Same-sex marriage didn’t just happen.

July 13th, 2014

The first key step towards the acceptance of same-sex marriage was the societal acceptance of marital contraception by the Church of England in 1930.  The dissenting Anglican bishops pointed out to their fellow bishops (who approved it) that accepting marital contraception would lead logically to the acceptance of sodomy. The history of the Church of England has proved their correctness all too well.  Not only that, it led to the acceptance of sodomy by their own bishops.  That, in turn, led to the acceptance of sodomy within marriage.  It’s largely an unspoken subject, but heterosexual sodomy is practiced and even recommended.

I recall reading a book about pregnancy in which the author clearly recommended that the wife do oral copulation on her husband in the later months of pregnancy.  I have read a book on natural birth control in which the author clearly condemned anal copulation as unsanitary but also clearly recommended oral-genital copulation as a way of not having to abstain during the fertile time.  I think I remember a direct quote: “Try it; you’ll like it.”  A Catholic priest was in dialogue with this non-Catholic author, and she deleted that from her book.  When she later lectured at a conference, during the Q and A period I asked her if the change in her text represented a change in her thinking, and she said it did not.  Then she explained that she really didn’t understand the Catholic objection to this sort of thing.

The second huge step towards the acceptance of same-sex marriage came with the acceptance of no-fault divorce.  As Maggie Gallagher put it so well some years ago, the courts won’t let you get married for keeps.  Oh, we can still marry for keeps in the Catholic Church, but if one spouse says he or she wants out, the courts will allow it.  No arguments are needed.  As I have read many times that same-sex marriage will destroy or greatly harm traditional marriage, I have wondered if it can have any more deleterious effects than the societal acceptance of marital contraception and no-fault divorce.

So what can be done?  The war will be won only by fighting in the trenches.  That entails having every engaged couple participate in the right kind of preparation for marriage, and that includes the right kind of NFP instruction, the kind that is found almost exclusively in NFP International.  There was recently a discussion on the NFP professionals e-list in which it became clear that many, perhaps even most, NFP programs and teachers do not teach Catholic morality.  That is, they do not teach explicitly about the evil of masturbation and marital sodomy.  Teaching that you should “avoid genital contact” simply will not do.  It is all too open to a strictly pragmatic (avoiding pregnancy) interpretation.

If you would like to help your diocese do what it should be doing for the benefit of couples and the institution of marriage, encourage the diocese to offer an invitation to NFP International.

(Sheila: For more on this same topic, see John’s excellent commentary at www.johnkippley.com.)

John Kippley
www.NFPandmore.org

 

 

Posted in Morality | 2 Comments »

Some Natural Family Planning Questions

July 6th, 2014

A man wrote asking several questions about NFP.  Here are John’s response to those questions or concerns.

Thanks for writing.  I will try to help.

1.  Couple with a serious reason to avoid pregnancy.  You have described a very difficult situation, and I can empathize with your priest.  However, he erred in saying that the couple in that situation can use contraception.  He should read my book, Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality.  In a chapter on the formation of conscience, I quote Pope John Paul II over and over again to show that the teaching reaffirmed by Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae is binding and cannot be changed.  It is not a matter of situation ethics.  In the situation you describe, I would recommend that the couple abstain from relations from the beginning of menstruation until a combination of signs indicate that she is in postovulation infertility.  A woman who is ovulating will have a temperature shift after ovulation as well as having her mucus dry up.  The couple might want to wait for what we call a Rule C interpretation or add one day to the other rules.

I highly recommend that you get a copy of our current manual, Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach at www.nfpandmore.org. You can download it, but I recommend getting the paper copy with the spiral binding.

2.  Comparative research has shown that the cross-checking sympto-thermal method is more effective than mucus by itself.  I don’t know what you mean by a normal sleep pattern.  We have seen “ideal” charts from a nurse who worked constantly changing shifts.  We address these issues in our manual.  Few mothers of young children have no interruptions of sleep for weeks on end, and that is usually not a problem.  The important thing is to follow the temperature-taking guidelines in our manual.

3.  The question about menopause is too vague for an answer.  Menopause can be a difficult time because ovulation becomes less frequent.  If a woman is well experienced in both the mucus and cervix signs, she can identify the fertile and infertile times very well and can engage in the marriage act with a relative lack of abstinence.  However, if they are very fearful of pregnancy, then the best thing to do, barring gaining confidence in her observations, is to abstain until her signs say she is in post-ovulation infertility.

The Gospel for this past Sunday dealt with the teaching of Jesus about the need to accept and carry our cross daily.  There is no doubt that the practice of marital chastity provides a cross, sometimes light and sometimes heavy.  It is also true that the cross is the price of discipleship.

If you have more questions after you have studied our current manual, feel free to write or call.

In His service,
John F. Kippley
PS:  The man’s Response to John:  “Your response gets to the heart of the matter and helps much. Thank you. (and thanks for the prompt reply).”

Posted in Humanae Vitae, Morality, NFP, Sympto-Thermal Method | Comments Off on Some Natural Family Planning Questions

The Repentant Sterilized Couple: What About Periodic Abstinence?

June 29th, 2014

The issue of what is required of the repentant sterilized couple can be clouded by all sorts of analogies, but the question remains.  Is abstinence during the fertile-time a moral “ought” or simply a suggested pious practice?  If we want analogies, consider the couple in an invalid marriage.  By the teaching of the Lord Jesus, they are living in adultery.  Imagine that the man sincerely regrets leaving his true wife for his current legal spouse.  Without getting into all sorts of additional details, the question before him is whether he is morally obliged to live as brother and sister or if such abstinence would just be a pious suggestion.

With regard to contraceptive sterilization, does repentance involve saying to oneself, “If I had it to do over again, I would not do it.”  To put it the other way, if a person says, “I regret what I did but I would do it over again,” is such a person repentant?  Regretful is not the same as repentant.

If a person/couple is truly repentant and would not do it over again, then the repentant sterilized person or couple is saying that they wish they were still fertile, and that means that they would be practicing periodic abstinence.  That is the moral norm.  I’m not saying it is easy to live out the moral norm.  It is frequently a daily cross, but that’s simply the price of Christian discipleship.  Periodic abstinence is no different for the sterilized couple than it is for the couple of normal fertility who think they have a sufficiently serious reason to seek to avoid pregnancy.

The widespread no-abstinence-required “pastoral approach” has reduced the moral norm to an optional pious practice, and the entire teaching of Humanae Vitae has been undermined.

John Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant:  A Basis for Morality
A Catholic doctor’s response to this issue:

Dear John, Great chapter [in Sex and the Marriage Covenant] and your thoughts are definitely from one who has been in the thick of things. I think your thoughts on the role of true conversion of heart following a sterilization are an excellent example of how the laity can help enlighten clergy who, while observing the rigors of chastity, don’t live out our exact example of marital love.  For those who may not read the chapter, you state ,

“…I remain convinced that it is necessary for the repentant sterilized couple to refrain from sexual relations during the fertile time even if they cannot reverse the sterilization. First of all…I think it is psychologically impossible for a couple to enjoy sterilized sexual relations during the fertile time without reaffirming a contraceptive will. That refusal to practice the normal periodic abstinence of normally fertile couples (who have sufficiently serious reasons to avoid pregnancy) is a sign of “a perduring contraceptive intention”…It must be remembered that the whole purpose of sexual sterilization is to enable the sterilized couple to have dishonest intercourse – permanently contraceptive sex – at the normally fertile time. That purpose is pursued each and every time a sterilized couple have relations at the normally fertile time. In my opinion, the requirement that the sterilized couple refrain from relations during the normally fertile time is no different from that of Jesus to the woman caught in adultery: “Go and sin no more”.

I find your thoughts very true. Moreover, as you state elsewhere in the chapter, although couples may be forgiven their sin of sterilization and given a penance by the Priest, there is an ontological need, which you call metanoia, which calls the couple to live out their conversion with a desire to abstain during the fertile period. They may not realize this yearning for quite some time, and for those whom are “forgiven” and who don’t change their behaviour, they may never discover those hidden truths. For those of us who are not sterilized, and who practice NFP, we realize that the more we obey God’s Law on marital love, the more our hearts are conformed to pleasing Him. In other words, to deprive the couple of the opportunity to live out their penance in this way would actually probably hinder their appreciation of the very lesson they need to learn. But, I realize that some would consider this an “undue burden” on the couple.
Blessings,
Dr. Rebecca Peck, MD, CCD, ABFM, Marquette NFP Instructor

Posted in Spirituality, Sterilization | Comments Off on The Repentant Sterilized Couple: What About Periodic Abstinence?

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »