Comments on: One massive holdout

By: TeaPot562

TeaPot562 — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:38:08 +0000

My impression from publications from the Couple to Couple League is that couples who use NFP exclusively are more likely to have four or more children than the “one or two” described in the article.
My wife & I worked with the 1950s version of the Billings method – and after the birth of our fifth child, her gyn-ob dr. no longer described her “props” as being in good shape. We continued to take her temperature each day through monthly cycles for about fifteen more years. The C to C L strongly urges NFP couples to use this method prayerfully, encouraging them to seek God’s will each cycle.
Relatively few couples use NFP exclusively or prayerfully. Praying together (we like the rosary) helps.
TeaPot562

By: Blake Helgoth

Blake Helgoth — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:21:20 +0000

Dare I bring up the fact that, of the relatively few Catholics that chose the NFP route, many of them use NFP to limit their family to 1 or 2 kids! Most think it is a moral obligation to use NFP and immoral to rely on Divine Providence. They do not realize that the church allows NFP but never commands it use. Many wonder how they could possibly keep up a two income family with more children. This is where the contraceptive mentality has left us. The greatest scare upon our culture is that a woman’s role as a care giver and the one primarily responsible for the formation of children has been handed over to others so that she can join the work force.

By: Troy Freedman

Troy Freedman — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:24:55 +0000

Sadly Don, the Eastern Orthodox Church does not authoritatively teach against artificial contraception (see The Orthodox Church, by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, Pg. 302), they also permit divorce and remarriage (2 or 3, but not 4 times a person may remarry). So the Catholic Church stands alone. I have sympathies with Henry, though since we can know with certainty what constitutes a true and sacramental marriage, it stands to reason that facts my come to light that reveal that a marriage never occurred, despite assuming common life after the apparent union. The Church Fathers were almost unanimously against remarriage for anyone under any circumstances, even the death of a spouse.

By: Henry

Henry — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:07:14 +0000

Doesn’t Satan get a lot of people to do other things that are immoral and be convinced that it is not wrong . . . like Annulment? Then they get “blessed” for the Remarriage, unless of course it doesn’t happen to work out, then it wasn’t a sacramental marriage, it was a mirage performed at the Catholic Church. Isn’t it obvious from the word Remarriage that a previous marriage happened? How do you tell your kids they never happened? Don’t we have a scandalous tradition in our midst? I still haven’t heard any scriptural support for the concept. Ideas anyone?

By: Don

Don — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:23:23 +0000

Interesting blog post, however, the article that is copied above makes the same tragic mistake that many posts on this topic make by using “birth control” and “artificial contraception” as synonyms. They are not synonyms! Natural Family Planning is a method of birth control – is NFP the same as artificial contraception? No it is not. The interchangeable use of “birth control” and “artificial contraception” is a very significant error in writing, and leads many people, Catholics included, to conclude that the Church is against birth control, which of course it is not. The proper spacing of births using natural means is “birth control”, and the Church whole heartedly supports that. In an society where there is significant rejection of the teachings of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches regarding artificial contraception, simple elucidation that “birth control” and “artificial contraception” are not synonyms would help a lot.

By: mgseamanjr

mgseamanjr — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:45:30 +0000

It would be nice to think that “the tide is turning” but what is the evidence, a book by an evangelical? The statistics tell you that this is engaging in wishful thinking. Catholics have convinced themselves that engaging in artificial contraception is not a sin and they are aided by the deafening silence from the pulpit.

By: Ruth Ann

Ruth Ann — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:12:32 +0000

My husband once worked for a pharmaceutical company that was among the first, if not the first, to manufacture “the pill.” But we never went that route in our marriage. For one thing, my husband observed that the men who worked in the manufacturing of the pill developed physical side effects. He wanted to preserve me from any adverse effects. Also, we looked into Natural Family Planning as a way to fulfill God’s plan responsibly, and we used it consistently.