I am able to submit to what I don’t understand, and will do so for as long as my Savior sees fit, but it certainly isn’t very much fun.

 

[Xantippe]

Rather, I think it is simply a disconnect between Catholic social justice issues as they are practiced in America. From what I have observed, American Catholicism is just a little too friendly with the American attitude towards economics.

[snip]

The only way I can clarify what I’m getting at is to illustrate by example. Take a young, unwed Catholic couple who are sincere in their faith. They love each other. They are in their biological prime for procreation which means their sexual appetites for one another are very strong. This also means, by American standards, that they are unusually young for marriage. No matter, they know that society’s standards can be mistaken and they know that God has designed marriage to facilitate their sexuality in a holy way. They get married. They quickly have kids. They quickly have a lot of kids because they are sincere Catholics. They start to have money issues. The husband is a hard worker, but he is unfortunate enough to be a part of the majority of Americans who can work 60 hours a week and still not make enough money to support a large family. They talk to their priest. Their priest gives them permission to practice nfp. They meet with success in practicing nfp, but they have nevertheless managed to have two more children while trying to use nfp to indefinitely postpone further pregnancies. They try to share the emotional hardships that come with this with their Catholic friends, but they shockingly receive unspoken judgment from them. They can tell they think things like, “If you make so little money, then why did you have so many kids?” “Why did they get married so young without being first financially stable?”

They dare not apply for government assistance because even their Catholic friends don’t think anything positive about anyone on welfare. They know they will be looked at as lazy freeloaders and irresponsible, lustful people with no self-control even though the father works 60 hours a week and they are only following their religious convictions on sexuality.

They want to send their kids to a Catholic school, but they cannot afford it. They apply for scholarships to be eligible, but it is a very shame-based process and they are made to feel like they are being an inconvenience to everyone who can afford to pay their own way.

[snip]

So, they live out the remainder of their lives even being scorned by their Catholic friends who view them as lazy, irresponsible, and burdens to the more fortunate.

This is all very backwards and counterproductive thinking to the promotion of good Catholic sexual ethics in American society. And I am scandalized every time I see a total lack of effort to transform our economic culture to that which accompanies a right view of sexuality. An economic attitude that welcomes children as much as the individual couple are called to and one which won’t penalize young Catholic couples for trying to remain chaste and diligent in their faith.

I posted this to Traditional Catholicism only because no other forum seemed to fit and the Traditional Catholicism forum seems to deal a lot with Catholic culture in he context of American culture. I did not post this here because I think it’s an issue inherent with Catholics who prefer older Catholic praxis and the Latin Mass.

I haven’t caught up with the thread yet, but here are some thoughts:

–What is your “good” example of a country that is more suitable for biggish Catholic families? Obviously, there are special difficulties created by the unpredictability of medical insurance in the US, but at the same time, it isn’t obvious that even very prosperous Western European countries with lavish social spending are more suitable for biggish families. Here’s a quick rundown of the total fertility rates for a number of developed countries:

forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2012/10/16/warning-bell-for-developed-countries-declining-birth-rates/

Theoretically, there are all sorts of helpful things available for young families in those countries–in practice, it’s not that much fun to have a biggish family in Europe.

–The US is genuinely more convenient than many other developed countries for biggish families in some ways, for instance housing. It’s easier to comfortably and safely house a biggish family in the US than pretty much anywhere.
–Small consumer goods and food are very affordable here.

motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/01/america-food-spending-less

–Is the fact that Catholic school is so often out of reach a problem with American Catholicism or more a problem for American Catholics, caused by our national tradition of separation of church and state? I don’t think that it is caused by any ideological failing of Catholicism in America, but by the material reality that it usually takes a pretty good income to pay twice for school (once via property taxes for public schools, once for tuition for the school one actually uses), plus the established legal precedents for interpretation of the First Amendment.
–Quite a number of developed countries have state-supported Catholic schools, but there are obvious issues with that system, too. (My husband went to some–they were very similar to the public schools.)
–I think there is a lot of room for improvement with regard to what we tell young couples about marriage and children. To begin with, there is a lot of happy talk that doesn’t address the issue that you have raised–the fact that a low-income couple that marries and starts having children young and keeps having children at a steady clip is almost certain to hit an economic wall sooner or later and to hit it HARD. But there’s no novelty in that–that has pretty much always been the case.

I’ll follow up in a bit on what to tell young couples.

 

[Xantippe]

Here are some thoughts about more realistic things to tell young single Catholics:

–A lot of the stuff you may think of as being “worldly” or “materialistic” will start making a lot more sense to you when you have several children of your own.
–Limit student debt as much as you can. It will be very hard to deal with once you are married with a family.
–Don’t think, “I’ll pay off my debts/save money later.” You’ll have more expenses later. Pay off your debts and save now.
–Do a personal finance class.
–Make sure that your future spouse is financially prudent and make sure that you are in agreement with regard to such issues as quitting jobs without telling a spouse first, making large purchases without informing a spouse, borrowing money without telling a spouse, etc.
–Do a budget every single month. When you’re married, do a budget meeting with your spouse every month.
–Be moderate about wedding and honeymoon expenses.
–Don’t rush into a home purchase.
–Try to keep housing costs below 25% at all times.
–Carry all appropriate forms of insurance if at all possible.
–Breastfeeding NFP is very difficult and confusing. Get some practice with NFP in a lower stakes environment.
–Once you have children, you’re suddenly going to be much poorer than you were previously. Don’t be surprised.
–Don’t go in assuming you’ll be able to homeschool all of your children. That may not be a good fit for some of your kids personality-wise, or they may have special needs that can be more effectively addressed in the public system.
–It’s not unlikely that at least one of your children is going to have special needs of some kind.

There’s some more practical advice here:

thepracticalconservative.wordpress.com/the-practical-conservative-guide-to-proper-care-and-feeding-of-a-sahm/

 

[Xantippe]

Very interesting point! Do you think that people’s being exposed to a lot more sexual stimulation and role modeling has anything to do with that?

I don’t know.

But I think that one thing that would have been more present to the minds of people in earlier eras was the dangerousness of sex. Before modern obstetrics, for every 100 babies that were born, 1 mother would die as a results of obstetrical complications. If a man loved his wife and his children, knowing that a few minutes of marital relations could kill his wife and orphan his children could definitely cool the ardor.

Likewise, even just the pain of his wife’s unmedicated childbirth could make an impression on the father. (There’s a passage from Anna Karenina where a young husband suffers while listening to his wife laboring–I can’t quite find a quote online, but it’s a famous passage.)

 

[St_Francis]

I don’t know.

But I think that one thing that would have been more present to the minds of people in earlier eras was the dangerousness of sex. Before modern obstetrics, for every 100 babies that were born, 1 mother would die as a results of obstetrical complications. If a man loved his wife and his children, knowing that a few minutes of marital relations could kill his wife and orphan his children could definitely cool the ardor.

Wouldn’t that pretty much rule out any babies being born except to couples which included a rather heartless husband?

Likewise, even just the pain of his wife’s unmedicated childbirth could make an impression on the father. (There’s a passage from Anna Karenina where a young husband suffers while listening to his wife laboring–I can’t quite find a quote online, but it’s a famous passage.)

Same question…

 

[Mort_Alz]

I haven’t caught up with the thread yet, but here are some thoughts:

–What is your “good” example of a country that is more suitable for biggish Catholic families? Obviously, there are special difficulties created by the unpredictability of medical insurance in the US, but at the same time, it isn’t obvious that even very prosperous Western European countries with lavish social spending are more suitable for biggish families. Here’s a quick rundown of the total fertility rates for a number of developed countries:

forbes.com/sites/currentevents/2012/10/16/warning-bell-for-developed-countries-declining-birth-rates/

Theoretically, there are all sorts of helpful things available for young families in those countries–in practice, it’s not that much fun to have a biggish family in Europe.

–The US is genuinely more convenient than many other developed countries for biggish families in some ways, for instance housing. It’s easier to comfortably and safely house a biggish family in the US than pretty much anywhere.
–Small consumer goods and food are very affordable here.

motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/01/america-food-spending-less

–Is the fact that Catholic school is so often out of reach a problem with American Catholicism or more a problem for American Catholics, caused by our national tradition of separation of church and state? I don’t think that it is caused by any ideological failing of Catholicism in America, but by the material reality that it usually takes a pretty good income to pay twice for school (once via property taxes for public schools, once for tuition for the school one actually uses), plus the established legal precedents for interpretation of the First Amendment.
–Quite a number of developed countries have state-supported Catholic schools, but there are obvious issues with that system, too. (My husband went to some–they were very similar to the public schools.)
–I think there is a lot of room for improvement with regard to what we tell young couples about marriage and children. To begin with, there is a lot of happy talk that doesn’t address the issue that you have raised–the fact that a low-income couple that marries and starts having children young and keeps having children at a steady clip is almost certain to hit an economic wall sooner or later and to hit it HARD. But there’s no novelty in that–that has pretty much always been the case.

I’ll follow up in a bit on what to tell young couples.

You’re completely misunderstanding my post. There’s no need to defend America’s economic system as I’m not attacking it. I’m not knowledgeable enough to try to criticize an economic system.

I’m just pointing out that it’s unfair to be upset as a Catholic at a struggling Catholic family with many children because they “shouldn’t have had so many kids.” They are, after all, morally bound to only use nfp or abstinence to prevent pregnancy; and a young couple trying to remain chaste are likely not going to abstain (I refer again to 1 Corinthians 7:9). And nfp is more difficult for some than for others and has equally differing levels of success for each couple.

 

[Xantippe]

Wouldn’t that pretty much rule out any babies being born except to couples which included a rather heartless husband?

Same question…

Well, it might at least make one less eager to roll the dice.

And on the mother’s side, there might be similar effects.

If I’d had to have all of my children unmedicated, even with no NFP, I don’t know that I’d have more than I have today. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t.

 

[Xantippe]

You’re completely misunderstanding my post. There’s no need to defend America’s economic system as I’m not attacking it. I’m not knowledgeable enough to try to criticize an economic system.

I’m just pointing out that it’s unfair to be upset as a Catholic at a struggling Catholic family with many children because they “shouldn’t have had so many kids.” They are, after all, morally bound to only use nfp or abstinence to prevent pregnancy; and a young couple trying to remain chaste are likely not going to abstain (I refer again to 1 Corinthians 7:9). And nfp is more difficult for some than for others and has equally differing levels of success for each couple.

How often are practicing Catholics upset at struggling practicing Catholics with large families?

Not that often, I think. I think there would need to be an extra element–for instance physical abuse, medical neglect, educational neglect, etc.

I still think that it’s important that you haven’t really demonstrated that there is a developed country where it is easy and socially acceptable to have a large family. It certainly wouldn’t be easy in Japan, for instance.

 

[Mort_Alz]

How often are practicing Catholics upset at struggling practicing Catholics with large families?

Not that often, I think. I think there would need to be an extra element–for instance physical abuse, medical neglect, educational neglect, etc.

I still think that it’s important that you haven’t really demonstrated that there is a developed country where it is easy and socially acceptable to have a large family. It certainly wouldn’t be easy in Japan, for instance.

It comes up a lot whenever those couples are having doubts about nfp and are looking for emotional support during those times when they hit those economic walls you spoke about. Very often, the response is judgment when those Catholics they’re seeking answers from don’t know how to answer. The easy answer is to just blame the couple. And that’s shameful behavior coming from Catholics.

It’s not important that I haven’t demonstrated a country where it would be easy to have a large family because I never claimed there was such a country. And I never really criticized America for being a difficult country in which to have a large family. I think you’re assuming I’m trying to push for more social spending by using a back door Catholic platform. That’s not at all what I’m doing. I’m just saying that shaming poor people by defaulting to an assumption that it’s their own fault is an archaic moral mistake that ESPECIALLY Catholics should know better than to make; and it is doubly wrong for Catholics to blame young married couples for having too many kids when their religion demands either abstinence or a very difficult method (in some cases) for limiting family size.

It doesn’t HAVE to be socially acceptable to have a large family in secular society, but shaming a couple for having a lot of children should not come from Catholics.

 

[St_Francis]

How often are practicing Catholics upset at struggling practicing Catholics with large families?

Not that often, I think. I think there would need to be an extra element–for instance physical abuse, medical neglect, educational neglect, etc.

I still think that it’s important that you haven’t really demonstrated that there is a developed country where it is easy and socially acceptable to have a large family. It certainly wouldn’t be easy in Japan, for instance.

Until the early 1960s, the USA was a developed nation in which it was socially acceptable to have a large family. Easy, I think, may be too relative a term to quantify

 

[Xantippe]

Until the early 1960s, the USA was a developed nation in which it was socially acceptable to have a large family. Easy, I think, may be too relative a term to quantify

I’m not sure that we can date it so late. Cheaper by the Dozen is set in the 1910s and 1920s, and even then, a family of a dozen children was viewed as remarkable and evoked a lot of public comments. That was the part of the point of the book–it was an unusual situation, even for the time.

And even a smaller big family might still evoke comment into the 1930s. One of my family stories is of my grandma and her seven or so siblings and parents driving through some town during the Depression (they were a Dust Bowl family) and some local wit yelling at them, “Where are the rest of you?” My grandma was so embarrassed!

 

[Xantippe]

It comes up a lot whenever those couples are having doubts about nfp and are looking for emotional support during those times when they hit those economic walls you spoke about. Very often, the response is judgment when those Catholics they’re seeking answers from don’t know how to answer. The easy answer is to just blame the couple. And that’s shameful behavior coming from Catholics.

It’s not important that I haven’t demonstrated a country where it would be easy to have a large family because I never claimed there was such a country. And I never really criticized America for being a difficult country in which to have a large family. I think you’re assuming I’m trying to push for more social spending by using a back door Catholic platform. That’s not at all what I’m doing. I’m just saying that shaming poor people by defaulting to an assumption that it’s their own fault is an archaic moral mistake that ESPECIALLY Catholics should know better than to make; and it is doubly wrong for Catholics to blame young married couples for having too many kids when their religion demands either abstinence or a very difficult method (in some cases) for limiting family size.

It doesn’t HAVE to be socially acceptable to have a large family in secular society, but shaming a couple for having a lot of children should not come from Catholics.

I’m not sure that criticizing people for having had too many children actually is happening in real life from practicing Catholics that do NFP themselves.

CAF has one of everything Catholic and is not always perfectly polite, and I still don’t think that you ever see anybody being criticized for “having too many children.” Advice on that front is almost entirely confined to what you can do NOW, versus what you should have done. (I’ve been on a lot of those threads.)

I’m probably the biggest practicing Catholic large family skeptic on CAF and I have literally never told anybody that they had too many children. When I say “large family skeptic” I mean that the large family gets pushed as a model without enough attention to what the possible downsides and obstacles are and without enough attention to individual circumstances. One of the places that I think people go wrong on CAF is by having such high standards for when NFP is acceptable–a number of people want you to wait until there’s a genuine crisis on hand before even starting to look into NFP, which is not a recipe for success. I would argue that with a lower income family, they have a serious reason for NFP pretty much from the get go. (And no, “serious reasons” doesn’t mean that one MUST abstain, it means that one may abstain–a lot of people seem to be confused about that.)

 

[LongingSoul]

It comes up a lot whenever those couples are having doubts about nfp and are looking for emotional support during those times when they hit those economic walls you spoke about. Very often, the response is judgment when those Catholics they’re seeking answers from don’t know how to answer. The easy answer is to just blame the couple. And that’s shameful behavior coming from Catholics.

The scenarios you are giving are just too vague. It comes over to me as projecting some sort of resentment with the Church onto other Catholics randomly. It would help if you gave a specific example of a situation where a Catholic spoke to another Catholic and in return got that response. For example, “I asked to borrow money from a Catholic friend and they got annoyed and said I have too many kids”. Having a specific scenario to demonstrate this Catholic attitude would be helpful.

 

[Xantippe]

The scenarios you are giving are just too vague. It comes over to me as projecting some sort of resentment with the Church onto other Catholics randomly. It would help if you gave a specific example of a situation where a Catholic spoke to another Catholic and in return got that response. For example, “I asked to borrow money from a Catholic friend and they got annoyed and said I have too many kids”. Having a specific scenario to demonstrate this Catholic attitude would be helpful.

Yes.

I think that you’re much more likely to hear that from a conservative Protestant, normal mainstream American, or pick-and-choose Catholic than from an actual NFP-using, Mass going Catholic. (Although, I’m prepared to believe that people may occasionally hear annoying things from NFP instructors. But the NFP instructors would be more likely to say, “You should have skipped Day 19” rather than “You have too many kids.”)

I also think that one thing the example in the OP misses is that young couples often go splat a lot earlier than at the point where people would say, “You have too many kids.” People can and do struggle and go into crisis with one, two, or three children.

Edited to add: The good news is that a lot of times, they can come out of crisis within a matter of weeks or months. People do that on CAF all the time.