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To: Kerretarded

Dear Kerretarded,

"You know what though, God being all-knowing, the fertile-infertile cycle WAS probably by design to allow for humans to still maintain a bit of choice."

This suggests that perhaps you believe that Catholic teaching is that human beings may not legitimately exercise any choice whatsoever in the matter of child-bearing. This would be an incorrect conclusion.

In reading Humanae Vitae, one will find that the Church requires human discernment and judgment on the part of married persons in this matter. Humans aren't mere animals, and married women aren't mere baby machines. While being open to life, and having an attitude of generosity to new little persons, Catholic couples aren't required to churn out as many babies as physically possible. That's a bad and false stereotype of Catholic teaching.

Part of the difficulty of this teaching is that its discussion is warped by the question of artificial contraception. Part of the difficulty is that the focus is on means, rather than on ends. This leads to the conversation getting wrapped around the axle of moral means, and winds up making the means the ends.

I'm going to go back to the analogy of eating. It works for me on a lot of levels.

I've always had to battle my weight. Pretty much all my life. So, to me, "food" always raises in my mind the word "diet," as in "eating less to lose weight."

Only in recent years have I come to realize how darned distorted that is.

Eating is first about survival. If you don't eat, you don't survive, at least not for very long (although I could go longer than most ;-) ). There is also a component of pleasure to eating (just ask me!). Ideally, these two aspects exist in harmony. One is encouraged to eat in part because it is a pleasurable experience. When one eats properly, good things happen.

But it's about balance. If one eats too little, one's health will fail, and eventually one will die. If one eats too much, one's health may fail from that, as well.

But again, ideally, it's to be hoped that one will naturally achieve this balance without too much worry or through great effort. My father-in-law was such a man. He ate as much as he wanted, and then no more. He maintained balance, almost effortlessly. When he turned about 40, he noticed he was putting on a few pounds, so he cut back a little at lunch. He discerned the appropriate action to keep balance.

But he wasn't all-consumed with his diet. He ate what he liked, and enjoyed it. His nature was to eat in moderation, and thus he enjoyed a healthy, normal, stable weight his whole life. When things got a little out of balance, he was able to address it with a modest change to his natural habits.

He didn't approach the question of what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat from the artificial question of what we call "dieting," but from the more normal approach of keeping things in balance, enjoying what is good in moderation, and using one's judgment to keep good balance.

Translated to the topic of sex and marriage and children, the analogous attitude is that two persons will marry, and will delight in marital relations! And delight with what children God sends their way!

But perhaps after a few years of marriage, the woman might say, "Husband, we're so blessed with our three children! But three in five years has me feeling like the harder I run, the more behind I get."

And the husband might reply, "My beautiful wife, maybe we should pray about this and discern whether we should take a little pause. What do you think?"

"I think that's a wonderful idea," she replies. And they pray. Also, the husband encourages his wife to see the doctor to make sure that there are no underlying health problems, and he makes a note to be more attentive to her, and try to assist her more with their children.

And they decide to avoid pregnancy for a couple of years or so, but nonetheless, submit their judgment to God's, and thus do nothing that subverts their own natural functions.

Like someone who may be otherwise healthy but needing to lose a few pounds, they moderate a behavior in such a way as to get things back in balance. Nonetheless, they don't use means that are intrinsically evil.

After a few years, as the children get to school age, and are now at a point where they can assist with chores around the house, the couple prayerfully decide that they've postponed any future children long enough.

A few more children come their way over the course of another seven or eight years, the couple taking a bit of a time-out after each child is born, as the wife ages and needs a little more of a rest between little fellows. Except for the surprise of little Marie, who came almost precisely a year after her brother - she just couldn't wait to get here.

And then the children cease to come. Well, she's 40, she's had six children - blessings all - but perhaps natural fertility is waning. The couple are perhaps a little disappointed - they'd sort of always dreamt of being able to field their own baseball team with maybe one or two relief pitchers in the bullpen - but no efforts are made to try to grasp at further fertility.

The couple accept that God thought that six was what they could handle. And concern themselves little about tracking cycles, etc.

And then, four or five years later, the wife awakens one morning, sick as a dog, in a way that occurred six times previously to her. She and her husband celebrate that night their unanticipated joy.


sitetest


20 posted on 03/19/2007 9:50:50 AM PDT by sitetest (If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
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To: sitetest
This suggests that perhaps you believe that Catholic teaching is that human beings may not legitimately exercise any choice whatsoever in the matter of child-bearing. This would be an incorrect conclusion.

In reading Humanae Vitae, one will find that the Church requires human discernment and judgment on the part of married persons in this matter. Humans aren't mere animals, and married women aren't mere baby machines. While being open to life, and having an attitude of generosity to new little persons, Catholic couples aren't required to churn out as many babies as physically possible. That's a bad and false stereotype of Catholic teaching.


I found your analogy helpful in understanding that we do have a choice, have been given intrinsically good ways of regulating conception and that God has made it possible through the fertility cycle to have that choice. And I have never viewed a Catholic marriage as a sentence to churn out babies.

The spot at which I no longer found your analogy helpful is when you began to talk about finding a balance with having children as though the baby machine can be turned on when we want and off when we want. Through personal experience, this isn't the case. Your plan and God's plan sometimes differ. And for me, it isn't a matter of finding a balance. It is more a medical suggestion. Believe me, my wife and I would be ecstatic with every conception, although her doctors have HIGHLY recommended that she not have any more or risk death. When do you take such advice into consideration? Do I simply shrug it off until that possible conception becomes a reality and my wife and I are faced with choosing between her life and the baby's life? Or do I heed the advice and take steps to ensure that no further conception can take place for the sake of my wife and our existing family? To what extent can one exercise choice? And I know what you are going to say. You can exercise this choice in intrinsically good ways only. Thank you for your assistance, but I believe that this is one question that I will have to solve myself.
25 posted on 03/19/2007 10:39:02 AM PDT by Eagle of Liberty (The United States of America is the only country strong enough to go it alone.)
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