Last weekend while I was at Notre Dame, a priest acknowledged that a homily in a Catholic Church about contraception is typically rare. But the New York Times, of all places, highlights a good friend of mine today who actually does talk about just that, in the most humane and practical and pastoral ways:
As a priest, Father Landry has tried, gently, to lead couples away from contraception. “I know from their having told me that many of the couples here have stopped contracepting,” Father Landry said. “In terms of the numbers, it’s probably between 15 and 20 couples who have explicitly told me that.”
Father Landry gets his message across in several ways. First, he talks to engaged couples about their plans for a family. To facilitate that conversation, he gives them a questionnaire.
“The last question,” Father Landry said, “is always ‘Are you planning to have children? Are you planning to start right away after you’re married?’ The vast majority of couples answer, ‘Yes, we definitely want to have children, but we want to wait two or three years.’ ”
The priest asks if they are aware of church teaching about contraception. “Shockingly, 50 percent of the couples that I prepare for marriage have never heard that the church teaches about contraception,” he said.
Father Landry also gives sermons on contraception, something very few priests do. He says he relies on Pope John Paul II’s argument against contraception, which he summarizes. “That God has made us fundamentally for love,” Father Landry said, “and that marriage is supposed to help us to love for real. In order for that to happen, we need to totally give ourselves over to someone else in love, and receive the other’s total self in love.
“What happens in the use of contraception, rather than embracing us totally as God made the other, with the masculine capacity to become a dad, or the feminine capacity to become a mom, we reject that paternal and maternal leaning.”
Father Landry argues that contraception can be the gateway to exploitation: “When that petition is made for contraception, it’s going to make pleasure the point of the act, and any time pleasure becomes the point rather than the fruit of the act, the other person becomes the means to that end. And we’re actually going to hurt the people we love.”
Many non-Catholics — and many Catholics — see the church’s teaching on contraception as cruel toward women. But Father Landry says it’s women who intuitively get how divorcing sex from procreation allows men to use them; in his experience, it is almost always the woman who moves a couple toward abandoning artificial contraception.
“They have a lot of times experienced having been used in their marriage or their previous relationship,” Father Landry said.
After Mass, during the coffee hour in the church basement, parishioners expressed a range of views on the pastor’s teachings.
One couple with grown children agreed that if they had benefited from Father Landry’s teachings years ago, they would have had more children. “We definitely would not have used contraception,” the wife said, “not if we had it to do over again.”
It is the Obama administration that forced this conversation we are having about contraception, by violating the religious liberty of those of us who have a moral problem with contraception, sterilization, and abortion. The upside of the current coercion are opportunities like this piece — to explore what the Catholic Church actually teaches. It is a moment for clarification — and catechesis for the faithful — in the face of caricaturizations.
Using the churches own logic, I don't see the difference between using artificial contraceptives and say using the rhythm method. Both are designed to divorce sex from procreation and focus on the pleasure of the act. I can see a distinction between using hormones and surgeries that might impact your health versus something less invasive like condoms.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse“When that petition is made for contraception, it’s going to make pleasure the point of the act, and any time pleasure becomes the point rather than the fruit of the act, the other person becomes the means to that end. And we’re actually going to hurt the people we love.”
Like a lot of Catholic school arguments, sounds thoughtful, but bears very little resemblance to what actually goes on between two people in a healthy marriage— good sex free from worry of pregnancy being not an obstacle but one of the key contributors to a healthy marriage.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAh, yes, "free from worry." It is worry itself that drives married couples to contracept in the first place: worry about self--loss of career, finances, costs, inconvenience. When two people are focused on the selves to the point of excluding children, I dare say their marriage--or their sex life--isn't as healthy as it looks. "Free from worry" is really "controlled by worry."
There's a funny thing that often happens to married couples when contraception fails, or they have that unexpected child. They find out that all the horribles behind that worry never actually happen; or if they do happen, they turn out to by not so horrible. The kids turn out to be pretty great to have around, and they somehow get fed and educated, and often turn into reasonably good and happy adults. Often because they have two parents who figured out that their "selves" weren't actually all that important after all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf you view "good sex free from worry of pregnancy being not an obstacle but one of the key contributors to a healthy marriage", then logic suggests your "healthy" marriage will dissolve if the pill fails you (and trust me on this one - the pill fails a lot more often than people think). Will it be a choice between abortion vs. divorce? What will you do when you realize that the choice between self-will versus trusting God is not a "Catholic school argument", but rather the very essence of Christianity?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry, but when the moral issues you have are based on superstition, invisible all-powerful beings and old religious writings, I simply cannot muster any respect for them.
You would be wise to keep them to youself.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGlad to hear you stating flat-out that you have a moral problem with contraception. You go, girl!
Now if only the rest of the contributors would do the same -- and start coming out against Mitt Romney because of the same anti-religious-liberty policy concerning contraception that he put in place in Massachusetts.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes, please keep preaching that Republicans want to get married couples to stop using contraception. Please please please shout this from the mountaintops, and nominate Santorum and have him spend hours lecturing about it during campaign stops. If there's one thing that could get Obama reelected no matter what happens, this is it, so please, please, keep it up.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAlso...one is very amused to have Catholic Priests and Ms. Lopez (people who have never been married, and if they've held to their morals, never had sex) lecturing the rest of us on healthy marital and sexual relationships.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI don't think there is reasonable expectation of freedom from being lectured on topics you forbid on a blog that you come to and read.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'd also like to encourage Mr Santorum to keep claiming that modern America has been deluded by a grand Satanic plot, as he implied a few years ago in a recently printed speech. That will really appeal to rational, open-minded people. Catholic Review Online can even help publicize his comments.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI appreciate what the Catholic Church is getting at. However, in terms of married couples specifically, natural family planning is not very effective at NOT getting you pregnant, even with today's technology. And like a good conservatarian I believe it's wrong for people to have babies they can't afford. If a couple who is married has decided that perhaps they want to spend 2 or 3 years building on their relationship as a married couple before having kids, what's wrong with that. Or perhaps they are not financially ready to have children yet. Perhaps they are going to save up some money so that the wife can stay at home with the children. In other words, it's a nice sentiment, but doesn't line up with reality.
And is it better to keep having babies when it is a risk to your health as well as to the child you are trying to have? Look at the Duggards - the last baby she had was risky and they could have lost her and the baby. She tried again and I think she miscarried. I don't begrudge them the 19 they already have. They haven't come to the public welfare trough, that's for sure. But still.
I also remember a story of a family my mother knew in England - Polish refugees (as is my mother) - the woman had like 10 children and after that 10th one the doctor said if she has one more it will kill her. When as sure as God made green apples, they had one more and she died. And now there was a widower with 11 children and no mother.
Now I'm pretty darn sure the Church also teaches that putting an end to having babies is also okay, especially if you have consulted your husband, priest and doctor, etc. I know the Church does respect decisions based on conscience. I'm not saying the Church demands that we have babies even if it kills us. I'm just pointing out that the sentiment is nice to teach, but again, it doesn't measure up to the realities of it.
As far as depersonalizing the sex between married couples - I think that has less to do with contraception and more to do with who you are married to. I married a man who ultimately believed that I needed to give him sex whenever he asked for it and if I didn't, then he would go elsewhere. I hardly think contraception was the issue. It was his sheer selfishness that was the problem because that selfishness manifested itself in other ways. Obviously we are now in the middle of a divorce. Frankly, I wish the Church (I'm Catholic and we married in the Church even though he was not Catholic or religious at all) had spent more time with Pre-Cana stuff. A good marriage counselor really grilling a couple before marriage would have exposed the doubts I had pushed down.
The only downside to that would be that I wouldn't have my 2 beautiful daughters. :-D They are my hope and my joy.
If you marry a man who really loves you, who understands what love is, who understands what compromise and sacrifice are, who takes his vows seriously, then contraception will not be a problem. From what I've heard in non-detailed accounts, my parents used contraception and my parents couldn't have loved or respected each other more. Hollywood couldn't have written and produced their love story.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow can you have these beliefs and experiences and square that with remaining a member of the Catholic Church and (presumably) a member of a political party that embraces members who have been engaging in a stealth campaign to make contraception illegal, and who would like to make divorce much more difficult to get, if not illegal as well?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBecause Catholicism isn't contraception and it isn't about priests and pedophilia. It's about some basic beliefs like the Immaculate Conception (which is not Jesus by the way; it refers to his mother Mary, born without Original Sin), Jesus as the Son of God, the Eucharist, etc.
And again, if you know anything about the Church, it doesn't excommunicate you for using birth control. It preaches against it, encourages people NOT to use it, but still respects people making a decision of conscience to use it.
Heck, people don't even get excommunicated for having abortions. They go to confession and probably get a good earful. But they are not excommunicated.
I may not agree with the Church on its blanket expression of sex and contraception. I can see where it can be like that - sort of impersonal and just about the pleasure and nothing else - but I know from just one experience - MINE - that the Church's view is a blanket one. It's a nice place to start a discussion, to be sure. It certainly helps couples stay aware of their physical relationship and their spiritual relationship. If things feel impersonal, perhaps the removal of the contraception might help, or perhaps something else is goingn on.
You seem to think that the Church has more authority over its flock than it really does. This isn't the 12th century. The Church can help to influence, but no more than that.
Individual Catholics might want to ban contraception and abortion and divorce, but what are the real chances of that actually happening? I don't feel threatened because someone else has an opinion that is different from my own (I am pro-life btw).
There is a much better chance that we'll get sharia by stealth than we'll ever become a Catholic or Christian theocracy.
BTW - what "stealth campaign" are you referring to as far as banning contraception. I've not heard anyone talk about actually trying to pass that law. Just because someone else doesn't want to pay for someone else's birth control doesn't mean they want to ban it. Perhaps you should see Glenn Reynold's very funny comment in that regard regarding Muslims and selling bacon.
You want to engage in risky behavior, pay for the protection yourself.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAlso - I wish you and your daughter's well, and thank you for sharing your story with people who need to hear it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThanks for your kind thoughts. I didn't write what I did to change anybody's pointn of view, by the way. I think most people who are Catholic and not Catholic can appreciate where the Church is coming from - they are trying to bolster marriages, teach people love and respect within that marriage. Frankly, after having just gone through what I have, I would have appreciated some serious pre-Cana classes and even some help during the marriage. Although I know it would have been all one sided - I'm the only one that wanted to work on it. I was the only one that loved unconditionally. I wasn't perfect and made my mistakes. But at least I could admit to them and want to fix them.
Anyway, all I was trying to say was that problems in marriage, in the bedroom, are not all about contraception. It could be that contraception can contribute to a certain amount of coldness about the act. But more often than not, I think it's the person, not the contraception.
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