1ke–thank you for giving me the resource to check out!
Obviously the birth control issue is a big deal to those that follow the Catholic faith as evidenced by some of the responses on here. I have been listening to Catholic radio and maybe should have expected the strong responses more based on what I had heard!
I understand that many forms of birth control represent new technology, so it would make sense that humanity at large in addition to the Church would have taken stronger stances on it in the last century or so. The newness of accepting birth control publically makes sense in light of better technology. NFP is a fairly new system, too, perhaps developed in response to the other forms. It was developed by Catholics, right, then spread to people who prefer natural forms of birth control?
I grew up in San Antonio, TX, which was founded by Catholic missionaries. Needless to say, it has a very old presence in the town, and there is a large population of Catholics. Many of them use birth control and have only 2-3 kids. They share that they are “done” having kids. These are people who are active and satisfied in their parishes, not only the (many) nominal Catholics I meet. I have met exactly one Catholic woman in my time as an adult there who is taking kids “as God gives her.” Most families I meet like that are Mormon.
My question: I understand this is a question that can be answered speculatively and has limitations. Please do not be mean in answering. I’m looking to get a Catholic perspective on what I’ve seen from outside, not trying to get at anyone. So, if God made up the strict rejection of all forms of birth control and having large families is a blessing/favorable, etc., why is it that many faithful and practicing Catholics who love God and their Church find it to not be so? If they did, they would do it.
Why do people sin?
God gave all kinds of rules, and every single one of us breaks them, often claiming good reason, and that “if God understood how hard it was, He’d be OK with it.”
But we as Christians do not simply inhabit the world of San Antonio (or the US, or the earth) in AD2016.
The question should not be (with respect), “If God’s teaching is right, why do so many Catholics reject it? If it were really right, they’d do it”. That’s not even really a logical syllogism (at least I don’t think so. Logic was never my strongest subject). Because God tells us to love our neighbor, and we SAY it’s right, but we don’t do it. So it can’t be our ‘doing it’ that makes it right, and thus makes God right. Things have to be right if they are of God, even if everybody says they are wrong, and things have to be wrong if God says they are wrong even if everybody says they are right, because God is Truth.
So, if God is saying this (and He is. We have everything from the Bible to the Didache to uninterrupted Catholic teaching AND the entire history of the world up until about 1930) is right, then even if the nicest people you know are rejecting it, then it doesn’t mean the teaching is wrong. It means (again, with respect), that the PEOPLE are wrong. That even if they get a lot of other teachings ‘right’, that is not what makes the teachings right themselves, that the people do them. The teachings are right even if nobody does them, or claims they are wrong. We have seen this throughout history. The Jews were a 'stiff necked people". So are we. We want very much to think that our saintly Auntie Claire, who volunteers at Planned Parenthood along with working in the Soup Kitchen, singing in the choir, sitting on the parish council, and who has helped us in thousands of ways, MUST be right in rejecting the Church’s teaching on contraception, because she is so nice, and because she accepts so many other teachings. But Auntie Claire, admirable Christian that she is, kind, decent, and loving, is wrong if she rejects the Church’s (which is God’s, and which until within the memory of some of our grandparents today was still ‘the Christian churches’) teachings on contraception.
You can be a very kind, decent, loving person and still misunderstand, make mistakes, etc. That doesn’t make you then unkind, rotten, and evil. It makes you a kind, decent, loving person who misunderstood something, and who has the choice to, when shown the error, correct the misunderstanding (I am using the ‘generic’ you, as an example. I am not saying you crystal personally here).
But as Kim Possible would say, “That’s the sitch.”
I feel really bad for women who get into bad health situations (mental with PPD or the many physical conditions) because of this who are met with very textbook “NFP or abstain” responses. Sure, there are women who have had good experiences with it, and I myself use NFP because I don’t want to go on hormones/my husband has a very low drive. I can see this being a serious source of heartache in marriages, even if the two parties get all the “mystical rewards” that are supposed to come with the Catholic life. Makes me sad.
