http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/05Nov/nov10for.htm

Being an avid reader of Aquinas and one who is of the anti-contraceptive mentality I put together the following piece.

    Before I share it I would like to share that I was raised in the new order church by new order parents so I grew up as a lukewarm "Catholic". I converted from a lukewarm "Catholic" to an "orthodox" or "conservative" "Catholic" by means of the Church's teaching on artificial birth control.

    I was assured that the Church always taught against "Onanism" or "the spilling of the seed" as a mortal sin. I was very glad to learn that Paul VI very clearly taught in his "excellent" Encyclical Humanae Vitae that contraception was a grave moral evil in every circuмstance. I also learned that the "traditional" "conservative" "orthodox" John Paul two reiterated the Church's constant teaching most clearly in Evangelium Vitae and Familiarous Consortio. I remember reading these docuмents as a naïve new churcher and thinking the reason why I did not understand them was because I was not bright enough. I understand now that I did not understand what jpii was saying because for the most part he was not saying anything distinctively Catholic – just a lot of stuff that gave you a Charlie-horse between the ears. You have to read his stuff several times to get an idea of what he is saying let alone whether what he says conforms or at least does not contradict Traditional Catholic Teaching.

    As an informed new churcher you always had to make sure these strange teachings did not contradict Catholic teaching outright and then you were satisfied and figured the “pope” was doing a good job. Evangelium Vitae is an incredibly long-winded, verbose docuмent that says practically nothing at all in several portions throughout the docuмent. Or perhaps it is all over my head because his writings are so lofty that they soar above that of the preconciliar popes. I would go his docuмents looking for clear statements on particular issues and read and read and read and finally see something that reiterated the Catholic Church’s teaching and say, “Oh, there it is.” And I was satisfied with that.

    As a newly devoted new churcher I was very pleased to hear that there was in fact a place one could go to find the truth on seemingly controversial questions. A priest went over Evangelium Vitae with a group of us and told us how great it was (he was a comparatively conservative priest so I figured he was right). This is when I fell in love with the true Church because of Her uncompromisingly strong stand on moral truths while becoming a devoted member of what I thought was that same Church but which turned out to be a mere façade for the real thing.

    Later I read Paul VI's Humanae Vitae very closely and noticed that the whole docuмent was filled with fluff and drivel with the repeated use of terms such as "responsible parenthood" and "spacing of children" with ONE AND ONLY ONE solid Catholic statement in the middle of the docuмent.

    I compared this docuмent with Pope Pius XI docuмent Casti Connubii from December 31, 1930 (and later Pope Pius XII's Allocution "Address to Midwives on their Profession" issued on October 29, 1951) and was struck by the difference in the way the docuмents were written and what in fact each of the docuмents stated.

    In fact let's compare a small portion of the two docuмents shall we?

    Paul 6 starts in the second paragraph of the Encyclical:


At all times the fulfillment of this duty has posed grave problems to the conscience of married persons, but, with the recent evolution of society, changes have taken place that give rise to new questions which the Church could not ignore, having to do with a matter which so closely touches upon the life and happiness of men.
3. This new state of things gives rise to new questions. Granted the conditions of life today, and granted the meaning which conjugal relations have with respect to the harmony between husband and wife and to their mutual fidelity, would not a revision of the ethical norms, in force up to now, seem to be advisable, especially when it is considered that they cannot be observed without sacrifices, sometimes heroic sacrifices?

And again: by extending to this field the application of the so-called "principle of totality," could it not be admitted that the intention of a less abundant but more rationalized fecundity might transform a materially sterilizing intervention into a licit and wise control of birth? Could it not be admitted, that is, that the finality of procreation pertains to the ensemble of conjugal life, rather than to its single acts? It is also asked whether, in view of the increased sense of responsibility of modern man, the moment has not come for him to entrust to his reason and his will, rather than to the biological rhythms of his organism, the task of regulating birth.

4. Such questions required from the teaching authority of the Church a new and deeper reflection upon the principles of the moral teaching on marriage: a teaching founded on the natural law, illuminated and enriched by divine revelation.

5. The consciousness of that same mission induced us to confirm and enlarge the study commission which our predecessor Pope John XXIII of happy memory had instituted in March, 1963. That commission which included, besides several experts in the various pertinent disciplines also married couples, had as its scope the gathering of opinions on the new questions regarding conjugal life, and in particular on the regulation of births, and of furnishing opportune elements of information so that the magisterium could give an adequate reply to the expectation not only of the faithful, but also of world opinion.[5]

    Didn't Pius XII just speak on it in his "Allocution to Midwives" in 1951? Did not Pius XI ask and answer all the pertinent questions in a clear and concise way in 1930? But, no, Montini drones on:

7. The problem of birth, like every other problem regarding human life, is to be considered, beyond partial perspectives- whether of the biological or psychological, demographic or sociological orders-in the light of an integral vision of man and of his vocation, not only his natural and earthly, but also his supernatural and eternal vocation.
And since, in the attempt to justify artificial methods of birth control, many have appealed to the demands both of conjugal love and of "responsible parenthood," it is good to state very precisely the true concept of these two great realities of married life, referring principally to what was recently set forth in this regard, and in a highly authoritative form, by the Second Vatican Council in its pastoral constitution "Gaudium et Spes."

9. Under this light, there clearly appear the characteristic marks and demands of conjugal love, and it is of supreme importance to have an exact idea of these.

This love is first of all fully human, that is to say, of the senses and of the spirit at the same time. It is not, then, a simple transport of instinct and sentiment, but also, and principally, an act of the free will, intended to endure and to grow by means of the joys and sorrows of daily life, in such a way that husband and wife become one only heart and one only soul, and together attain their human perfection.

Then, this love is total, that is to say, it is a very special form of personal friendship, in which husband and wife generously share everything, without undue reservations or selfish calculations. Whoever truly loves his marriage partner loves not only for what he receives, but for the partner's self, rejoicing that he can enrich his partner with the gift of himself.

And finally this love is fecund for it is not exhausted by the communion between husband and wife, but is destined to continue, raising up new lives.

    I thought PROCREATION was the primary end of marriage - not in the conciliar Church. But please, read on and see what Paul VI is really conveying:

10. Hence conjugal love requires in husband and wife an awareness of their mission of "responsible parenthood," which today is rightly much insisted upon, and which also must be exactly understood. Consequently it is to be considered under different aspects which are legitimate and connected with one another.
In relation to the biological processes, responsible parenthood means the knowledge and respect of their functions; human intellect discovers in the power of giving life biological laws which are part of the human person.[9]

In relation to the tendencies of instinct or passion, responsible parenthood means that necessary dominion which reason and will must exercise over them.

In relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised, either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth.

Responsible parenthood also and above all implies a more profound relationship to the objective moral order established by God, of which a right conscience is the faithful interpreter. The responsible exercise of parenthood implies, therefore, that husband and wife recognize fully their own duties towards God, towards themselves, towards the family and towards society, in a correct hierarchy of values.

12. That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning.

    With slight of hand and a twist of fate we have slipped from procreation being the primary end of marriage to the comfortable shoe of it being listed second in a list of two "meanings" or primary ends of the conjugal act. Two thousand years of Tradition? Forget about it. But he is so clever in his skimble-skamble:

By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man's most high calling to parenthood. We believe that the men of our day are particularly capable of seeing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental principle.
    Now for his Catholic statement in the center of this encyclical:

14. In conformity with these landmarks in the human and Christian vision of marriage, we must once again declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as licit means of regulating birth.[14]
Equally to be excluded, as the teaching authority of the Church has frequently declared, is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman.[15] Similarly excluded is every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible.[16]

To justify conjugal acts made intentionally infecund, one cannot invoke as valid reasons the lesser evil, or the fact that such acts would constitute a whole together with the fecund acts already performed or to follow later, and hence would share in one and the same moral goodness. In truth, if it is sometimes licit to tolerate a lesser evil in order to avoid a greater evil or to promote a greater good,[17] it is not licit, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may follow therefrom;[18] that is, to make into the object of a positive act of the will something which is intrinsically disorder, and hence unworthy of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote individual, family or social well-being. Consequently it is an error to think that a conjugal act which is deliberately made infecund and so is intrinsically dishonest could be made honest and right by the ensemble of a fecund conjugal life.

    Compare the above rationalization with Pius XI's solid, no nonsense words in Casti Connubii and, please note, we are not comparing novel statements because Pius XI did not make any novel statements. Here is what he said:

54. But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.
55. Small wonder, therefore, if Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at times has punished it with death. As St. Augustine notes, "Intercourse even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Juda, did this and the Lord killed him for it."[45]

56. Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.

57. We admonish, therefore, priests who hear confessions and others who have the care of souls, in virtue of Our supreme authority and in Our solicitude for the salvation of souls, not to allow the faithful entrusted to them to err regarding this most grave law of God; much more, that they keep themselves immune from such false opinions, in no way conniving in them. If any confessor or pastor of souls, which may God forbid, lead the faithful entrusted to him into these errors or should at least confirm them by approval or by guilty silence, let him be mindful of the fact that he must render a strict account to God, the Supreme Judge, for the betrayal of his sacred trust, and let him take to himself the words of Christ: "They are blind and leaders of the blind: and if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit.[46]

    Now back to Paul 6 funny stuff (I'm sorry, be patient for a few more paragraphs and then we'll sort it out):

Now, some may ask: in the present case, is it not reasonable in many circuмstances to have recourse to artificial birth control if, thereby, we secure the harmony and peace of the family, and better conditions for the education of the children already born? To this question it is necessary to reply with clarity: the Church is the first to praise and recommend the intervention of intelligence in a function which so closely associates the rational creature with his Creator; but she affirms that this must be done with respect for the order established by God.
    I highlight the following because in previous Encyclicals as seen with the term "responsible parenthood" we have not frequently seen reference made to the "spacing" of births. What follows is not erroneous teaching but rather a misguided empathetic teaching that increases the possibility of people abusing the exceptions.

    These exceptions becoming the rule are plain for all to see when we consider all the “Catholic” families with a 2 to 3 child limit. If you have not noticed, take a look, every single Catholic marriage, almost without exception, in the new Church results in no more than three children (the boy and the girl and if they have two boys or two girls they might try for a third). Are we to assume that all these poor couples either lack the mental, physical or financial capabilities to provide food, clothes and shelter for their offspring? And if this is the case can we be sure they were called to marriage in the first place?

    And has this not come true? In the New Church all couples seeking to get married MUST take a course on Natural Family Planning or sin free birth control. I am speaking apart from legitimate grave reasons for doing so. It is as if the wisdom of these modernist see that there is no way these people will have children as God sees fit so they give them a way to get out of it. I liken it to a grandfather who knows his infant should not be eating chocolate so he takes the bar away from the baby but quickly replaces it with a candy cane saying, "There, there, it is alright."

If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate birth without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier.[20]
    Noticing the stark differences between the pre and post-conciliar docuмents led me to look at the Vatican II docuмents themselves again, but this time more closely and what I found did not really surprise me as can be noted in my previous article "Trick or Treat or Threat".

    John XXIII was a different kind of "pope" that started a different kind of council which invented a different kind of liturgy in a different kind of church and these different kind of "popes", council, liturgy and church are not Catholic but a new world religion which accepts everything and denies nothing except Traditional or Authentic Catholicism. It has become in fact, a "White Washed Tomb".

    Looking back I can see now why it is the "conservative" "catholics" and not the liberal ones that have such a problem with the true Catholics.

    You see, the conservative catholics take their faith very seriously. What is a given (in their mind) is that they are in fact in the true Church. The "fact" that the new mass is not only valid but good is beyond question. The idea that a council erred is preposterous. And any notions of the pope not being a good pope let alone "no pope" are simply what should I say "absurd" with a patented certainty.

    So in essence your "good" "conservative" "catholic" will think of the authentic Catholic as being a knee-jerk reactionary or exceptionally erroneous due to a substantial amount of ignorance. These "good" "catholics" (which I will here-on-out call "new churchers") cannot see why the authentic Catholics are so blind to the fact that a "pope" can do no wrong and that anything that is authorized by the "pope" is beyond dispute and to dispute anything authorized by a "pope" is simply un-Catholic.

    The new churchers comfortably fit themselves into a system where they can blindly follow a man that can do or say no wrong. This is a rather easy thing to do intellectually speaking. This is what I did. I just took it for granted that anything Wojtyla wrote was orthodox. So I read his docuмents from the perspective of what he says is right, we know that, so if I have problems with what he writes I must confirm to it for he is pope and he must be right. I took it as a given that he would not contradict other Popes because that would be readily noticed and exploited.

    The new churchers comfortably fit themselves into a system where they can blindly follow a man that can do or say no wrong. This is a rather easy thing to do intellectually speaking.

    I speak as a man that read all of Karol W.'s encyclicals and thought of him at the epitome of Catholicism. I tried to mold myself after him thinking that would lead me to be the best Catholic I could possibly be.

    What I later found out was that I was never a true Catholic intellectually speaking but merely in desire. I knew nothing of Trent (other than the name) or the Baltimore Catechism. I knew nothing of the writings of the pre-conciliar Popes and little of what the Early Church Fathers wrote. I knew nothing of the true Mass or Catholic Priests, Bishops or Popes. I, as a very devout, sincere, orthodox, conservative new churcher was the one that was incredibly ignorant.

    With that as a background, along with an answer to a question I read by an NFP "expert" at the EWTN website that stated something to the effect that it is better to have a couple of college educated children than several who are not, I have written the following:

WHETHER CHILDREN IN THE MARRIAGE BOND SHOULD BE PREVENTED FROM EXISTENCE FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS

Objection 1. Better to have 2 children with college degrees than several with none.
Reply to objection 1. The knowledge we gain on earth is one of the few things we can take with us to Heaven but one must first exist before the possibility of enjoying the Beatific Vision can happen. Depriving several of existence in order for two to grow more in knowledge is to eliminate the best (existence of immortal souls) for the sake of a good (increased knowledge and better chance of attaining material success).

Objection 2. Two well educated children contribute to the betterment of society more than several souls deprived of a full education.
Reply to objection 2. One must not do evil so that a (perceived) good may come. Society is composed of people whose existence is unique and unrepeatable and whose value in the eyes of their Maker cannot be measured and the primary good of their existence contributes to the betterment of God's family which is the composite of society. There are also secondary goods that result when the existence of human life is not purposely thwarted such as more children to support one another and their parents in old age (pensions, social security stability) and the lessening of the necessity for the importation of peoples to fulfill roles that cannot be fulfilled by those whose existence has been prevented.

Objection 3. It is more expedient to supply 2 children with the best things in life than to deprive several children many of their wants.
Reply to objection 3. It does not follow that two immortal souls existing with many material goods that rust and moth consume is preferable to the point of preventing other souls from existence within the family of God in the marital bond. Expedience relates to the promotion of self-interest rather than the common good.

    On the contrary I say to all the objections:

"And He (God) said: 'Let Us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. And God created man to His own image: to the image of God He created him: male and female He created them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good'." (Genesis 1: 26-31).
    Finally, I answer that one immortal soul is worth infinitely more than any other good.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
John Gregory

"Catholics who remain faithful to Tradition, even if they are reduced to but a handful, they are THE TRUE CHURCH"

St. Athanasius, AD 373

If a couple is unable to care for more children due to challenging circuмstances (high need child, illness or disability of a parent, extreme poverty, etc) isn't it reasonable to believe that God would NOT bring another child into the family despite the couple having relations during fertile times?

God did, he gave the signs of the design in making a woman.  Is it not understood, with reason, that serious reason still holds true?

K: You disagree with serious reason with GOd's natural signs, correct?  Where does God or the teachings of Holy Mother Church state this?

K: You disagree with serious reason with GOd's natural signs, correct?  Where does God or the teachings of Holy Mother Church state this?

Sorry. I should have made the formula clearer:


No marital act absolutely equals no children.

K:  Where does the Church teachings say what you say:  No marital act=no children.  I have never run across that.  Cervical mucus tells when a woman is approaching ovulation 5-6 days prior.  The mucus keeps the sperm alive. God made us in this way.

http://www.christorchaos.com/PlantingSeedsofRevolutionaryChange.htm

As True of Morals as of Faith and Worship

Seeds had been planted for revolutionary changes in Catholic moral teaching just as surely as had been done with Faith, especially as regards Scripture studies, and Worship.

One of the principal theses that I sought to develop in Forty-Three Years After Humanae Vitae, which was posted eight days ago now after several weeks of revisions, is that many of the old theology manuals in the 1940s and 1950s were trying to "push the envelope" on Catholic teaching concerning conjugal morality. This, too, was a result of a world war, the Second World War, as the myth of "overpopulation" began to gain currency in the popular media and as many Catholic married couples in developed countries, having been freed of the burdens of the Great Depression and the sacrifices made during World War II, began to settle into comfortable suburban lives of materialistic self-indulgence, replete with a total immersion in the bread and circuses of this passing, mortal vale of tears against which saint after saint has inveighed against as contrary to the love of God and the good of our own souls.

Many of these theologians exploited what they saw was an "opening" given them by Pope Pius XII's October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives and an address that he gave to the Association of Large Families in Italy exactly four weeks later, Monday, November 26, 1951 (which, you will note, was two days after November 24, 1951) through which they could drive an army of Mack trucks to attempt to justify the unrestricted use of the rhythm method for reasons considered "proportionate" by married couples. Although these moral theologians wrote cautiously and filled their weighty tomes with much sophistry and casuistry (case based reasoning, what is called in legal terms as "special pleading," making the facts fit preconceived conclusions) in the belief that Catholic married couples would practice outright contraception if their consciences were not eased from the "burden" of having to meet the level of the grave conditions, which Pope Pius XII noted in his November 26, 1951, address were "very wide" (meaning that they were meant to be generous to those couples who truly fell into the categories he had outlined). In other words, married couples could do whatever they wanted to do whenever they wanted to do it as long as they did not use contraception. "Better to give them an 'out' rather than they use contraception."

Yes, scrape away all of the sophistry and casuistry, what's left in some of those old 1940s and 1950s theology manuals and books and journal articles is an effort to justify "all me, all the time" as appeals were made to various utilitarian arguments that have nothing to do with any true sense of the Catholic moral principle of proportionality (which teaches that the pursuit of good end may be outweighed by a preponderance of foreseen evil consequences, thereby making it inadvisable or, quite possibly, immoral to pursue, something that is, of course, a subjective judgment in the practical order of things), but has everything to do with proportionalism (the belief that an inherently evil act may be made licit, without rendering it good in and of its nature, to pursue if there exists a weight of conditions that make it "necessary" to do so).

Mind you, not all of the authors of those old theology manuals subscribed to proportionalism. Some would wind up opposing it in the 1960s and 1970s. Eager, however, to advance utilitarian arguments for "limits" on family size, the Mensheviks (moderate revolutionaries) of Catholic moral theology in the two decades before the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath made it more possible for the Bolsheviks and their proportionalism to run amok.

As noted six days ago in Always Trying To Find A Way, one of those who, though adamantly opposed to contraception and to the personalist view of marriage that had been advanced by Dietrich von Hildebrand and Father Herbert Doms that was condemned by the Holy See in 1944 and noted as condemned by Pope Pius XII in his October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, was Father John C. Ford, S.J. He bided his time in the 1950s. So did many others, including his collaborator, Father Gerald Kelly, S.J., whose own utilitarian views on medical ethics can be reviewed in To Live and Let Die.

"Liberated" by the death of Pope Pius XII, Fathers Ford and Kelly were then able to speak more openly in what they admitted was a speculative manner, doing so in Volume 2 of Contemporary Moral Theology, thereby giving expression to beliefs that they had held all along but advanced only cautiously in the 1950s after the papal address to midwives:

    The only explicit limits to the duty to procreate by the pope are the various excusing causes. But in the discussion of this important papal pronouncement, it was soon suggested that another limit is implicitly determined by the fact that the purpose of duty is the conservation of the the family, the state, the Church, the human race. This seems to mean that one measure of the duty as far as legal justice and piety to the race are concerned is the population need of the time. When this suggestion of an inherent limit to the obligation was first made, the best social scientists seemed to think that fertile couples should have four or five children in order to make provision for the conservation and slight increase of the human race. Since then, with increased consciousness of the population problem, this number has been slightly reduced, at least for some countries. For instances, it has been estimated that a family of three children would sufficiently provide for the needs of the United States.

    Those who place the basis of this duty to procreate in the use of [the privileges of marriage] find it difficult to accept this theory. And in this they seem to be logical; for if use of [the privileges of marriage] is the basis for the obligation, the duty to procreate will depend, apart from excusing causes, entirely upon the fertile couples to use or abstain from the marriage act.

    But to us, and to others who place the basis for the obligation in the married state itself, the idea of a legal justice or piety which is inherently limited by the population needs seems very reasonable. For one thing, it followed the analogy of other duties, whether to individuals or to society. For instance. the strict duty of charity to one's neighbor is measured, not only by one's ability to help, but also by the neighbor's need. No one is strictly obliged in charity to give as much as he conveniently can to a neighbor whose needs are satisfied by much less than that. Another analogy, this time in the social sphere, is the duty of paying taxes. No government can justly set up a tax rule that each citizen must give the government as much as he can. The just measure of taxes must begin with the society's need. Once the general need is determined, the the tax is levied on the citizen proportionately, according to norms that include their relative ability pay. [Thomas A. Droleskey interjection: On this point, of course, the authors were quite correct, without realizing that the cause of unjust taxation today was the growth of the monster civil state of Modernity caused by the Protestant Revolution's overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King.]

    It has been objected that this theory of an inherent limit to the duty to procreate does not make allowance for the proportionate distribution of the duty to procreate. In our opinion, this objection misses the point of the theory. The theory is simply that there is a limit to the duty beyond which no couple is strictly obliged by legal justice or piety to have more children. The theory does not say that all couples have the same obligation as regards the number of children they should have. The excusing causes sufficiently take care of this need for proportion. As the pope himself mentions, by reason of excusing causes some couples would be entirely exempt from the duty of having children.

    The theory of the limited duty to procreate has decided merit, it seems to us, in a Christian society which recognizes the important distinction between duty and supererogation. It provides a workable norm of child-spacing to those married couples whose main interest is to fulfill their duty; and it acknowledges that even the wealthy and the healthy can be acting beyond the call of duty to rearing large families.

    This theory that the duty to procreate is limited by the population needs seems to us, as we have already explained, intrinsically reasonable. Moreover, though some have objected against it, it has won favor among many theologians (here they cite in a footnote the work of Fr. Thomas and Fr. Healy, Marriage and Rhythm, 1956, and of Father John R. Connery, SJ, "Notes on Moral Theology" in Theological Studies, 1958); and it certainly merits the status of a solidly probable opinion. There may be difficulty in determining the exact limit for various countries; but certainly in the United States a family of four would be sufficient to satisfy the duty.

    Before the Address to the Midwives in 1951 the question of the gravity of the affirmative obligation to procreate was not generally discussed because most theologians denied the obligation. At that time the question took another form. Is it gravely sinful to practice rhythm, at least for a long time, without a justifying cause? Only a handful of theologians were of the opinion that it was gravely sinful. The overwhelming weight of theological authority throughout the Catholic world rejected this opinion (they cite Griese, The Rhythm in Marriage and Catholic Morality).

    Since the allocution, the weight of authority seems to have shifted, because of certain language used by Pius XII in explaining the morality of periodic continence. Today, apparently, the majority hold that to practice rhythm without a serious justifying motive, at least for a long time, or for the whole of marriage, or at least when no children have already been born, would be a grave sin. But other theologians still maintain that this would be only venially sinful (here they cite that passage from Pope Pius XII's November 26, 1951, address, and  book by a chap named Father Joseph Fuchs. S.J., who became one of the chief promoters of proportionalism while serving on the "papal" birth control commission, placing him at odds with Father Ford, who opposed contraception but was pleased with the "broadening" of the restrictions for the use of the rhythm method in Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968.)


    Our question can be proposed in either of two forms which are almost equivalent: Is it a mortal sin to practice rhythm without a justifying cause? or: Does the affirmative obligation to procreate bind individual couples under pain of mortal sin?

    Our answer to these questions can be summarized as follows: Pius XII did not settle the issue of mortal sin in practicing rhythm unjustifiably. His words leave the question open for further discussion. The affirmative obligation seems to be grave ex genere suo, and therefore admits of parvitas materiae. Objective grave violations of the affirmative obligation would, in our opinion, be rare. In pastoral practice no one can legitimately impose on the consciences of the faithful a grave obligation in this matter.

    The principal passage quoted to invoke the authority of Pius XII in favor of the gravity of the obligation reads as follows:

    "Consequently, to embrace the state of matrimony, to use continually the faculty proper to it, and in it alone, and on the other hand to withdraw always and deliberately, without a grave motive, from its primary duty, would be to sin against the very meaning of conjugal life."

    One thing is clear. In this passage Pius XII did not end the controversy over mortal sin. Had he wished to do this, he could easily have done so effectively and conclusively by inserting the one word "mortally," after the word "sin" in this passage. He failed to do so. So glaring an omission must have been deliberate.

    But does the language perhaps provide grounds for a conclusive inference that the obligation must be grave, by speaking of the violation of it as "to sin against the very meaning of conjugal life"; by calling it the "primary duty" of marriage; and by requiring a "grave motive" to excuse from the obligation?

    The expression to "sin against the very meaning of conjugal life" is not definite enough to be the basis of a conclusive inference as to the gravity of the obligation. Lying is a sin against the very faculty of human speech, but it does not follow that lying is gravely sinful.

    To take the phrase "primary duty" in a literal theological sense proves too much. For it is simply not true, in a literal theological sense, this this duty is the primary duty of marriage. Pius XII would be the first to defend the traditional Catholic doctrine that the primary duty of marriage is the mutual duty that corresponds to the essential ius in corpus. It is a duty in commutative justice to perform acts which are per se apt for generation, but it is a duty which the partners owe not to society but to one another, in virtue of their contractual consent." (Father John C. Ford, S.J., and Father Gerald Kelly, S.J., Contemporary Moral Theology, Volume 2, The Newman Press, 1964, pp. 420-425.)

     

Contemporary Catholic Moral Theology, Volume 2, is a mixture of Catholic truth on some matters and speculation on others that was designed to make it "easier" for Catholic married couples to restrict the number of children they have without resorting to contraception. In other words, "they're gonna do it anyway."

Pope Pius XII's words were very clear. There is no need to deconstruct them. They were understood perfectly by a number of theologians, including Monsignor George Kelly.  They cannot get any plainer:

    The matrimonial contract, which confers on the married couple the right to satisfy the inclination of nature, constitutes them in a state of life, namely, the matrimonial state. Now, on married couples, who make use of the specific act of their state, nature and the Creator impose the function of providing for the preservation of mankind. This is the characteristic service which gives rise to the peculiar value of their state, the bonum prolis. The individual and society, the people and the State, the Church itself, depend for their existence, in the order established by God, on fruitful marriages. Therefore, to embrace the matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper to such a state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)

Fathers Ford and Kelly, however, were only giving expression to liberal views that had been expressed throughout the 1950s. Their book, it should be noted, had an imprimatur granted by none other than Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle, the Archbishop of Washington, District of Columbia, who had sought to fire Father Charles Curran, a priest of the Diocese of Rochester at a time when Bishop J. Sheen was the ordinary, from his faculty position at The Catholic University of America for the latter's support of contraception before being overturned by the other cardinals who served on the university's board of directors. That imprimatur does not mean all that very much. Neither did many of those that were issued in the 1950 as the men who waited patiently for the death of Pope Pius XII did not, at least for the most part (Father Fuchs would be an exception to this), have some sort of sudden "conversion" at the "Second" Vatican Council and thereafter. They had an agenda in the 1940s and 1950s that helped to bring about the conciliar revolution and that was designed to institutionalize it thereafter.

Indeed, the utilitarian argument advanced by Fathers Ford and Kelly concerning family limitation was premised in part upon a blithe acceptance of the myth of "overpopulation," stating that Pope Pius XII had to be wrong in his address to midwives when he asserted that it was necessary for married couples to have children to continue the human race as they considered this "unnecessary" given the alleged population crisis.

Oh, what poor prophets these men were! Look at the results of what the ethos of contraception, which both Fathers Ford and Kelly opposed, and that of "natural family planning" have wrought: the depopulation of Europe and the destabilization of families and family life in developed countries, including the Untied States of America, whose population is only increasing as a result of immigrant and whose nonwhite population will constitute a majority of the nation by the middle of this century precisely because of contraception, surgical abortion and the ethos of "natural family planning" that has convinced Catholics all across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide that it is their "right" to limit the size of their families to pursue career goals, material comforts and "freedom" from excessive "concerns" about caring for and feeding progeny.

Unfortunately for these poor prophets,  you see, their view of tying the procreation of children to population for purposes of economic stability and production, which was what the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics sought to do throughout the course of its history (surgical abortion between 1918 until after World War II; encouraging procreation thereafter to compensate for the loss of lives in the war) and what the Red Chinese do to this very day, was condemned by Pope Pius XII in his November 26, 1951, address to the Association of Large Families:

    But there is an even deeper misery, from which we must preserve family, namely the terrible serfdom, which reduces a mentality, which tends to make a pure body to serve the community social, to procreate with it a sufficient mass of 'material' for the human race. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Association of Large Families, November 26, 1951; I used Google Translate to translate this address from the Italian as it is found at AAS Docuмents, p. 855; you will have to scroll down to page 855, which takes some time, to find the address.)

     

Any questions?

Italy's population rate has plummeted to well below replacement levels as a result of chemical abortifacients and surgical baby-killing and the prevalence of the ethos found in "natural family planning" that seeks to limit the size of families on a regular basis, including for reasons of emotional "stress" and "psychological health."

Indeed, a family with five children who were in Rome at the same time we were in May of 2005 was approached constantly with cries of great joy from older and invariably completely modestly dressed Italian women, who exclaimed:

    Che un bel bambino. Che bellissimi bambini. Che bella famiglia. Non ci sono famiglie in Italia. Dio vi benedica per il vostro bebè.

    (What a beautiful baby. What beautiful children. What a beautiful family. There are no families in Italy. God bless you for your babies.)

     

These women who were so excited to see a large family did not read Contemporary Moral Theology, Volume 2. They knew nothing of the nuance upon nuance upon nuance that was designed to deconstruct the plain words of a papal address and propagate a view of married life alien to the Catholic Faith. These simple women only knew the beauty of a large family (and five is not really that large of a number of children to have) because they loved God and knew what pleased Him. Fathers John Ford and Gerald Kelly sought to make complex that which is simple: obeying God by pleasing Him at all times, yes, even to the point of making sacrifices to give unto our own children what had been given to us by our own parents.

Pope Pius XII's overriding concern in that November 26, 1951, was the devastation that World War II had wrought on the displaced peoples of Europe, and it is in this context that his remarks about "wide limits" when referring to the conditions for the justified use of a woman's monthly infertile periods can be read as he had the needs of families that had been devastated by World War II uppermost in his mind and heart. They had, in his view, legitimate excusing conditions that fell well within the limits he outlined in his October 29, 1951 Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession if they chose to avail themselves of them, noting that many European cities had been overrun with refugees, finding it difficult to provide adequate housing for those in need of it:

    First, We must turn our attention to the calamities of war.

    The damage caused by the first World War was far from being fully repaired, when the second, even more terrible conflagration occurred. It will take a long time and much effort on the part of men, and even greater divine assistance before we start to truly heal the deep wounds that those two world wars had inflicted on the family.

    Another evil, which is also partly due to the devastating wars, but also a result of overpopulated [cities] and inept policies is the housing crisis. Legislators, statesmen and social workers must study these problems and find solutions to them. Your association can provide an apostolate of outstanding value in this regard.

    The same applies to the fight against scourge of unemployment, for the settlement of a sufficient wage for families, enough so that a mother will not be forced, as too often happens, to look for a job outside the home, but can devote more time to her husband and children.

    You must work also in favor the teaching of religion in school as this is [a] valuable contribution to the good of the family, as well as promoting its natural and simple customs, as religious beliefs strengthen and develop around it an aura of Christian purity, freeing our adolescents today from the harmful influences in the world today that fill them with morbid excitement and arouse their disordered passions against holy purity. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Association of Large Families, November 26, 1951, as it is found at AAS Docuмents, p. 855.)

     

Pope Pius XII favored no arbitrary limits devised by "social scientists" on the size of families in relation to a country's population. And Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, with whom, quite ironically, Father John C. Ford, S.J., would work to oppose Father Joseph Fuchs, S.J., and the work of the majority on the "papal birth control commission, noted that talk of such limits was without precedent in the history of the Catholic Church:

    "I am not pleased with the statement in the text that married couples may determine the number of children they are to have. Never has this been heard of in the Church. My father was a laborer, and the fear of having many children never entered my parents' minds, because they trusted in Providence. [I am amazed] that yesterday in the Council it should have been said that there was doubt whether a correct stand had been taken hitherto on the principles governing marriage. Does this not mean that the inerrancy of the Church will be called into question? Or was not the Holy Spirit with His Church in past centuries to illuminate minds on this point of doctrine?" (As found in Peter W. Miller, Substituting the Exception for the Rule; The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, by Father Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber, Tan Books and Publishers, 1967, is cited as the source of  this quotation.)

Although Monsignor George Kelly believed that married couples, having been formed properly according to the sensus Catholicus, could make decisions on the use of the rhythm on their own without consulting a confessor, the times have changed precisely because of the widespread acceptance and use of contraception and the indiscriminate use of what is called today "natural family planning." Even Monsignor Kelly, however, noted the following, in his The Catholic Marriage Manual, arriving at the exact opposite conclusions reached by Fathers John C. Ford and Gerald Kelly:

    If the necessary conditions are not met in a particular case, would a couple commit sin in practicing periodic continence? And if it is sinful, how serious is the sin? Writing in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Father Goodwine has answered:


        "If any one of the required conditions (that the parties be willing to abstain, that they be able to abstain without proximate danger of serious sin, and that they have a justifying reason) is not met, recourse to periodic continence will be sinful.


        "In certain cases it may even be seriously sinful,"For instance, if the first condition is not verified and the practice of periodic continence is insisted on by the partner against the reasonable objections of the other, a sin of injustice would be committed. In such circuмstances one partner would be unjustly depriving the other of his right to the marriage act during the fertile periods. So also, if the second condition is not met and the practice of periodic continence becomes a proximate occasion of sins against chastity, there would be serious sin. The otherwise permissible practice of periodic continence becomes seriously wrong when it leads to grave danger of other mortal sins. Similarly there would be serious sin if the practice involves a proximate danger of divorce or breakup of the marriage, or of other sins against the obligations of married life."



    Large families the Christian ideal: Pope Pius XII has described large families as "those blessed by God, beloved by the Church and considered by it as one of its most precious treasures."


    In an address to the Association of Large Families of Rome and Italy, His Holiness restated a truth that is sometimes forgotten that "faith in God supplies parents with the strength necessary to face the sacrifices and renunciations required for the rearing of children; Christian principles guide and lighten the difficult task of education; the Christian spirit of love watches over the family's order and tranquillity while it dispenses, almost drawing upon nature itself, the intimate family joys common to parents, children and brothers. . . . "But God also visits large families with His providence, to which the parents, especially poor ones, give an open testimony by placing in it their entire trust when human efforts are not sufficient. It is a trust well founded, and not in vain . . . God does not deny the means to live to those He calls to life."


    In this connection, the following comments by Father Goodwine should be carefully considered.


        "There is a tendency to limit the discussion of periodic continence to questions of strict morality, to concentrate almost exclusively on right and wrong, to attempt to draw the line between what may and what may not be done without committing sin," Father Goodwine states. "All too often such discussions lose sight of the Christian ideal of family life. Hardly ever do we hear any mention of the ideal of parenthood or of family life as the ideal type of married life.


        "God instituted marriage as the means for the propagation of the race. The fruitful marriage, therefore, and not the sterile marriage, is the marriage that falls in best with God's plan. Having children is the primary goal of marriage. The family, therefore, consisting of father, mother and children is the ideal for the Christian.


        "There is something amiss when a couple wishes to marry, yet does not want to have any children; or determines to postpone having children for one, two or more years; or intends to have only three or four or six children but no more. A priest friend of mine likens such people to a young man seeking ordination to the priesthood who makes the stipulation that he will never have to say Mass, administer the sacraments, preach, or take duty. Such a young man would be seeking to avoid the very purposes for which men are ordained to the priesthood. So, too, the married couple who, without sufficient reason, seek to avoid children, fail to fulfill their purpose in life. Even the couple who has a sufficient reason for practicing rhythm can be counseled to do more than is required by duty; to strive deliberately and consciously after the ideal.


        "The present Holy Father has said: It is one of the fundamental demands of right moral order that a sincere inner acceptance of the office and duties (of parenthood) correspond to the use of conjugal rights.' There must then be a willingness on the part of married persons and on the part of couples entering marriage to 'serve' motherhood and fatherhood a willingness to become parents. Perhaps more attention should be paid to what Dr. John Kane, of Notre Dame, calls the 'almost unanimous conclusion' of sociological studies on marital happiness: 'Happiness in marriage is not associated with the presence or absence of children in the family, but with a strong desire to have children. (Text as found in Monsignor George Kelly, The Catholic Marriage Manual, Random House, 1958, pp.58- 60.)

         

This is a ringing condemnation of the views expressed by Fathers John C. Ford, S.J., and Gerald Kelly, S.J. It is also a ringing condemnation of anyone and everyone today who says that it is better that couples practice "natural family planning" under all circuмstances rather than to sin by the use of contraceptive pills and devices. Condemned. Completely. Unequivocally.

Monsignor George Kelly and Father Goodwine both refused to limit a consideration of the morality of the use of rhythm to what was considered "legal" as they understood that God wanted His redeemed creatures to strive for the ideal. It is a strict legalistic minimalism that characterized much of doctrinal, liturgical and moral studies in the 1940s and 1950s that led to the widespread acceptance of the revolutionary dogmas and liturgical rites of the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the 1960s and thereafter. Those who refuse to accept this must simply refuse to open their very eyes to the evidence that has been presented before them, leaving souls, including their own, to wallow in the corruption of error and deception.

Fathers Ford and Kelly scoffed at such criticism as they tried to bring Pope Pius XII as a witness in their belief that the last true pope wanted the rhythm method practiced widely to ease the consciences of all Catholic married couples so that they could make "informed" decisions that put those consciences at ease. Fathers Ford and Kelly made this clear in the final pages of the book, justifying their view at the end of Contemporary Moral Theology, Volume 2:

    "Responsible parenthood," writes Dr. Richard Fagley, "in the context of population explosion, more often than not means restricted to limited procreation in view of the total responsibilities of parenthood." And again, " 'Responsible parenthood,' in fact, is becoming the preferred term throughout Protestantism for limiting the number of  progeny." Dr. Fagley's words suggest the reasons why little seems to have been said about responsible parenthood fifty years ago and why today the words are becoming a popular slogan with the occasional connotation that Catholics favor irresponsible parenthood. Everyone has always agreed, however, that parenthood is a serious, responsible business. Catholics have not differed from their neighbors on that pint. The truth is fifty years ago we heard very little if anything about responsible parenthood, as that phrase is understood today, whether from Protestants, Catholics or non-believers. Why?

    Undoubtedly the reasons are complex and we do not wish to oversimplify. For one thing there was little fear of a population problem at that time. Nobody thought of demanding in those days, and nobody thinks of demanding today, that the average husband and wife give up, in the name of the social good, for very extended periods of time, their personal right to [the privileges of the married state]. Such a demand would not be considered reasonable by anyone except for the most pressing reasons, and usually for reasons of a very personal kind. Everyone has always recognized that such long periods of enforced abstinence, often for one, two or three years at a time, are an abnormal strain on the average couple, justified only by extraordinary circuмstances. St. Paul's injunction to "defraud not one another" is common sense.

    Fifty years ago, however, the only legitimate means of family planning either by Catholics, or by Protestants, or by the respectable public at large, was complete abstinence from [the privileges of the married state] over extended periods of time. Contraception was almost universally rejected as immoral. The sterile period had not been determined with sufficient accuracy. Consequently we heard very little from anyone about responsible family planning. There were few, if any, churchmen, few social planners, who had the hardihood to crusade for responsible parenthood when that meant for the average couple [married] abstinence for years at a time. Protestants and others would not be campaigning for it today, we may be sure, unless they had changed their beliefs about contraception. Such a campaign is for them feasible in practice only because they have found a method, in their eyes now morally acceptable, by which couples can plan a family while continuing to have [the privileges of the married state] regularly.

    Something quite similar is true of Catholics, but not to the same extent. We, too, are talking more and more about responsible parenthood and family planning, though we may speak of it in terms of Christian prudence rather than of responsible planning. But as a practical matter we could not be talking thus unless we, too, had found a workable method, morally acceptable in our eyes, which enables many couples to plain a family responsibly while continuing to have [the privileges of the married state] more or less regularly. (Father John C. Ford, S.J., and Father Gerald Kelly, S.J., Contemporary Moral Theology, Volume 2, The Newman Press, 1964, pp. 451-453.)
     

Fathers Ford and Kelly did not believe that Catholics should reject what they asserted was the responsibility to address the "population problem" because the propagandists of Planned Parenthood were using this "problem" to promote contraception. No, they asserted that the "population problem" cannot be dismissed and must be considered, therefore, in decisions of family planning in some parts of the world, reiterating the assertions that they had made in passages cited previously herein:

    Are we then to say that population problems have no bearing at all on the morality of periodic continence? No. In the first place, we have seen that there is a sense in which the affirmative obligation to procreate is based partly on legal justice, and this implies that population needs are in some way a partial measure of the obligation. Furthermore, we have seen that it is soundly probable that once a family has made its proper contribution to the population needs, there is no further obligation on that score to procreate. Finally, it may well be that population pressures in a given region may constitute a legitimate excusing cause form the affirmative obligation, and that at some future date population pressures could conceivably reach the point where there would be strict duties not to procreate. Father John C. Ford, S.J., and Father Gerald Kelly, S.J., Contemporary Moral Theology, Volume 2, The Newman Press, 1964, p. 457.)

     

Leaving aside the nasty, inconvenient little truth that there was no such "population problem" and that Pope Pius XII had specifically warned against procreation as a means of providing "a sufficient mass of 'material' for the human race," Fathers John C. Ford, S.J., and Gerald Kelly, S.J., were advancing a truly revolutionary agenda that paved the way for what is called today "natural family planning."

Although Fathers Ford and Kelly qualified their conclusions above by stating that the "population problem" did not provide a sufficient reason for Catholic married couples in the United States from an "affirmative obligation to procreate" (p. 458.), they really did believe that "family planning" by means of the rhythm method could be left almost entirely to the consciences of Catholic married couples, thereby feeding into expectation that "family limitation" is a normative in Catholic moral teaching, which it is not:

    (4) But we do believe that moralists should open up further the question of a possible obligation to make use of periodic continence, not for mere demographic reasons, but for personal, or family, or social, or religious reasons--in a word, for all those reasons which have a proximate bearing on the family, and which therefore have a legitimate place in arriving at a prudent, Christian decision as to the size of the family. Father John C. Ford, S.J., and Father Gerald Kelly, S.J., Contemporary Moral Theology, Volume 2, The Newman Press, 1964, p. 458.)

 

Fathers Ford and Kelly contradicted themselves here without realizing it as there would be no need to "expand" the use of periodic continence if the limits that Pope Pius XII himself described as "very wide" were wide enough to justify the indiscriminate practice of what is called today "natural family planning" that they desired. Pope Pius XII taught no such thing.  Volume 2 of their Contemporary Moral Theology provided a framework that was used to "expand" Pope Pius XII's limits as broadly as possible in Giovanni Montini/Paul VI's Humanae Vitae. Father John C Ford, S.J., himself may have opposed the personalist view of marriage that was advanced by Dietrich von Hildebrand and Father Herbert Doms. His work, however, helped to produce the exact same result: a "couple based" view of marriage in which the conception of children had to be planned according to their own needs and desires.

Those looking for a "liberal" view of Pope Pius XII's teaching can certainly "run" with the "opinions" Fathers Ford and Kelly held in the 1950s but expressed openly after the death of Pope Pius XII. Such a "liberal" view, however, is contrary to the entirety of the patrimony of Catholic teaching and the exhortations of our popes and saints. They wanted to be seen as defending Catholic teaching while they proceeded to undercut it. There is a name for this: conciliarspeak, and that has nothing to do with Catholicism.

The most that anyone who agrees with this liberal view of Pope Pius XII's teaching can assert is that they are adhering to the opinion of various theologians about it. Such an assertion, however, is only that, an assertion. It is not the de fide dogma of the Catholic Church as the whole notion of "family planning" was far from the mind of Pope Pius XII, a mind that was known so very well by Cardinal Ottaviani, who considered such talk to have been without precedent in the history of Holy Mother Church. Even Fathers Ford and Kelly recognized their work as being speculative in nature and that, as they saw things, Pope Pius XII attempted to "settle" various moral issues that they believe remained unsettled, which means that they understood, despite all of their protestations to the contrary, that the limits outlined by our last true pope were, too restrictive for their liking.

There is a body of theological thought opposed to the "liberal" view. Men such as Monsignor George Kelly and others sought to reaffirm the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church on marriage and the family, and those who rely upon this reaffirmation of Catholic teaching have not defected from the Catholic Faith, perhaps summarized best by Dr. Herbert Ratner: "Children help parents grow up."