There has been a small buzz around me since the publishing of an article last week about the hope for the establishment of the St Anne Center. Of course, there has been no response from the administration of Catholic hospital in which I work.But some of my colleagues have spoken to me about it and the response has been largely positive.
However, I have had a couple of discussions that perplex me a little bit. Both give the same primary direction. They claim that the conscription against contraception is the reason why 15 year old girls deliver babies, and that the Church is just being silly about not allowing a 35 year old to do whatever is available to achieve a pregnancy.
Let us start at the beginning. The Catholic positions on sexual ethics based themselves in the natural law and have been present since the time of Jesus. Contraception has always been seen as anti family and anti marriage. As for the advanced reproduction technologies, while the argument that God gave us the ability to do these things is good at it’s source, the application falls apart. There are excesses in the numbers of embryos that exist. And the slippery slope has been well represented in the fact that now, any combination that can be imagined can be achieved. Something tells me that God would not create something so far away from His Will.
As for the Contraceptive thing….I was asked by Teresa Tomaso (it was great to talk with her) about my upbringing and contraception. Perhaps Marcus Grodi will touch on some of this next week, but it should be noted that people of my generation, raised by Catholic parents raised in the pre-Vatican II tradition, did not necessarily need a school program to teach sex and sexual ethics. Though I consider my parents to both be Liberal, in the best New England tradition, they were clear that the best way to avoid becoming a father (which, they taught me, would be an obstacle to my education) was to avoid having sex. I will never forget that conversation, between me and my parents.
But no one ever discussed the contraception issue. Not at home, not in school, not among friends or anything. And we freely used contraception as we, as children of the modern sexual revolution, experimented.
Now, however, it has been placed into the center of the discussion. Contraceptive devices are freely discussed in Catholic High School Classes. Indeed, instead of the Theology of the Body, groups such as Amplify youth provide shocking and vernacular based information from the Freshman to Senior years.
The family hour is dead, replaced by shows that reflect an alternate universe.And we are forced to “believe” that the Modern Family reflects a New Normal.
We have to start at the youngest years to teach our little boys to be gentlemen and to have respect for themselves, their friends, and women, especially women. And we have to teach our girls of the most special gift that God has given them. He has given them the ability to say yes to God, either as a sister or as a wife, and the ability to say no to anything else. They need to be taught that the ability to “control” their body comes from their ability to respect themselves. And the curiosity that could kill the cat for both boys and girls needs to be deferred towards marriage, and a gift from God that can be amazing unwrapped on hat day alone.
Turning our hearts and lives over to God’s will is the only way that we will be able to re-invigorate the culture of life. In that world, there is no need for Contraception, and no need to ART. To God be all the Glory
St Gianna, pray for us
Servant of God, Jerome LeJeune, pray for us
Related articles
- More contraceptive spin (stannecenter.wordpress.com)
