…this blogger at Young Adult Catholics (little bit of a misnomer, since they reject many of the Churches teachings outright) seems to think it’s not.
I like that she puts the words “liberal Catholic” and “conservative Catholic,” thereby questioning the validity of political terms imposed on theological terms (The Church is not liberal or conservative; it’s Catholic–Universal). While she supports a person’s choice to choose natural methods of family planning (I got warm fuzzies), she remains neutral on the moral issues (namely the fact that most contraceptives are abortafacients to begin with, plus contra-love factor). I can deal with people who are against the Church’s teaching or don’t understand it, but someone who’s totally neutral? There’s nothing lamer than lukewarmness.
I appreciate that she’s trying to be loving and to extend an olive leaf, but her amicable branch is a thinly disguised vine of vitriol. There’s nothing more dangerous than indifference. A few words from wiser souls:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.–Our Lord Jesus, Gospel according to St. Matthew 10:34
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.–George Bernard Shaw, Nobel Prize Laureate
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.–Hellen Keller, author, political activist, lecturer
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference. –Edmund Burke, philosopher & statesman
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.–Soren Kirkegaard, philosopher & theologian
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.–Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Nobel Laureate & author
It’s worth checking out for a minute. Take the “What’s your method?” poll, and comment away! There’s a nice potpourri of the usual unsubstantiated overpopulation claims, bad theology of marriage & sex (the r who “have no authority on the sex issue”), but there are a few nice counter comments. My favorite is,
As a website that promotes progressive forward thinking for 20-30 year old Catholics, I invite you to think forward to Dr. Janet Smith’s take on contraception and natural family planning…
Have you read John Senior?
A friend not too long ago recommended his book, “The Restoration of Christian Culture,” and told me a little about his life and times at Kansas University. Really, a heroic life.
The precursor to the recommended book was a much more somber “The Death of Christian Culture.” Both books were actually a series of lectures given, and later published. Anyway, I ordered them both, and am reading Death right now. It’s intellectually satisfying, poetically written and frighteningly prophetic. I’ve been told the second one is much better. Since this one is brilliant, I can’t wait to read the next.
A little sample relevant to our themes of natural family planning, love, life and children:
It is no accident that decadence leads to the hatred of children…
Conversely, he affirms:
This is the economy of the private enterprise of love: it generates. Love is fecund. Love is not only a means to an end, like a road, but is a kind of propulsion. It is like walking up an escalator, or swimming with the current–to beget children, to love children, to encourage their growth, to ease their sufferings, and to suffer oneself with them, even to our death.
He’s elucidating the relationship between the decline of Christian culture and the denigration of children, using the case of a mother who was acquitted of murdering her week old child because she was special needs and did not want her. Yet the courtroom erupted in cheers when the verdict was announced.
He goes on to debunk Thomas Malthus, the disproved 19th century economist who predicted that England’s population would outrun its food sources by 1850. (How are we doing, England?)
As I’ve said elsewhere, children are not the problem; they are the answer. People are not walking carbon footprints, but potential solutions to contemporary problems.
Every time a child is born, not just a mouth to feed is born, but hands and brains. [ A quote in Senior's book from Josue de Castro, a founder and director of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, and one of the five or six world-renowned men in the field of human population problems.]
“No true fiasco ever began as a quest for mere adequacy…a single green vine shoot is able to grow through cement…the Pacific Northwestern salmon beats itself bloody against the current with a single purpose: sex, of course, but also…life.” (Drew Baylor, main character in Elizabethtown)
I love movies, and I love music. I especially love films that weave music gorgeously into the plot. If there ever was a person who could do this, Cameron Crowe is your man. If you’ve seen Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous or Elizabethtown, you may know what I’m talking about. This man’s an artist.
What does my taste in film and their directors have to do with NFP? Well, it’s all in film. Check it out. You'll laugh, cry and appreciate Cameron Crowe. You’ll have to see it to know how this quote fits into the film, but it’s an inspiring piece of work that has revealed itself more and more profound in my life. It’s not a PG film, so don’t expect it to be a cinematic lesson in morality. No, spiritual lessons are much more subtle in Hollywood.
Ok, he’s not exactly pronouncing his love for Humanae Vitae, but perhaps he’s on the right path?
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