Within the Catholic Church there is a great concern about a growing social acceptance of same-sex “marriage” even among Catholics. However, with more than 95% of fertile-age married Catholics contravening Catholic teaching regarding birth control, what else can be expected? It is this widespread acceptance of unnatural forms of birth control that has also given us widespread acceptance of homosexual sodomy parading as marriage. So what can be done?
I suggest that bishops need to get their priests on board with Humanae Vitae and provide the right kind of instruction before marriage. What is generally offered now is very deficient. This needs to start in 7th grade and continue through the high school years, and attitude formation needs to start with preparation for Holy Communion and Penance. By the time a couple is married, they need to have internalized at least three basic realities.
1. Sexual union is intended by God to be exclusively a marriage act. Within marriage it ought to be a renewal of the faith, love, and for-better-and-for-worse commitment of their marriage covenant. And marriage is an unbreakable covenant.
2. Breasts are for breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is so much better than alternative ways of baby-feeding that couples really need a serious reason not to breastfeed. The kind of breastfeeding they should practice is Ecological breastfeeding according to the Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding. Only this form of breastfeeding will normally provide an average of two years of spacing between babies. It also maximizes all the dose-related emotional and health benefits of breastfeeding. This should be taught starting in grade school.
3. They should know all the common signs of fertility, not just the mucus sign taught by some almost fanatical proponents who either teach nothing about the temperature and cervix signs or cast aspersions on them. In other words, engaged couples should have sufficient information so that they, not their teachers, can make informed choices.
John F. Kippley
John F. Kippley