Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Speak to Your Children by Mary Lee Dey

Sunday, November 15th, 2020

Do you want to have “79 handy conversations” with your children as they grow?  Do you want to “raise dynamic Catholic leaders on truth and life issues for a better world?”  If your answer is “yes” to both questions, then this book is for you. 

The author volunteered for Birthright Crisis Pregnancy for 21 years and found many girls needed knowledge on how to make good marriages for themselves and their future families.  The book begins with “Family Fun Time” for 2 to 10 year olds so that children bond with their parents.  The goal is that the children, as teenagers, will listen to their parents as parents make use of later chapters.

Mrs. Dey also taught natural family planning and is a former teacher for NFP International.  In her own words, Mary has this to say about her book.  “For those under five, the conversations are about love and discipline; for older children, the discussions are on faith and respect; and for teens, the focus is on decision-making and defending faith and life, and on rejecting peer pressure, drugs, alcohol, sexual abuse, depression, violence, and much more.”

The book is available at https://www.iuniverse.com/en/search?query=Speak+to+Your+Children (or iuniverse.com) and is in English and Spanish. It has the Imprimatur.

In a review my husband said:  “Overall, you have a very good resource for parents.  I am sure that parents who use this with their children will be doing a favor for themselves as well as their children.”

Sheila Kippley

Natural Family Planning: Call to Generosity

Sunday, September 1st, 2019

Being faithful to Catholic teaching requires us to teach “both this and that.”  Both that NFP is not Catholic birth control and that the Church recognizes the moral correctness of deliberately spacing babies via the practice of chaste abstinence during the fertile time— for sufficiently serious reasons.  Also, teaching Ecological Breastfeeding— which naturally delays the return of fertility for, on average, a two-year spacing of babies without recourse to periodic abstinence— is not only teaching a form of parenting that is eminently health-supporting but also is not a form of contraception in the sense in which that term is used in Humanae Vitae and Catholic moral theology.

In our users’ manual, Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach, we present what we think is a faithful approach.  We directly teach, “Systematic NFP is not ‘Catholic Birth Control.’ …Children are gifts from God…”  We note that Genesis 1:28 has not been cancelled.  In a section titled “What does the Catholic Church teach about marriage and having children?” we quote five numbered sections from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  That includes CCC 2368.  “For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children.  It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood.” We also include the beautiful statement made by Pope John Paul II at Mass on the Washington Mall  (Oct 7, 1979).  “Decisions about the number of children and the sacrifices to be made for them must not be  taken only with a view to adding to comfort and preserving peaceful existence….”  And he reminds couples of the values of additional siblings.

Fidelity to Catholic teaching requires that we teach the need for sufficiently serious reasons and the call to generosity.  Fidelity also requires that we teach that practicing chaste NFP for serious reason is not a form of contraception or acting with a “contraceptive mentality.”  And for those couples who have a serious reason to avoid or postpone pregnancy, we are convinced that we should give them sufficient knowledge so that they, not the NFP teacher, can make an informed decision about what signs and system they want to use.

John Kippley

 

Natural Family Planning: VISION NOW + 20

Sunday, November 9th, 2014

The Need:  To restore the Culture of Life and to replace the Culture of Death

 By the “Culture of Death” is meant the widespread acceptance of:

  • contraception
  • sterilization
  • surgical abortion
  • abortifacient drugs and devices
  • widespread cohabitation without marriage
  • high rates of divorce
  • fatherless families
  • pornography
  • widespread adultery and fornication
  • an aggressive homosexual movement
  • euthanasia

Moral relativism has been enshrined and threatens to undermine Western Civilization.

The massive funding of the Culture of Death requires a cooperative response by the laity and the hierarchy alike.

Required: a vision, an organization, a plan, and sufficient resources.

Next week:  What is the Culture of Life?

John F. Kippley (September 2014)