The Church’s teaching on contraception is not just a prohibition but a calling to the joy of parenthood. Procreation of children, far greater than an obligation, is an outpouring of God’s love to spouses, who in turn pour out their love to their children. Parents accordingly become mediators, instruments, and ministers of God’s love. This sharing in God’s love of His children, as is true of all instances in which we share in the administration of God’s gifts, heightens our dignity, conforms us to Christ, and deepens our self-knowledge.

The transmission of human life is a prerogative so cherished by God that it has been entrusted only to the covenantal union of man and wife. That is why openness to procreation is essential to the vocation of marriage.1 Yes, marriage is a vocation raised by Christ to the level of a sacrament. Like all the sacraments, marriage is an encounter with Christ that nourishes one’s own earthly pilgrimage as God’s life and love (grace) is poured into one’s soul. Yet God in his abundance fills the soul to overflowing, surging beyond our boundaries so that we become vessels of his love. In so doing, we become living images of Christ in the world.

Children are the incarnation of married love; the material overflowing of two becoming one. Love is always life-giving, always open to the other, always expansive. Those who love find no greater joy than to extend love to others. Children are the natural extension of the love of spouses-the visible sign of the fruitfulness of self-emptying love-and a means of ever deepening joy in marriage.

This is not to say that having children will create a perpetual state of marital bliss. Children involve sacrifice, but sacrifice is the fuel of love. It authenticates love, purifies its motives, and makes it more Christ-like. Indeed, the self-emptying love that is necessary for the raising of children is not only an imitation of Christ’s self-offering, but a real participation in it. The procreation of children is an exercise of our common priesthood: like Christ, who offered himself as priest and victim, we offer ourselves as a gift to our spouse and children for their good and for ours. For by offering ourselves to others we learn who we really are: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 10:39)

The Crucifix that hangs above the marriage bed of so many Catholic households takes on new meaning in this light. In the same way that the cross effected a self-emptying offering that literally produced children for God, the marriage bed effects a sharing in this once-for-all sacrifice to produce children for God. It is no mere metaphor that Christ refers to his Church as His bride and to Himself as the Bridegroom. On Holy Thursday, Christ proclaimed his marriage vows-”This is my body which will be given up for you”-and on Good Friday He consummated the marriage on the Cross. For this reason two of the Doctors of the Catholic Church, St. Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross, likened the Cross to the marriage bed. Jesus formed a union with the people of God, He consummated it on the cross to bring forth divine progeny, and He appointed marriage as the sacramental sign of this marvelous offering (cf. Eph 5:25-32).

That the rearing of children engenders self-sacrificial love in parents is an essential element of the marriage vocation but children must be seen not only in their benefits to the marriage. On the contrary, a child is a supreme good in and of himself (cf. John Paul II Letter to Families No. 11). What gift is more precious than life itself? Into the marriage is sent a new person who did not exist before, an immortal soul created by God through an intimate expression of love between husband and wife. A child is the consummate instance of God’s miraculous intervention in the lives of his people. How can we not welcome such a magnificent blessing? How can we refuse such a generous calling?

That children are the “supreme gift” of marriage and an essential element of marital love has been the subject of a number of Papal audiences from Pope John Paul II:

God’s blessing is at the origin not only of marital communion, but also of a responsible and generous openness to life. Children really are the “springtime of the family and society”.It is in children that marriage blossoms: they crown that total partnership of life which makes husband and wife “one flesh”; this is true both of the children born from the natural relationship of the spouses and those desired through adoption. Children are not an “accessory” to the project of married life. They are not an “option,” but a “supreme gift,” inscribed in the very structure of the conjugal union. The Church, as you know, teaches an ethic of respect for this fundamental structure in both its unitive and procreative meaning. In all this, it expresses the proper regard for God’s plan, sketching an image of conjugal relations that are marked by mutual and unreserved acceptance. Above all, it addresses the right of children to be born and to grow in a context of fully human love. In conforming to the word of God, families thus become a school of humanization and true solidarity. (Sunday Homily, Jubilee of Families, October 15, 2000)

In choosing marriage as our vocation, we accept, prospectively, the gift of children. In fact the vows taken in marriage require our assent to “accept children from God lovingly and bring them up according to the law of Christ and His Church.” This is a sacred pledge to God and spouse before witnesses-a vow that if kept produces new life that quickens our will to love and enlivens our outlook. Pope John Paul II spoke poetically to this point in an October 14, 2000, address to families:

Do not children themselves in a way continually “examine” their parents? They do so not only with their frequent “whys?”, but with their very faces, sometimes smiling, sometimes misty with sadness. It is as if a question were inscribed in their whole existence, a question which is expressed in the most varied ways, even in their whims, and which we could put into questions like these: Mama, papa, do you love me? Am I really a gift to you? Do you accept me for what I am? Do you always try to do what is really best for me?

These questions perhaps are asked more with their eyes than in words, but they hold parents to their great responsibility and are in some way an echo of God’s voice for them.

Children are a “springtime”: what does this metaphor chosen for your Jubilee mean?

It takes us into that panorama of life, colors, light, and song which belongs to the spring season. Children are all of this by nature. They are the hope that continually blossoms, a project that starts ever anew, the future that opens without ceasing. They represent the flowering of married love, which is found and strengthened in them. At their birth they bring a message of life, which, in the ultimate analysis, refers back to the very Author of life. In need of everything as they are especially in the first stage of life, they naturally appeal to our solidarity.

Not by chance did Jesus invite his disciples to have a child’s heart. Today, dear families, you wish to give thanks for the gift of children and, at the same time, to accept the message that God sends you through their existence (Third World Meeting with Families).

Jesus taught, “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Lk. 18:16). Children are the model of a kingdom people. They are the living symbol of hope, innocence, and life itself. Indeed, Jesus came to us as a child, bearing in his infancy a new beginning for humanity. How fitting that our restoration would be revealed to us in the new life of a tender little baby. Every newborn child reminds us of our capacity for renewal and our unique ability to shape the future of God’s kingdom.

This pamphlet is drawn from Chapter 8 of Called to Give Life by Jason T. Adams. Jason is a theology teacher at Carroll High School in Dayton, Ohio, where he resides with his wife, Linda, and their two children, Timothy and Bridget. Jason and Linda have used Natural Family Planning to successfully postpone and achieve pregnancy throughout their marriage, and have shared their testimony to its benefits in Pre-Cana, RCIA, young adult/youth groups, and other venues.

When our youngest was around 4, God began challenging me in my faith life, and eventually I came face to face with the Church’s teachings on contraception, marriage, and family life. Slowly and painfully, after much resisting, my stubborn heart acknowledged that we had been denying Him His rightful place in our marriage-in many ways, but largely though contraception. I gradually came to see marriage and parenting as the vocations they are, to be lived out for God, and that only with His grace can we meet the challenges and sacrifices they present. I came to embrace the beauty of Natural Family Planning, and, once my husband was also convinced, we set about trying to share the news with others in our families and parish. It was heartbreaking to see how many Catholics have never been taught the fullness of what marriage and family can be, or to appreciate the wisdom of the Church. We quickly found out this is not a message others want to hear, and we have had to learn that just as God worked on us slowly and patiently, we too had to be patient when trying to reach others.

In spite of all we were learning, we remained hesitant about having more children. Learning the teachings was one thing, putting them into practice was quite another. Years of bad habits in our marriage were not easily overcome, and as the kids grew and the dust settled after the whirlwind of toddlers and diapers, I still had great fears about enduring the suffering of pregnancy and of falling back into the depression and anxiety. I couldn’t bring myself to go there again. Yet we had always wanted a larger family, and in spite of many raised eyebrows over “all these children,” four just didn’t seem like a lot. I can’t count how many times-especially at the dinner table-I actually counted heads because it seemed like someone was missing. Even with four kids, things often seemed too quiet.

God continued to lead me deeper on my spiritual journey, but even as I grew in my knowledge of faith, I struggled to live it. I wanted Him to be in charge, yet couldn’t give up control; I wanted to be able to trust Him completely, but was terrified of what He might ask; I really wanted to embrace suffering for Him – as long as it didn’t hurt.

For many years we struggled with indecisiveness over having more children. During that time, a fierce battle raged in my heart over surrendering to God’s will for my life-in all areas but especially in the area of children. I was truly emotionally exhausted from the battle, but the fear was strong. Yet even as the fear persisted, so did the desire to ultimately do His will, and the passion to let others know about the lies of artificial contraception. Joe and I really worked at being open to whatever God wanted, but that door was open just the slightest crack, and some months we even slammed it shut again. With me approaching 40 and with time running out, God had to take drastic measures. He placed in my path the opportunity to work for One More Soul, an apostolate that promotes the blessings from having children and the benefits of Natural Family Planning. I seized the chance to do more to educate others, even as that fearful, struggling part of me often screamed “run!” I sensed instantly the “threat” that being surrounded by people who were constantly expounding the blessings of children posed to my vulnerable heart; that I was “in danger” of opening up even more. Slowly but surely, my resistance crumbled, and reluctantly I waved the white flag towards heaven, telling God “you win. I give up.” The fear never completely left my heart, but an incredible peace came to live alongside it, the peace of trusting God. During this time I felt very much like Peter, when Christ called Him out of the boat to walk on water. We would attempt to give God control, and briefly know that incredible joy of total trust – walking on water. That would last about two minutes, until I envisioned the real possibility of pregnancy, and then I would sink fast. But Jesus was always there, His strong arm pulling me out of the turbulent water.

Shortly after I hit 40 (it felt more like 40 hit me!), my husband and I took our children on vacation. We cherish family time since we know with two now in college these moments are slipping by all too fast. We looked forward to celebrating our anniversary on the trip, having had some struggles in our marriage over the last couple years and finally experiencing some real growth and renewal. The morning of our 20th wedding anniversary brought an unexpected gift. A positive pregnancy test confirmed the beautiful truth that had taken us too long to learn-God does have a plan for our lives; it is far better than what we alone could dream, and is not as frightening as we thought.

Yes, we are scared, but mostly we are humbled: humbled that God has been patient with our lack of trust in Him, humbled that He would allow our four older children to be overjoyed at welcoming a new life when other kids might be embarrassed or resistant, humbled that He would consider us-frail, weak, stumbling, and rebellious though we have been-as suitable instruments for building His kingdom.

We are now carried along by His grace, though still somewhat in shock. For years now I have “talked the talk,” now we’ll see if I can “waddle the walk.” Our faith is challenged by the knowledge of increased risk of miscarriage and other complications posed by my age. Our youngest will be almost thirteen when this baby is born; we will have a generation gap within our own family. My kids inherited good math skills from Joe, and they are constantly figuring out how old we will be when this baby starts school, graduates, etc. I find myself wondering if anyone has invented a wheelchair/stroller combo. Joe is back to square one with his carefully constructed budget, which will now have to allow for both college tuition and diapers. But these inconveniences are so small when we contemplate the miracle of life God has created, and, maybe even more amazing, the miracle of selfish, frightened human hearts surrendering to a divine plan.

There are stretch marks on my body from my previous four pregnancies, when the skin stretched to accommodate a new life. In my case, the skin didn’t quite shrink back as I would have liked, and there is now plenty of room for another baby. The marks are unsightly, but I consider them “battle scars” and worth the price. This time around, there are also stretch marks on my heart, from all the work God has done there to get me to this point. These stretch marks I definitely don’t mind, because there is now much more room for Him-and for whomever else He sends along. Anyway, He’s the only one who can see them, and I’m pretty sure to Him they are beautiful.

Editor’s Note: Faith Elizabeth Heider was born March 30, 2004 – 7 pounds, 3 ounces – mother and baby doing fine (baby sleeping more than the mother!). Mom, Dad, and siblings feel greatly blessed by the gift of Faith.

Statistics do not really capture the pervasive ills attendant upon sexual immorality. Premature and promiscuous sexuality prevents many from establishing good marriages and family life. Few deny that a healthy sexuality and a strong family life are among the most necessary elements for human happiness and well being. While many single parents do a worthy and valiant job of raising their children, it remains sadly true that children from broken homes grow up to be adults with a greater propensity for crime, a greater tendency to engage in alcohol and drug abuse, and a greater susceptibility to psychological disorders.

These realities touch every realm of life. They affect people’s ability to relate to friends and family; they affect people’s ability to do well at their studies and their jobs; and they affect the whole of society, which needs stable and secure individuals to lead us out of our troubles. Those who do not experience love from family and friends tend to seek any semblance of love they can find – and thus become involved in illicit sexual relationships – and the cycle starts again. The multiple varieties of abuse of sexuality and the grievous consequences of such abuse are not only damaging the current generation, they are threatening to ruin the chances of future generations to live happy and fulfilled lives.

Twenty years ago, when the sexual revolution was in full swing, many argued that it would liberate men and women from the repressive view of sexuality pervasive in society; people would be free to make love to those whom they loved without the strictures of marriage. Many pointed to Christianity as the source of sexual repression. But the Christian view of sex is looking a lot more like wisdom. Christians no longer need to offer apologies for their insistence upon sexual morality, for their insistence upon reserving sex for marriage. Some in high public places are now beginning to counsel abstinence before marriage and to extol faithful monogamous marriages. They have begun to see these as practices of great practical wisdom.

Christian Sexuality

In a certain sense, Christian morality-especially sexual morality-is quite similar to natural or commonsense morality. One does not need to be a Christian to understand why certain sexual practices are wrong. Christians differ from unbelievers not so much in the understanding of what is moral as in their commitment to trying to live morally. A Christian understands that when he is doing wrong, he is not only violating good sense, he is violating God’s law; he is failing to be the loving and responsible person God made him to be. Thus, Christian apologetics about sex may not seem much different from commonsense apologetics about sex, but the Christian tradition has most faithfully preserved the common wisdom about sex. Clearly it is easy to “forget” or become confused about the common wisdom about sex; Christians are blessed with the powerful aid of revelation and tradition to counsel them regarding sexual morality.

Yet, despite the fact that most Christian denominations have remained steadfast in their allegiance to traditional Christian wisdom in sexual issues, few Christians have not been deeply affected by the saturation of modern culture with a view of sexuality radically opposed to the Christian view. Ten minutes of watching MTV or of a soap opera; ten minutes of listening to any rock, pop, or country music station; one visit to the corner-store magazine rack; or two minutes at the beach should serve to convince anyone that our society has very little respect for Christian moral norms regarding sexual relations. Christians, too, have begun to lose sight of the understanding of sexuality advanced by their tradition. Thus, now is the time for Christians to offer apologetics for their understanding of the role of sexual relations within human relationships. Apologetics is a term used to refer to the energetic attempt to explain one’s position to others. But Christians, I think, need to be as concerned with providing apologetics about sex to themselves and to fellow Christians as with bringing their message to others. Both internal and external evangelization is necessary, for few, if any can escape being adversely affected by the distortions of our times. Christians need to strengthen themselves as well as their compatriots.

Christians have to learn about their own tradition before they can become effective witnesses to those in the larger society who desperately need to encounter individuals who are in control of their sexuality and happy because of it. There are multitudes of Christian truths that can assist us in escaping the ravages of a disordered sexuality. The time seems to be ripe for making the most persuasive case we can for Christian morality. Certainly, many are ceasing promiscuous behavior because of their fear of contracting AIDS. But that is not the only reason for the growing disenchantment with the sexual revolution. Many find that their sexual encounters leave them lonely and looking for something more. There are increasing reports of sexual indifference, with many claiming to have lost an interest in sex, even with those whom they love. There seems to be an increasing weariness with premarital sex and abortion, and a growing interest in reducing both. Many are beginning to see that the call for more and better sex education or more and better access to contraceptives is not the solution. Rather, we need a better understanding of the relations between sex, love, marriage, and children. And it is this understanding that Christianity can provide.

Three Truths of Sexuality

Let us focus on three fundamental truths about sexuality stressed throughout the Christian tradition: that marriage is the only proper arena for sexual activity; that marriages must be faithful for the love of spouses to thrive; and that children are a great gift to parents.

Why should sexual union only take place within marriage? It can hardly be denied that sexual relations create powerful bonds between individuals, even between those who do not desire such bonds. Those who have sexual intercourse are engaging in an action that bespeaks a deep commitment to another. Pope John Paul II uses an interesting phrase in his teachings on sex: “language of the body.” He claims that, like words, bodily actions have meanings, and that unless we intend those meanings with our actions, we should not perform them any more than we should speak words we do not mean. In both cases, lies are “spoken.” Sexual union means “I find you attractive;” “I care for you;” “I will try to work for your happiness”; “I wish to have a deep bond with you.” Some who engage in sexual intercourse do not mean these things with their actions; they wish simply to use another for their own sexual pleasure. They have lied with their bodies in the same way as someone lies who says “I love you” to another simply for the purposes of obtaining some desired favor.

But some who engage in sexual intercourse outside of marriage claim that they do mean all that sexual union implies and that, therefore, they are not lying with their bodies. They are, though, making false promises, for those engaging in sexual intercourse outside of marriage cannot fulfill the promises which their bodily actions make. They have not prepared themselves to fulfill the promise of working for another’s happiness, or of achieving a deep bond with another. Such achievements take a lifetime to complete; they cannot be accomplished in brief encounters.

The existence of the institution of marriage acknowledges the importance of love for the happiness of human beings, of the lifetime unconditional love that marriage facilitates. Love nourishes human goodness like no other force. For instance, love assists us in feeling secure in ourselves; it gives us the confidence to dare to exercise our talents; it gives us the assurance to reach out to others. Love also serves to heal past wounds. Love in almost any form can promote these benefits to mankind, but marital love provides special benefits. Human beings are complicated and are not easily known by others; a lifetime relationship seems hardly time enough to get to know another. Sexual intimacy plays a major role in the revealing of one person to another. It provides an opportunity for giving oneself in an exclusive way. Only in marriage can sexual intimacy achieve the goals that it is meant to serve.

The Christian insistence on reserving sexual union for marriage, then, has as one of its chief justifications a concern that sexual relations are meant to express the desire for a deep and committed relationship with another. That relationship can only be built within marriage, because marriage is built upon a vow of faithfulness to one’s beloved. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, regularly condemns the sin of adultery. Faithful marriage is used as the paradigm for the kind of relationship which God’s people should have with God. Those who are not faithful to God are likened to adulterers. Proverbs and the whole of wisdom literature harshly condemn the adulterous spouse. Most spouses are devastated at the mere thought that their beloved desires another, let alone that their spouse may have actually been unfaithful. Faithfulness is essential to create the relationship of trust, which is the bedrock of all the other goods that flow from marriage.

We take vows in marriage because we realize that we are all too ready to give up when the going gets tough; we realize that our loves wax and wane. Indeed, society at large seems to have a fondness for marriage. After all, in an age where there is little moral pressure against living together outside of marriage, most still choose to take marriage vows. Couples realize that marriage vows help them express and effect their commitment to each other. But as the divorce rate indicates, modern society ultimately does not take these vows very seriously – or at least modern couples do not prepare for marriage in such a way that they are prepared to keep their vows.

Preparing for Marriage

A talk with a pastor, an “Engaged Encounter” weekend, or a “Pre-Cana” conference does not prepare one for marriage. Real marriage preparation must occur for many years before we enter marriage. Young people enjoy the exercise of drawing up a list of characteristics that they would like their future spouse to have. But their time might be better spent drawing up a list of characteristics that they themselves should have in order to be a worthy spouse. They need to reflect upon their expectations of marriage; many may find that their expectations are largely selfish. Most of us dream much more about how happy our spouses are going to make us than about how much we are going to do for our spouses.

Since marriage requires loving, faithful, kind, patient, forgiving, humble, courageous, wise, unselfish individuals – and the list could go on – young people should strive to gain these characteristics. Marriages cannot survive unless the spouses acquire these characteristics. Certainly it would be foolish to require that individuals have all of these characteristics before they marry, for none of us do. Indeed, the experience of marriage itself undoubtedly helps foster these characteristics. But if we do not work at acquiring them before marriage, we will be acquiring their opposites – selfishness, haughtiness, impatience: characteristics that are death to a marriage.

Although faithfulness is one of the cornerstones of marriage, it may seem odd to speak of the need to be faithful to one’s spouse before marriage. But in a sense, one should love one’s spouse before one even meets him or her. This means reserving the giving of oneself sexually until one is married – for in a sense, one’s sexuality belongs to one’s future spouse as much as it does to oneself. A few generations ago, it was not uncommon for young people to speak of “saving themselves” for marriage. While scoffed at today, this phrase is nonetheless indicative of a proper understanding of love, sexuality, and marriage. One should prepare oneself for marriage, and one should save oneself for marriage.

How does one do so? Obviously, by remaining chaste – and that is not an easy prescription. For instance, it means being attentive to what provokes sexual thoughts and desires and avoiding these provocations. It means, most likely, dissociating oneself from many of the forms of entertainment popular today. Those who view sexuality as a gift, which one offers one’s spouse at the time of marriage, cannot fall victim to the constant sexual stimulation that Americans face daily. We need to be careful what music we listen to, what movies and TV shows we watch, and what clothes we wear. We need to try to save sexual thoughts and sexual stimulation for the time when they will not be frustrations, but welcome preludes to loving union with our spouses. Sexual temptations are, of course, impossible to avoid, especially since our society provides temptations around the clock. Christ’s teaching that lust in one’s heart is wrong tells us that we must guard our inner purity as well as govern our actions.

Few people, Christian or not, think it sensible for those who are engaged to wait until their wedding night to enjoy sexual union. Many think waiting until marriage would make sexual intimacy too awkward. Most think that, since one is soon going to take vows, it makes little difference whether sexual intimacy begins before or after a ceremony which simply ratifies a commitment already felt.

What difference does waiting make? Well, certainly a vow is not a vow until it is spoken; unspoken, unratified commitments are all too easy to break. There are practical reasons as well. Father James Burtchaell at Notre Dame has written a marvelous book, For Better or Worse, explaining why it is best for couples to wait until marriage before they begin their sexual intimacy. He speaks eloquently of the period before marriage as an irreplaceable opportunity for lovers to get to know one another. Engaging in sexual intercourse creates a false sense of closeness; it creates a bond that may obscure elements in a relationship that need work. Courtship is a time for getting to know each other; for sketching out dreams and plans; for expressing worries and hesitations. The delight of sexual union can easily distract couples from preparation for marriage.

There is also a deeper reason, and that is the question of honesty and trust. Few of those who have sexual relations before marriage, especially Christians, can be fully open about their actions. This means that people engaging in such relationships inevitably are deceiving someone – their parents, their teachers, and perhaps their friends as well. The ability to practice such deception does not bode well for one’s integrity. A woman observes that her lover is good at deception and will file away this information. She will have reason to wonder in the future if her spouse is being honest with her – after all, he had no trouble deceiving others whom he or she respected. Many Christians feel terrible guilt at violating their deeply held moral principles; after they are married, they may continue to have guilty feelings about sex. In a sense, they have programmed themselves to think of sexual intercourse as a furtive and naughty activity.

On the other hand, couples who do wait until marriage have a special kind of euphoria about their sexual union. Because they waited, they see sexual pleasure as a privileged good of marriage. They have an easier time developing a deep and abiding trust and consideration for each other. Their willingness to wait, to endure the strains of sexual continence out of love and respect for one another, is a great testimony to their strength of character. They have shown that sexual attraction is not the most important part of the relationship, and they can enjoy each other’s company even when the delights of sexual union are not available to them. Such faithfulness and chastity before marriage ensure greater faithfulness and chastity during marriage. Because of pregnancy or illness or separation, all couples must abstain at some time in marriage; the acquisition of the virtue of self-mastery before marriage facilitates such abstention.

The Contraceptive Mentality

Chastity before marriage – and, consequently, chastity during marriage – has been undermined by the widespread availability of contraception. Indeed, contraception seems to be one of the chief facilitators of much of the sexual misconduct of our time. There were fewer teenage pregnancies, fewer abortions, and a lesser incidence of sexually transmitted diseases before contraception became widely available. Contraception has made people feel secure that they can engage in sexual union apart from the obligations of marriage and child rearing. Yet contraceptives do not remove the responsibilities that come with the child-making possibilities of sexual intercourse, since contraceptives do not always achieve their purpose. We must help our young people to understand that they are not ready for sexual intercourse until they are ready to be parents, for sexual intercourse always brings with it the possibility of being a parent.

Getting young people to associate sex with child bearing is not easy, but it is necessary; in fact, it is important for adults to encourage young people to try to think like parents. It is good to get them thinking about what they would like to do with their children; to get them thinking about what they want to be able to provide for their children. Parents must convey to their children that they are not a burden to them, that they consider their children to be great gifts from God. Our society tends to look upon children as a burden: they are expensive, noisy, and troublesome; they stand in the way of careers and adventuresome travel. This view, of course, has not stopped people from having babies, but one senses that many children are just another possession of their parents, or just another experience that adults wish to have. Many couples seem to want a few “designer children” as adornments to their lives – not as reasons for their lives

The Christian View of Children

God, it seems, has a preference for children; after all, one of His first commands was to “be fruitful and multiply.” Throughout the Old Testament, having many children is listed among the signs of prosperity that indicate God’s favor. Psalm 127 states “Behold, sons are a gift from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one’s youth. Happy the man whose quiver is filled with them.” Psalm 128 is one of my favorites; it states:

Happy the man who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!
You shall eat of your hand’s labor; blessed are you, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the recesses of your house;
Your sons, like olive shoots around your table.
Behold, in this way shall be blessed the man who fears the Lord.

God has arranged matters such that parents and children need each other. The experience of child rearing, like the experience of marriage, both requires and fosters many virtues. Having children generally does adults a lot of good; most find they become more selfless, patient, kind, loving, and tender when they have children. Learning to live with children has many of the same advantages of living with a spouse: it forces one to accommodate oneself to others, to acknowledge that one has constant tendencies to be selfish. Staying awake at night with children, dealing with their daily joys and sorrows, and learning to be a good example for them contributes greatly to the maturity of adults.

Christians have a radically different view of children from the rest of society. They understand that their offspring are not possessions through which they are to live their unfulfilled dreams and win the respect of the world around them. Rather, Christians see children as a gift from God, as souls entrusted to them, whom they are to return to God. Among Christians there is a predisposition toward children, for they understand that God loves life and wishes to share His glorious creation. Christians are generally more eager and willing to have children because they realize the importance of children to God and depend upon Him to assist them in providing for the children He has given them.

Recently, a relative of mine mentioned that he wanted to have a large family, but he did not know how it would be possible to manage financially. He had noticed that I had a large number of friends who started their childbearing early and had lots of children. Few of the women are employed outside their homes. He wanted to know how they did it. I think I know the answer: they trust in God. They regularly live on the edge of things-for the first few years, they experience occasional anxiety that another child will be an undue strain on the budget, or that they will not be able to afford a car or house large enough for the growing brood, or that they may not be able to meet food and medical costs. But after a few years, they find that their needs are fulfilled. To be sure, they learn to budget and scrimp and save, they are not ashamed to take hand-me-downs, and they often learn to live a life that is a little tacky around the edges. But they lack none of their true needs and often enjoy luxuries of which they never would have dreamed. So they come to trust God and live without a lot of obvious security. Trust in God replaces the standard American understanding of perfect security: accumulating enough money and material goods to serve as a buffer against the world. With trusting and light hearts, they proceed to enjoy their growing families and to soak up the love that flows in big families. Those with large families seem to have a special generosity and hospitality about them. Guests are always welcome and interruptions seem not to be an annoyance; members of large families seem quite ready to drop everything to help someone else. Slowly but steadily, they become better Christians.

Discussions of the Christian preference for large families always seem to broach a topic that is sensitive and controversial, namely, contraception. Although the belief that contraception is not in accord with God’s will has, since Humanae Vitae, been identified almost exclusively with the Catholic Church, the fact is that all Protestant denominations were opposed to contraception up until 1930. Early in this century, the Anglican Church twice condemned contraception, before passing a resolution in 1930 that its use was morally permissible for married couples. Thus, acceptance of contraception is a relatively new phenomenon. Catholics have, perhaps, preserved the teaching against contraception more faithfully, but it is not a teaching exclusive to them.

In much the same way, Protestants have more faithfully preached the necessity of tithing, a doctrine not exclusive to Protestants. Many Catholics are now rediscovering the practice of tithing at the prompting of their Protestant brethren. They have found great spiritual growth through this practice and now regularly urge their fellow Catholics to embrace this time-honored way of expressing gratitude to God and of trusting in Him. Indeed, I think the doctrine on tithing has some similarities with the teaching that in one’s childbearing, one must be generous with God. Some refuse to tithe since they believe it is foolish to give away money that they think they need for their own well being. Yet those who are committed to tithing know that, on occasion, one must give to God what one believes one needs oneself. They give to God and His causes because they know He wants them to, and they trust Him to provide. Being generous in childbearing is not very different. Many a married couple will testify that they thought having another child would be an undue hardship, only to find that having another child was a source of wonderful blessings and splendid joy to them.

Natural Family Planning

Of course, couples on occasion may have good reason to curtail their childbearing, at least for a while. Many do not see why couples may not responsibly use contraceptives to help them space their children or to delay childbearing if sufficiently good reason exists. They consider contraception a marvelous invention of technology, and see no reason not to use it responsibly. They find the Catholic counsel of periodic abstinence to be irrational. They argue that, if both contraception and natural methods of family planning are designed to limit family size, why not use the most effective method?

Oddly enough, NFP, or natural family planning, is one of the most effective means, if not the most effective means, of planning one’s family. NFP, of course, is not the outmoded rhythm method, which was based simply on the calendar. Rather, NFP is a highly scientific way of determining when a woman is fertile, based on observing various bodily signs. The statistics of its reliability rival the most effective forms of the Pill. Moreover, NFP is without the health risks and dubious moral status of contraceptives. The IUD is an abortifacient: that is, it works by causing an early-term abortion. Ovulation still occurs, and, therefore, conception may occur; the IUD then prohibits the fertilized egg, the tiny new human being, from implanting in the wall of the uterus. Most currently popular forms of the Pill work the same way. Furthermore, the Pill and the IUD have proven to be dangerous to women in many ways – and no one yet knows what the long term effects may be. So those who are opposed to abortion and those interested in protecting the well being of women would certainly not want to use or promote these forms of contraception. The other forms, known as barrier methods, have aesthetic drawbacks or are low on reliability.

NFP no longer means “Not For Protestants.” Many non-Catholics are turning to NFP as a means of family planning precisely because they do not want to use abortifacients, and they fear the physical risks of contraception. They are finding that the use of NFP has positive results for their marital relationships, for their relationship with their children and for their relationship with God.

Many find it odd that periodic abstinence should be beneficial to a marriage. Certainly, most who begin to use NFP, especially those who were not chaste before marriage and who have used contraception, find the abstinence required to be a source of strain and a cause of considerable irritability. Abstinence, like dieting or any form of self-restraint, has its hardships; but it also has its benefits. As spouses learn to communicate better with one another, as they learn to communicate their affection in non-genital ways, and as they learn to master their sexual desires, they find a new liberation in the ability to abstain from sexual intercourse. Many find that an element of romance reenters the relationship during the times of abstinence, and an element of excitement accompanies the reuniting. Spouses using NFP find that they come to understand and respect one another more.

Why is it that couples who initially find difficult the restraint required by NFP eventually come to sing its praises? One of the answers seems to be that couples advance in the virtue of “self-mastery” through their use of NFP. That is, they begin to realize that their sexual feelings can be controlled to some degree and that they need to be subordinated to the goods of marriage. Thus, if spouses determine that they could not responsibly have another child at a given time, they have the self-mastery to control their sexuality so that it does not conflict with what they have determined to be good for the family. This self-mastery spills over into their family life with favorable results.

Spouses using NFP become very good examples to their children, especially their teenagers who may be wrestling with new and powerful sexual feelings. One man told me that his practice of NFP assisted him in being a good witness for chastity among the young men at his place of work. They would tease him about being able, as a married man, to have sex on demand, but he responded that through the use of NFP, he was required to abstain. He argued that if, night after night, he was able to sleep beside the woman he loved and not have sexual intercourse with her, they could learn to refrain from sexual intercourse with their girlfriends. He believed that parents who practice NFP could much more persuasively urge their children to be chaste before marriage.

Another reason for the enthusiasm for NFP is that couples who use it experience a greater bonding than those who use contraception. There is a more complete giving of oneself to another in a non-contracepted act of sexual intercourse. This may be why divorce is nearly non-existent among couples who practice NFP.

Couples who use NFP also claim that it brings them closer to God. They believe that God made the human body and that respecting the way the human body works is a way of respecting God. They believe that contraceptives are an obstacle not only to union with their spouses but also to union with God. They believe that God is the source of love and life and that He has privileged them with being the transmitters of life through an act of love. They feel that they are leaving God space to perform His act of the creation of a new soul, if He so chooses.

Christianity, Contraception, and Chastity

Christians need to explain why faithfulness and responsibility toward children are two of the defining characteristics of marriage. Men and women today are tired of unfaithfulness, tired of shallow and brief relationships. They crave something more meaningful, something on which they can rely. Young people are sick of divorce. There is virtually no one who does not know children who have suffered greatly from divorce. Certainly many of us, because of our own foolishness, weakness, or wickedness, or because of the foolishness, weakness, or wickedness of others, may not be able to form the marriages and families that we want and need. We must trust in the grace of God to provide for all those who turn to Him for aid. Christians, who have the wisdom of the centuries, should strive to live chaste lives and to form loving marriages and families, for such is vital to their eternal salvation, and such may well be vital to the temporal well being of the whole of society.

Janet E. Smith is a Visiting Professor of Life Issues at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, the author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later (CUA Press, Washington, DC, 1991) and editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993) and of many articles on ethical and bioethics issues. She speaks nationally and internationally on life issues. Professor Smith won the 1996 “Amy Writing Awards” (First place – $10,000) for this article, originally printed in “The Family In America,” reprinted here with permission. Over 400,000 copies of her tape “Contraception: Why Not” have been distributed.

My own thoughts on Paul VI’s encyclical, which follow here, are just one example of a much wider re-appreciation of Humanae Vitae now going on in faithful hearts around the world. I want to offer my thanks and friendship to everyone involved with One More Soul for kindly reprinting the pastoral letter Of Human Life and, more importantly, for the tremendous work they do, day in and day out. To all who read this booklet, may God bless you richly and fill your life with His peace.

Your brother in the Lord,

Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap
Archbishop of Denver

Of Human Life

A pastoral letter to the people of God of northern Colorado
on the truth and meaning of married love

+ Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap
Archbishop of Denver
July 22, 1998

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,

1. Thirty years ago this week, Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), which reaffirmed the Church’s constant teaching on the regulation of births. It is certainly the most misunderstood papal intervention of this century. It was the spark which led to three decades of doubt and dissent among many Catholics, especially in the developed countries. With the passage of time, however, it has also proven prophetic. It teaches the truth. My purpose in this pastoral letter, therefore, is simple. I believe the message of Humanae Vitae is not a burden but a joy. I believe this encyclical offers a key to deeper, richer marriages. And so what I seek from the family of our local Church is not just a respectful nod toward a document which critics dismiss as irrelevant, but an active and sustained effort to study Humanae Vitae; to teach it faithfully in our parishes; and to encourage our married couples to live it.

I. The World Since 1968

2.Sooner or later, every pastor counsels someone struggling with an addiction. Usually the problem is alcohol or drugs. And usually the scenario is the same. The addict will acknowledge the problem but claim to be powerless against it. Or, alternately, the addict will deny having any problem at all, even if the addiction is destroying his or her health and wrecking job and family. No matter how much sense the pastor makes; no matter how true and persuasive his arguments; and no matter how life-threatening the situation, the addict simply cannot understand – or cannot act on – the counsel. The addiction, like a thick pane of glass, divides the addict from anything or anyone that might help.

3. One way to understand the history of Humanae Vitae is to examine the past three decades through this metaphor of addiction. I believe people in the developed world find this encyclical so hard to accept not because of any defect in Paul VI’s reasoning, but because of the addictions and contradictions they have inflicted upon themselves, exactly as the Holy Father warned.

4. In presenting his encyclical, Paul VI cautioned against four main problems (HV 17) that would arise if Church teaching on the regulation of births was ignored. First, he warned that the widespread use of contraception would lead to “conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.” Exactly this has happened. Few would deny that the rates of abortion, divorce, family breakdown, wife and child abuse, venereal disease, and out of wedlock births have all massively increased since the mid-1960s. Obviously, the birth control pill has not been the only factor in this unraveling. But it has played a major role. In fact, the cultural revolution since 1968, driven at least in part by transformed attitudes toward sex, would not have been possible or sustainable without easy access to reliable contraception. In this, Paul VI was right.

5. Second, he also warned that man would lose respect for woman and “no longer [care] for her physical and psychological equilibrium,” to the point that he would consider her “as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.” In other words, according to the Pope, contraception might be marketed as liberating for women, but the real “beneficiaries” of birth control pills and devices would be men. Three decades later, exactly as Paul VI suggested, contraception has released males – to a historically unprecedented degree – from responsibility for their sexual aggression. In the process, one of the stranger ironies of the contraception debate of the past generation has been this: Many feminists have attacked the Catholic Church for her alleged disregard of women, but the Church in Humanae Vitae identified and rejected sexual exploitation of women years before that message entered the cultural mainstream. Again, Paul VI was right.

6. Third, the Holy Father also warned that widespread use of contraception would place a “dangerous weapon . . . in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies.” As we have since discovered, eugenics didn’t disappear with Nazi racial theories in 1945. Population control policies are now an accepted part of nearly every foreign aid discussion. The massive export of contraceptives, abortion and sterilization by the developed world to developing countries – frequently as a prerequisite for aid dollars and often in direct contradiction to local moral traditions – is a thinly disguised form of population warfare and cultural re-engineering. Again, Paul VI was right.

7. Fourth, Pope Paul warned that contraception would mislead human beings into thinking they had unlimited dominion over their own bodies, relentlessly turning the human person into the object of his or her own intrusive power. Herein lies another irony: In fleeing into the false freedom provided by contraception and abortion, an exaggerated feminism has actively colluded in women’s dehumanization. A man and a woman participate uniquely in the glory of God by their ability to co-create new life with Him. At the heart of contraception, however, is the assumption that fertility is an infection which must be attacked and controlled, exactly as antibiotics attack bacteria. In this attitude, one can also see the organic link between contraception and abortion. If fertility can be misrepresented as an infection to be attacked, so too can new life. In either case, a defining element of woman’s identity – her potential for bearing new life – is recast as a weakness requiring vigilant distrust and “treatment.” Woman becomes the object of the tools she relies on to ensure her own liberation and defense, while man takes no share of the burden. Once again, Paul VI was right.

8. From the Holy Father’s final point, much more has flowed: In vitro fertilization, cloning, genetic manipulation, and embryo experimentation are all descendants of contraceptive technology. In fact, we have drastically and naively underestimated the effects of technology not only on external society, but on our own interior human identity. As author Neil Postman has observed, technological change is not additive but ecological. A significant new technology does not “add” something to a society; it changes everything – just as a drop of red dye does not remain discrete in a glass of water, but colors and changes every single molecule of the liquid. Contraceptive technology, precisely because of its impact on sexual intimacy, has subverted our understanding of the purpose of sexuality, fertility and marriage itself. It has detached them from the natural, organic identity of the human person and disrupted the ecology of human relationships. It has scrambled our vocabulary of love, just as pride scrambled the vocabulary of Babel.

9. Now we deal daily with the consequences. I am writing these thoughts during a July week when, within days of each other, news media have informed us that nearly 14 percent of Coloradans are or have been involved in drug or alcohol dependency; a governor’s commission has praised marriage while simultaneously recommending steps that would subvert it in Colorado by extending parallel rights and responsibilities to persons in “committed relationships,” including same-sex relationships; and a young east coast couple have been sentenced for brutally slaying their newborn baby. According to news reports, one or both of the young unmarried parents “bashed in [the baby's] skull while he was still alive, and then left his battered body in a Dumpster to die.” These are the headlines of a culture in serious distress. U.S. society is wracked with sexual identity and behavior dysfunctions, family collapse and a general coarsening of attitudes toward the sanctity of human life. It’s obvious to everyone but an addict: We have a problem. It’s killing us as a people. So what are we going to do about it? What I want to suggest is that if Paul VI was right about so many of the consequences deriving from contraception, it is because he was right about contraception itself. In seeking to become whole again as persons and as a people of faith, we need to begin by revisiting Humanae Vitae with open hearts. Jesus said the truth would make us free. Humanae Vitae is filled with truth. It is therefore a key to our freedom.

II. What Humanae Vitae Really Says

10. Perhaps one of the flaws in communicating the message of Humanae Vitae over the last 30 years has been the language used in teaching it. The duties and responsibilities of married life are numerous. They’re also serious. They need to be considered carefully, and prayerfully, in advance. But few couples understand their love in terms of academic theology. Rather, they fall in love. That’s the vocabulary they use. It’s that simple and revealing. They surrender to each other. They give themselves to each other. They fall into each other in order to fully possess, and be possessed by, each other. And rightly so. In married love, God intends that spouses should find joy and delight, hope and abundant life, in and through each other – all ordered in a way which draws husband and wife, their children, and all who know them, deeper into God’s embrace.

11. As a result, in presenting the nature of Christian marriage to a new generation, we need to articulate its fulfilling satisfactions at least as well as its duties. The Catholic attitude toward sexuality is anything but puritanical, repressive, or anti-carnal. God created the world and fashioned the human person in His own image. Therefore the body is good. In fact, it’s often been a source of great humor for me to listen incognito as people simultaneously complain about the alleged “bottled-up sexuality” of Catholic moral doctrine, and the size of many good Catholic families. (From where, one might ask, do they think the babies come?) Catholic marriage – exactly like Jesus Himself – is not about scarcity but abundance. It’s not about sterility, but rather the fruitfulness which flows from unitive, procreative love. Catholic married love always implies the possibility of new life; and because it does, it drives out loneliness and affirms the future. And because it affirms the future, it becomes a furnace of hope in a world prone to despair. In effect, Catholic marriage is attractive because it is true. It’s designed for the creatures we are: persons meant for communion. Spouses complete each other. When God joins a woman and man together in marriage, they create with Him a new wholeness; a “belonging” which is so real, so concrete, that a new life, a child, is its natural expression and seal. This is what the Church means when she teaches that Catholic married love is by its nature both unitive and procreative – not either/or.

12. But why can’t a married couple simply choose the unitive aspect of marriage and temporarily block or even permanently prevent its procreative nature? The answer is as simple and radical as the Gospel itself. When spouses give themselves honestly and entirely to each other, as the nature of married love implies and even demands, that must include their whole selves – and the most intimate, powerful part of each person is his or her fertility. Contraception not only denies this fertility and attacks procreation; in doing so, it necessarily damages unity as well. It is the equivalent of spouses saying: “I’ll give you all I am – except my fertility; I’ll accept all you are – except your fertility.” This withholding of self inevitably works to isolate and divide the spouses, and unravel the holy friendship between them . . . maybe not immediately and overtly, but deeply, and in the long run often fatally for the marriage.

13. This is why the Church is not against “artificial” contraception. She is against all contraception. The notion of “artificial” has nothing to do with the issue. In fact, it tends to confuse discussion by implying that the debate is about a mechanical intrusion into the body’s organic system. It is not. The Church has no problem with science appropriately intervening to heal or enhance bodily health. Rather, the Church teaches that all contraception is morally wrong; and not only wrong, but seriously wrong. The covenant which husband and wife enter at marriage requires that all intercourse remain open to the transmission of new life. This is what becoming “one flesh” implies: complete self-giving, without reservation or exception, just as Christ withheld nothing of Himself from His bride, the Church, by dying for her on the cross. Any intentional interference with the procreative nature of intercourse necessarily involves spouses’ withholding themselves from each other and from God, who is their partner in sacramental love. In effect, they steal something infinitely precious – themselves – from each other and from their Creator.

14. And this is why natural family planning (NFP) differs not merely in style but in moral substance from contraception as a means of regulating family size. NFP is not contraception. Rather, it is a method of fertility awareness and appreciation. It is an entirely different approach to regulating birth. NFP does nothing to attack fertility, withhold the gift of oneself from one’s spouse, or block the procreative nature of intercourse. The marriage covenant requires that each act of intercourse be fully an act of self-giving, and therefore open to the possibility of new life. But when, for good reasons, a husband and wife limit their intercourse to the wife’s natural periods of infertility during a month, they are simply observing a cycle which God Himself created in the woman. They are not subverting it. And so they are living within the law of God’s love.

15. There are, of course, many wonderful benefits to the practice of NFP. The wife preserves herself from intrusive chemicals or devices and remains true to her natural cycle. The husband shares in the planning and responsibility for NFP. Both learn a greater degree of self-mastery and a deeper respect for each other. It’s true that NFP involves sacrifices and periodic abstinence from intercourse. It can, at times, be a difficult road. But so can any serious Christian life, whether ordained, consecrated, single or married. Moreover, the experience of tens of thousands of couples has shown that, when lived prayerfully and unselfishly, NFP deepens and enriches marriage and results in greater intimacy – and greater joy. In the Old Testament, God told our first parents to be fruitful and multiply (Gn 1:28). He told us to choose life (Dt 30:19). He sent His son, Jesus, to bring us life abundantly (Jn 10:10) and to remind us that His yoke is light (Mt 11:30). I suspect, therefore, that at the heart of Catholic ambivalence toward Humanae Vitae is not a crisis of sexuality, Church authority or moral relevance, but rather a question of faith: Do we really believe in God’s goodness? The Church speaks for her Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, and believers naturally, eagerly listen. She shows married couples the path to enduring love and a culture of life. Thirty years of history record the consequences of choosing otherwise.

III. What We Need To Do

16. I want to express my gratitude to the many couples who already live the message of Humanae Vitae in their married lives. Their fidelity to the truth sanctifies their own families and our entire community of faith. I thank in a special way those couples who teach NFP and counsel others in responsible parenthood inspired by Church teaching. Their work too often goes unnoticed or underappreciated – but they are powerful advocates for life in an age of confusion. I also want to offer my prayers and encouragement to those couples who bear the cross of infertility. In a society often bent on avoiding children, they carry the burden of yearning for children but having none. No prayers go unanswered, and all suffering given over to the Lord bears fruit in some form of new life. I encourage them to consider adoption, and I appeal to them to remember that a good end can never justify a wrong means. Whether to prevent a pregnancy or achieve one, all techniques which separate the unitive and procreative dimensions of marriage are always wrong. Procreative techniques which turn embryos into objects and mechanically substitute for the loving embrace of husband and wife violate human dignity and treat life as a product. No matter how positive their intentions, these techniques advance the dangerous tendency to reduce human life to material which can be manipulated.

17. It’s never too late to turn our hearts back toward God. We are not powerless. We can make a difference by witnessing the truth about married love and fidelity to the culture around us. In December last year, in a pastoral letter entitled Good News of Great Joy, I spoke of the important vocation every Catholic has as an evangelizer. We are all missionaries. America in the 1990s, with its culture of disordered sexuality, broken marriages and fragmented families, urgently needs the Gospel. As Pope John Paul II writes in his apostolic exhortation On the Family (Familiaris Consortio), married couples and families have a critical role in witnessing Jesus Christ to each other and to the surrounding culture (49, 50).

18. In that light, I ask married couples of the archdiocese to read, discuss and pray over Humanae Vitae, Familiaris Consortio and other documents of the Church which outline Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality. Many married couples, unaware of the valuable wisdom found in these materials, have deprived themselves of a beautiful source of support for their mutual love. I especially encourage couples to examine their own consciences regarding contraception, and I ask them to remember that “conscience” is much more than a matter of personal preference. It requires us to search out and understand Church teaching, and to honestly strive to conform our hearts to it. I urge them to seek sacramental Reconciliation for the times they may have fallen into contraception. Disordered sexuality is the dominant addiction of American society in these closing years of the century. It directly or indirectly impacts us all. As a result, for many, this teaching may be a hard message to accept. But do not lose heart. Each of us is a sinner. Each of us is loved by God. No matter how often we fail, God will deliver us if we repent and ask for the grace to do His will.

19. I ask my brother priests to examine their own pastoral practices, to ensure that they faithfully and persuasively present the Church’s teaching on these issues in all their parish work. Our people deserve the truth about human sexuality and the dignity of marriage. To accomplish this, I ask pastors to read and implement the Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life, and to study the Church’s teaching on marriage and family planning. I urge them to appoint parish coordinators to facilitate the presentation of Catholic teaching on married love and family planning – especially NFP. Contraception is a grave matter. Married couples need the good counsel of the Church to make right decisions. Most married Catholics welcome the guidance of their priests, and priests should never feel intimidated by their personal commitment to celibacy, or embarrassed by the teaching of the Church. To be embarrassed by Church teaching is to be embarrassed by Christ’s teaching. The pastoral experience and counsel of a priest are valuable on issues like contraception precisely because he brings new perspective to a couple and speaks for the whole Church. Moreover, the fidelity a priest shows to his own vocation strengthens married people to live their vocation more faithfully.

20. As archbishop, I commit myself and my offices to supporting my brother priests, deacons, and their lay collaborators in presenting the whole of the Church’s teaching on married love and family planning. I owe both the clergy of our local Church and their staffs – especially the many dedicated parish catechists – much gratitude for the good work they have already accomplished in this area. It is my intention to ensure that courses on married love and family planning are available on a regular basis to more and more people of the archdiocese, and that our priests and deacons receive more extensive education in the theological and pastoral aspects of these issues. I direct, in a particular way, our Offices of Evangelization and Catechetics; Marriage and Family Life; Catholic Schools; Youth, Young Adult and Campus Ministries; and the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults to develop concrete ways to better present Church teaching on married love to our people, and to require adequate instruction in NFP as part of all marriage preparation programs in the archdiocese.

21. Two final points. First, the issue of contraception is not peripheral, but central and serious in a Catholic’s walk with God. If knowingly and freely engaged in, contraception is a grave sin, because it distorts the essence of marriage: the self-giving love which, by its very nature, is life-giving. It breaks apart what God created to be whole: the person-uniting meaning of sex (love) and the life-giving meaning of sex (procreation). Quite apart from its cost to individual marriages, contraception has also inflicted massive damage on society at large: initially by driving a wedge between love and the procreation of children; and then between sex (i.e., recreational sex without permanent commitment) and love. Nonetheless – and this is my second point – teaching the truth should always be done with patience and compassion, as well as firmness. American society seems to swing peculiarly between Puritanism and license. The two generations – my own and my teachers’ – which once led the dissent from Paul VI’s encyclical in this country, are generations still reacting against the American Catholic rigorism of the 1950s. That rigorism, much of it a product of culture and not doctrine, has long since been demolished. But the habit of skepticism remains. In reaching these people, our task is to turn their distrust to where it belongs: toward the lies the world tells about the meaning of human sexuality, and the pathologies those lies conceal.

22. In closing, we face an opportunity which comes only once in many decades. Thirty years ago this week, Paul VI told the truth about married love. In doing it, he triggered a struggle within the Church which continues to mark American Catholic life even today. Selective dissent from Humanae Vitae soon fueled broad dissent from Church authority and attacks on the credibility of the Church herself. The irony is that the people who dismissed Church teaching in the 1960s soon discovered that they had subverted their own ability to pass anything along to their children. The result is that the Church now must evangelize a world of their children’s children – adolescents and young adults raised in moral confusion, often unaware of their own moral heritage, who hunger for meaning, community, and love with real substance. For all its challenges, this is a tremendous new moment of possibility for the Church, and the good news is that the Church today, as in every age, has the answers to fill the God-shaped empty places in their hearts. My prayer is therefore simple: May the Lord grant us the wisdom to recognize the great treasure which resides in our teaching about married love and human sexuality, the faith, joy and perseverance to live it in our own families – and the courage which Paul VI possessed to preach it anew.

+ Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap
Archbishop of Denver
July 22, 1998

IV. Addendum: Some Common Questions

In the weeks following publication of his pastoral letter, Archbishop Chaput answered some common questions about family planning and related issues in his regular Denver Catholic Register column.

1. Isn’t a couple’s method of family planning a matter of personal conscience?

Yes it is. Catholics, like all people, are always obligated to follow their consciences – on birth control and every other matter. But that’s not where the problem lies. The problem lies in the formation of one’s conscience. A conscientious person seeks to do good and avoid evil. Seeing the difference between good and evil, though, can sometimes be difficult. As Pope John Paul II has said, the basic moral law is written in the human heart because we’re created in the image and likeness of God. But we bear the wounds of original sin, which garbles the message and dims our ability to judge and act according to truth.

Truth is objective. In other words, it’s real; independent of us; and exists whether we like it or not. Therefore, conscience can’t invent right and wrong. Rather, conscience is called to discover the truth of right and wrong, and then to submit personal judgments to the truth once it is found. Church teaching on the regulation of births, like all her moral teachings, is a sure guide for forming our consciences according to the truth. For we have the certainty of faith, as Vatican II reminds us, that the teachings of the Church on matters of faith and morals are “not the mere word of men, but truly the word of God” (Lumen Gentium n. 12)

Too often, we use “conscience” as a synonym for private preference; a kind of pious alibi for doing what we want or taking the easy road. We only end up hurting others and ourselves.

2. I still don’t see the big difference between a couple using “artificial” birth control and a couple using “natural” family planning. Don’t both couples have the same intention, and isn’t this what determines morality?

It’s hard to see the difference when the emphasis is placed on “artificial” versus “natural” methods. People rightly point out that many things we use are artificial but not immoral. So it’s important to realize that the Church doesn’t oppose artificial birth control because it’s artificial. Rather, what the Church opposes is any method of birth control which is contraceptive, whether artificial devices, pills, etc., are used or not.

Contraception is the choice, by any means, to sterilize a given act of intercourse. In other words, a contracepting couple chooses to engage in intercourse and, knowing that it may result in a new life, they intentionally and willfully suppress their fertility. Herein lies a key distinction: Natural family planning (NFP) is in no way contraceptive. The choice to abstain from a fertile act of intercourse is completely different from the willful choice to sterilize a fertile act of intercourse. NFP simply accepts from God’s hand the natural cycle of infertility that He has built into the nature of woman.

Regarding the issue of intention: Yes, both couples may have the same end in mind – to avoid pregnancy. But the means to achieve their common goal are not at all alike. Take, for example, two students, each of whom intends to excel in school. Obviously that’s a very good intention. With the same goal in mind, one studies diligently. The other cheats on every test. The point is, the end doesn’t justify the means – in getting an education, in regulating births, or in anything else.

3. I’m a priest. If I preach about what’s wrong with contraception, I’ll lose people.

Let me turn that around: If priests don’t preach the Church’s message about contraception, heaven loses people. Don’t be afraid. When Jesus preached the truth, He lost people. But, little by little, He gained even more people. Take courage in the Lord. It shouldn’t surprise us that people find this teaching hard to accept. Every Gospel-based life has things which are hard to accept. Should we stop teaching the truth because it’s difficult? Of course not. We have the joy and the responsibility before God to preach the truth lovingly in season and out of season.

The Church won’t be renewed without a renewal of family life. And the family can’t be renewed without a return to the truths taught in Humanae Vitae. Ignoring this issue can’t be an option: In the long run, its cost is too high. Therefore, we should make every effort to better understand the importance of Church teaching in this regard, and witness to it boldly and with confidence.

4. In your pastoral letter, you said that the most intimate, powerful part of each person is his or her fertility. My husband and I are unable to have children. What does this mean for us?

Many couples bear a great cross because, despite their openness to life, they’re unable to have children. But marital love is always life-giving when spouses give themselves honestly to each other, even if a child isn’t conceived. Only when husband and wife intentionally withhold their fertility, or abuse their sexuality in some other way, can we speak of a “life-less” act of intercourse.

Spouses’ self-giving in one flesh remains the most intimate, powerful and life-giving expression of their love for one another, even when nature, or some problem of nature, prevents new life from being conceived. Medical technology can sometimes correct a physical problem, allowing a child to be conceived by the loving embrace of parents. This is a proper and wonderful use of technology. However, couples should remember that, as creatures themselves, they’re not the arbiters of human life. Ultimately, no one is free to manipulate the conception of a human person. No matter how sincere a couple’s intentions, many of today’s new procreative techniques treat human life as a product which can be manufactured – and in doing so, they violate human dignity. Again, the end never justifies the means.

Children aren’t the only way a marriage can be fruitful. If God, in His design, closes one option for a couple, He will open another. Their love can find expression in adoption, foster-parenting, or dozens of forms of apostolic work. This kind of counsel, of course, is much easier to give than to willingly accept. I would never want to understate the real pain and loss felt by infertile couples. But I know, both from faith and from my friendships with married couples over the years, that if a husband and wife choose to trust God, their love will always be rewarded with fertility and new life – if not in the form of a child, then in the way they impact the world around them.

5. Why is the Church so obsessed with sex?

You know the old saying about the pot calling the kettle black – well, here’s a great example. Questions like this one may very well be honest, but they conceal where the real obsessions lie. American society is drowning in a sea of disordered sexuality. In such circumstances, it’s hardly an “obsession” for the Church to speak clearly and forcefully about how to swim. It’s her responsibility and mission.

God created our sexuality to be a sign in the world of His own life and love, and to reveal to us that we can only fulfill ourselves by loving as He loves. When sexuality becomes distorted, however, it’s no longer able to communicate God’s life and love. Empty of true love, life lacks meaning, and people soon seem disposable. Sex becomes a pursuit of selfish gratification at the expense of others. Children are no longer welcomed as the natural fruit of married love, but are seen as a burden to be avoided. We don’t even shrink from killing (through abortion) thousands of innocent preborn lives a day in satisfying our convenience and appetites.

It’s no exaggeration, then, to say that disordered sexuality is the beginning of what Pope John Paul II calls “the culture of death.” In fact, we’ll never build a culture of life and love without first restoring the true meaning of human sexuality. If the Church is so concerned about sex, it’s because she seeks to defend the dignity of the human person, and to safeguard the true meaning of life and love which sexuality is meant to reveal.

6. How can I preach against contraception and praise the virtues of NFP? As a priest, I’m not married.

First, the truth is the truth, no matter who speaks it. Second, preaching isn’t about the preacher; it’s about the message. Third, in his promise of celibacy, a priest doesn’t forget or deny his sexuality. Instead, he dedicates it to a different – but equally fertile – kind of fruitfulness. In other words, priestly celibacy is an affirmation, not a rejection; a strength, not a weakness. It’s a “yes” to God which enables us to understand and serve our people better.

Remember that marriage, religious life, the single vocation, and the priesthood are all designed to fit together and complement each other in the life of the Church. Each needs the other. Each, in its own proper way, fulfills the fundamental human vocation to give ourselves away in love. I think we priests often underestimate how effective our pastoral counsel can be on issues like contraception. People want and need the truth, and over time, the human heart naturally responds to it. But our people can’t respond if they don’t hear the message of Humanae Vitae faithfully and persuasively from their pastors. That’s our job, and we should embrace it joyfully.