Abbey-Roads2

Perhaps he’s just an outspoken Coadjutor. 

I like the press I’m hearing on the coadjutor Bishop John Nienstedt.  I chuckle at the term, “hard-liner” as if he is going to come in like Savonarola or something.  I’ve heard some trads have misgivings about him - why?  I have no idea and I really don’t want to know at this point.  Some people would only be happy with Christ returning and cleansing the temple as he did in the Gospel.  Point is, the Holy Father appointed a coadjutor and we ought to be pleased and thank God for his loving providence.  (While not forgetting to thank him for Archbishop Flynn as well.)

I liked the fact that one of the things Bishop Nienstedt said at a recent news conference touched upon the topic of this nation’s “Contraceptive mentality”.

“At the news conference, Nienstedt lamented “the contraceptive mentality in this country” that has made Catholic families smaller, saying it has made parents more reluctant to encourage their sons to become priests and imperiled some Catholic schools. “If we want to keep the schools alive, we have to tell Catholics to have more babies,” he said.”  Mpls Star Tribune

Most priests and bishops are comfortable with condemning abortion, fewer are likely to condemn contraception, when in effect, contraception continues to remain the principal culprit behind our societal moral collapse.  Humanae Vitae, Paul VI’s prophetic encyclical spelled it all out for us.

One reason priests are unwilling to speak out against contraception is because a good share of Catholics continue to contracept, or have done so and see nothing wrong with the practice.  For one thing these couples who disregard Church teaching happen to be some of the more affluent families in many a suburban parish community.  (It can be a ka-ching thing.)  Whether in the suburbs or the inner city, contracepting couples have been pretty much well educated that it is nobodys business but their own, and at best, it’s a decision between their conscience and their personal God.

Mothers and daughters - contraception is generational.

Meeting young men and women in the workplace and marketplace, waving their Catholic college degrees, you just know many of them have been educated with this pro-contraceptive mentality from their days in Catholic high school.  Their baby-boomer moms (some of whom I know) probably took the pill, while now wondering if there is a link between the pill and breast and uterine cancer.  Although their daughters may defend the use by insisting the new birth control methods are so much safer now.  (Being an abortafacient, they probably are on one level, they simply kill the embryo, without harm to the woman - at least as far as we can tell at this point.)

Catholic grandmas, convinced they raised their kids right, are proud to see their grand-daughters educated by Catholic colleges, now married, working in a career.  Unfortunately, grandma often has no idea her beautiful, Catholic grand-daughter will only succumb to a planned pregnancy when and if she decides to.  And if grandma does figure it out - well, it’s none of her business.

Although, other Catholics sometimes make it their business.  I’ve heard co-workers discuss who is contracepting and who is not in a Catholic company.  If they find out that a couple is not having children due to fertility problems, they let everyone know this as well - so as not to allow for the scandal of someone else suggesting the couple is contracepting.  It’s weird for me to hear that stuff, because I really don’t think it is anyones business.  Sometimes people who are so worried about scandal end up becoming the source of the scandal.

Yet what is our business?

Our business is to get our schools, Catholic schools in particular to continually and consistently teach what the Church teaches regarding contraception.  That it is intrinsically evil.  Every good cafeteria Catholic knows this, or should know it, even if he or she was more or less taught that one’s conscience is above the teaching of the Church and that their choices are between God and themselves.

It is also our business to encorage priests to speak against the practice from the pulpit, and in the Sunday bulletins.  When a community does not hear contraception condemned for what it is from the pulpits (which offers a chance for priests to correct the bad education Catholic colleges have been doing) then the error perpetuates itself through the generations.  Thus, moms and daughters become ‘co-contraceptors’.

Abortion is hardly spoken about from the pulpits, and when it is, it’s usually around election time.  With the new morning after pills, abortion and contraception have merged, as it were.  They can finally be recognized as one and the same thing now.  Hence, I find it timely that the Coadjutor, Bishop Nienstedt should mention anew the contraceptive mentality in this country, reviving an interest in the abuse of contraceptives in family planning.

Perhaps he may even have something of interest to say about the widespread practice of NFP by Catholics.  NFP stands for Natural Family Planning - which, it seems to me, is still a form of birth regulation, albeit acceptable in the Catholic Church.  I’m not saying it is bad to use NFP, because it is encouraged by the Church, and although I know little about it, it just sounds like another form of birth control to me.

The contraceptive mentality.

Many people want big houses, big cars, boats, cabins, all the electrical gadgets and conveniences money can buy, with two kids and a dog.  They can’t have more kids because everything is so expensive; the kid’s education, their amusements, their car, their vacations, their hair and clothes - so you just can’t afford more kids.

When their kids get married, these usually don’t want kids of their own until they are ready for them - because they want to have fun, perpetuate the honeymoon, and acquire all the luxuries they left behind at home first, and then maybe they’ll have 1.2 kids - that is, if their careers permit.

Personal satisfaction, luxury and success has become far more important than a family.  It’s the return, the reward for all of that costly Catholic education.

The contraception mentality is so deeply embedded in the culture, even good Catholics will look askance at a family of 13 and say things like, “How can they afford to support so many kids?”  ”No wonder they home-school.”  Or, “All that woman is is a baby factory.”  And, “That husband certainly must have a high sex drive.”  

Yep, even devout Catholics will say that stuff.