1. Statistically, if they're not religious at all, you CAN assume they are like most couples even in the Novus Ordo, i.e., on birth control. Birth control isn't just popular these days, it's everywhere. It's the default. Unless you have good reason to assume they're NOT on it, it's a safe assumption.
2. They are certainly "going with the flow" when it comes to having pets and treating them like children, filling the void normally filled by children. No one is forcing them to do said nonsense.
3. If they legit couldn't have children of their own, they should adopt at least one. If they valued human babies above animals, that is. But they seem quite content to stick with "furbabies" and promote that nonsense.
Shhhhh.... don't say that in Vatican II-friendly online forums. You will inevitably have someone chime in
"you can't know that unless you ask each and every Catholic individually". They live in denial. Some conservative Novus Ordinarians do, some don't. I agree, I don't think it is necessary to harbor any illusions. I can guarantee you, that somewhere in one of the "kumbaya" forums ---
"yes, the Church and the world are all messed up, but hey, no controversy, don't be divisive, group hug, group hug!" --- someone would eventually chime in
"maybe they're using NFP and you can't tell people when to have children and when not to have them". (No, but Popes Pius XI, Pius XII, and even Paul VI, to his credit whatever else one might think of him, would have something to say about "grave" or "serious" reasons to use NFP, as did Bishop Pivarunas in the excellent article posted here the other day.)
On the off chance that a non-Catholic couple
would use NFP, chances are, it's as part of a larger organically-themed lifestyle, keep the chemicals out of your body, be in harmony with nature, and so on, and that is all well and good, but it would be the rare non-Catholic couple who would say "we can't use contraception because it's a mortal sin". I once read a fairly favorable write-up of NFP in, of all places,
Utne Reader --- not a bad magazine if one is able to take the meat and leave the bones, liberal as hell, but still some good stuff for off-the-grid living and other things, ditto for
Whole Earth Review, of which I have almost a complete set of issues. One of my cousins is a liberal aging-hippie trustafarian and she eats that kind of thing up!
Assuming they can't have children for some organic reason, I am not going to go so far as to say they
must adopt, but they really should. Newborn healthy white babies with no known problems, yes, they are at a premium, but there are legions of children in other circuмstances, and they'd like homes and parents too. And if someone of childbearing age (or child-fathering age, which in and of itself, is for life) wants to get married but doesn't feel like they're "cut out" to be parents, well, then, that's a pretty sure sign they don't have a calling to matrimony after all, at least not to a person who is presumed physically capable of mothering or fathering a child as the case may be.
And I've just got to say, I find his wife's hairstyle to be very attractive. Some women can pull off short hair. Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Imbruglia would be just two examples. (A classmate of my wife's was a virtual clone of Natalie Imbruglia, and wore her hair the same way. Very nice.)
Topic: Do they know how stupid they look? (Read 791 times)