Fifty Years After Humanae Vitae

"Well, they're gonna do it anyway. Ya might as well let them know what to do and that ya love dem."

Thus spoke the mother-in-law of a classmate of mine from Oyster Bay High School, explaining why she was permitting her youngest daughter to live in sin with her boyfriend during the summer of 1979. The woman and her husband were baptized Catholics, although they had stopped practicing the Holy Faith a long time before that for reasons having nothing to do a conscious decision to reject conciliarism, although it is most likely the case that they succumbed to the belief that the revolutionary changes wrought by the "Second" Vatican Council and then the "new Mass" meant that they were no longer obligated under penalty of sin to practice the Faith as observantly as they had been taught as children in the 1920s.

Yes, I explained that they were wrong, saying that it is one thing for us to sin, it is quite another to let ourselves be led into the near occasions of sin, worse yet for a parent to reaffirm his or her own daughter that she could sin with parental approval without regard for any offense being given to God or any harm being done to the salvation of her immortal soul. They did not want to listen.

"Well, they're gonna do it anyway," I was told again, by the girl's father. This was the rationalization employed to exculpate themselves from discharging their parental duties to admonish their child for fear of losing the child's affection and esteem.

A World Where the Small Family Has Become the Norm

Well, it is this fear that "they gonna do it anyway" that has, at least to a large extent, led to the widespread acceptance of "family planning" of one sort or another in Catholic circles all across and up and down the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide during this time of apostasy and betrayal. An entire ethos associated with the phrase "natural family planning" has emerged in the wake of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antoio Maria Montini/Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968, to justify the limitation of family size as something normal and natural, not exceptional, in Catholic married life, especially because "we don't want Catholics to use artificial contraception" to limit the size of their families. "It's better that they learn the means of 'natural family planning' and then let them make whatever decisions they want to make about the size of their families than to have them use artificial contraception."

This fear, however, is premised upon the acceptance of "family planning" as something normal and quite expected in the life of a Catholic married couple. The whole concept of "family planning," though is foreign to the mind of Holy Mother Church, something that Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, who was the Pro-Secretary of the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII from January 12, 1953, to the time of His Holiness's death on October 9, 1958, continuing as the Secretary of the Holy Office, whose name was changed to the "Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" in 1966, under Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII and Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI until January 6, 1968, noted in the following remarks at the "Second" Vatican Council:

"I am not pleased with the statement in the text that married couples may determine the number of children they are to have. Never has this been heard of in the Church. My father was a laborer, and the fear of having many children never entered my parents' minds, because they trusted in Providence. [I am amazed] that yesterday in the Council it should have been said that there was doubt whether a correct stand had been taken hitherto on the principles governing marriage. Does this not mean that the inerrancy of the Church will be called into question? Or was not the Holy Spirit with His Church in past centuries to illuminate minds on this point of doctrine?" (As found in Peter W. Miller, Substituting the Exception for the Rule; The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, by Father Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber, Tan Books and Publishers, 1967, is cited as the source of  this quotation.)

Cardinal Ottaviani made this point one hundred nine years after the Bishop of Amiens, France, Louis-Antoine de Salinis, had asked the Sacred Penitentiary in Rome whether married couples who use the right of the marital contract on the days when learned physicians were convinced that conception would not occur were to be disturbed in such conduct. The Sacred Penitentiary replied on March 2. 1853, that “Those spoken of in the request are not to be disturbed, providing that they do nothing to impede conception.” 

Was Cardinal Ottaviani, then the head of the Holy Office, ignorant of this answer when he spoke at the "Second" Vatican Council?

Certainly not.

Nor was he ignorant of similar answer given by the Sacred Penitentiary in 1880. Those answers did not in the least signify an endorsement by the Catholic Church of the morality of "natural planning," only a determination that couples could, by mutual consent, abstain from that which is proper to the married state during a woman's monthly periods of fertility as long as they did nothing to interfere with the conception of a child during a woman's infertile periods. There was no thought to establishing a "teaching" that could be interpreted as having to be taught indiscriminately to all engaged couples. The Sacred Penitentiary issued answers to specific questions.

Pope Pius XI Pushes Back Against Margaret Sanger, the Birth Control League and the Lambeth Conference

Holy Mother Church, eager to warn her children about the moral dangers facing them in a world of naturalism and materialism, responded to the propaganda in favor of contraception with great tenacity in the 1920s as the efforts of Margaret Sanger's Birth Control League and related organizations worldwide began to grow in influence. Pope Pius XI was specifically alarmed at the fact that the "bishops" of the heretical and schismatic Anglican sect voted in their 1930 Lambeth Conference to endorse the "limited" use of contraception for married couples who found themselves with a "clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood." Here is the complete text of Resolution Fifteen of that 1930 Lambeth Conference:

Resolution 15

The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage and Sex

Where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse (as far as may be necessary) in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience. (Resolution 15 - The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage.)

The Anglican sect's endorsement of contraception was, of course, but a logical result of what happens to heretics when they throw themselves outside of the bosom of Holy Mother Church. Mere creatures who are but contingent beings with bodies that are destined one day for the corruption of the grave until the General Resurrection on the Last Day become their own individual popes and popessas, believing that they can "determine" things for themselves that have are part of the Order of Nature (Creature) and have been taught by Holy Mother Church, the sole teacher of what is contained in the Order of Redemption (Grace) and the authoritative interpreter of all that is contained in the Natural Law.

The belief enunciated by Federal Council of America in 1931 that the use of contraceptives was mocked by an editorial that appeared in The Washington Post on March 22, 1931, that I have quoted a number of other times on this site. It is worthwhile to do so again:

The Federal Council of Churches in America some time ago appointed a committee on "marriage and the home," which has now submitted a report favoring a "careful and restrained" use of contraceptive devices to regulate the size of families. The committee seems to have a serious struggle with itself in adhering to Christian doctrine while at the same time indulging in amateurish excursions in the field of economics, legislation, medicine, and sociology. The resulting report is a mixture of religious obscurantism and modernistic materialism which departs from the ancient standards of religion and yet fails to blaze a path toward something better.

The mischief that would result from an an attempt to place the stamp of church approval upon any scheme for "regulating the size of families" is evidently quite beyond the comprehension of this pseudo-scientific committee. It is impossible to reconcile the doctrine of the divine institution of marriage with any modernistic plan for the mechanical regulation of human birth. The church must either reject the plain teachings of the Bible or reject schemes for the “scientific” production of human souls. Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee’s report if carried into effect would lead to the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be “careful and restrained” is preposterous. If the churches are to become organizations for political and 'scientific' propaganda they should be honest and reject the Bible, scoff at Christ as an obsolete and unscientific teacher, and strike out boldly as champions of politics and science as substitutes for the old-time religion. ("Forgetting Religion," Editorial,  The Washington Post, March 22, 1931.)

Catholics do not live in a vacuum. They have been subjected to one assault after another against their sensus Catholicus ever since the dawn of the Protestant Revolution, perhaps never more so than in the past century by the rapid advancements in the means of modern mass communications. It was to blunt the advance of propaganda in favor of the "small family" and thus the inversion of the ends of marriage that Pope Pius XI issued Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930, to reaffirm the Catholic Church's prohibition against any direct interference in the conception of a child and to remind everyone in the world that the primary end of marriage remained what it will be until the end of time: the propagation and education of children:

7. Since, however, We have spoken fully elsewhere on the Christian education of youth,[18] let Us sum it all up by quoting once more the words of St. Augustine: "As regards the offspring it is provided that they should be begotten lovingly and educated religiously,"[19] -- and this is also expressed succinctly in the Code of Canon Law -- "The primary end of marriage is the procreation and the education of children."[20]

18. Nor must We omit to remark, in fine, that since the duty entrusted to parents for the good of their children is of such high dignity and of such great importance, every use of the faculty given by God for the procreation of new life is the right and the privilege of the married state alone, by the law of God and of nature, and must be confined absolutely within the sacred limits of that state. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

Pope Pius XI made it clear that the secondary end of marriage, the mutual good of the spouses, was subordinate to the primary end, reiterating the truth that privileges of the married state belong by right to each spouse, neither of whom can deny the marriage right to the other arbitrarily and both of whom are able to exercise this right, or to refrain its exercise, without interfering with its natural end, the conception of a child:

19. The second blessing of matrimony which We said was mentioned by St. Augustine, is the blessing of conjugal honor which consists in the mutual fidelity of the spouses in fulfilling the marriage contract, so that what belongs to one of the parties by reason of this contract sanctioned by divine law, may not be denied to him or permitted to any third person; nor may there be conceded to one of the parties anything which, being contrary to the rights and laws of God and entirely opposed to matrimonial faith, can never be conceded . . . .

59. Holy Church knows well that not infrequently one of the parties is sinned against rather than sinning, when for a grave cause he or she reluctantly allows the perversion of the right order. In such a case, there is no sin, provided that, mindful of the law of charity, he or she does not neglect to seek to dissuade and to deter the partner from sin. Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth. For in matrimony as well as in the use of the matrimonial rights there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider so long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved.  (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

This is not an endorsement of what is today called "natural family planning," only a reiteration of the plain truth that the marital right, subordinated to its primary end, cannot be denied arbitrarily by one spouse to the other and that it is permissible for married couples to use that right when new life cannot be brought forth. There was no discussion of "family planning" here at all, and none existed in the mind of Pope Pius XI.

Indeed, Pope Pius XI explained that confessors had to go to great lengths to counsel penitents not to surrender themselves to the propaganda in favor of contraception and the contraceptive mentality to which they were being exposed on an almost constant basis:

54. But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.

55. Small wonder, therefore, if Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at times has punished it with death. As St. Augustine notes, "Intercourse even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Juda, did this and the Lord killed him for it."

56. Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.

57. We admonish, therefore, priests who hear confessions and others who have the care of souls, in virtue of Our supreme authority and in Our solicitude for the salvation of souls, not to allow the faithful entrusted to them to err regarding this most grave law of God; much more, that they keep themselves immune from such false opinions, in no way conniving in them. If any confessor or pastor of souls, which may God forbid, lead the faithful entrusted to him into these errors or should at least confirm them by approval or by guilty silence, let him be mindful of the fact that he must render a strict account to God, the Supreme Judge, for the betrayal of his sacred trust, and let him take to himself the words of Christ: "They are blind and leaders of the blind: and if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

Would anyone want to argue that the propaganda in favor of some type of "family planning" has abated in the past eighty-one years? Of course not. We know that even young traditionally-minded Catholics are influenced by this propaganda, believing that it is "impossible" for them to have a large family, sometimes counseled to believe that they should be "informed" about the natural means by which they could avoid conceiving a child so that they do not have a temptation to use artificial contraception.

However, it is a total misreading of Pope Pius XII's October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession to assert that he endorsed what is called today "natural family planning."

He did not.

Our last true Holy Father listed a series of specific conditions in which it was permissible, although never mandatory, for married couples to limit the use of the gift proper to the married state to a woman's monthly periods of infertility. He did not endorse the indiscriminate use of the rhythm method, less yet "mandated" its teaching. He himself referred to those conditions in a later address, given just weeks before his death on October 9, 1958, as "exceptional." Something that is exceptional can never be considered the norm.

The Pertinent Passages of Pope Pius XII's Address to Italian Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951

Far from "teaching" a natural method upon married couples to avoid the conception of children whenever they believed that it was opportune for them to do so, Pope Pius XII explained that there were merely certain extenuating circumstances that might make it permissible to do so. This is far, far different than what is called today "natural family planning," replete with an immersion in graphic terms that would never pass from the lips of one concerned about modesty of speech or even be discussed openly by a husband and wife who understand the true nature of marital continence absent serious conditions that would be addressed in the confessional and/or in spiritual counseling, upon all couples. Please judge for yourselves:

Today, besides, another grave problem has arisen, namely, if and how far the obligation of being ready for the service of maternity is reconcilable with the ever more general recourse to the periods of natural sterility the so-called "agenesic" periods in woman, which seems a clear expression of a will contrary to that precept.

You are expected to be well informed, from the medical point of view, in regard to this new theory and the progress which may still be made on this subject, and it is also expected that your advice and assistance shall not be based upon mere popular publications, but upon objective science and on the authoritative judgment of conscientious specialists in medicine and biology. It is your function, not the priest's, to instruct the married couple through private consultation or serious publications on the biological and technical aspect of the theory, without however allowing yourselves to be drawn into an unjust and unbecoming propaganda. But in this field also your apostolate demands of you, as women and as Christians, that you know and defend the moral law, to which the application of the theory is subordinated. In this the Church is competent.

It is necessary first of all to consider two hypotheses. If the application of that theory implies that husband and wife may use their matrimonial right even during the days of natural sterility no objection can be made. In this case they do not hinder or jeopardize in any way the consummation of the natural act and its ulterior natural consequences. It is exactly in this that the application of the theory, of which We are speaking, differs essentially from the abuse already mentioned, which consists in the perversion of the act itself. If, instead, husband and wife go further, that is, limiting the conjugal act exclusively to those periods, then their conduct must be examined more closely.

Here again we are faced with two hypotheses. If, one of the parties contracted marriage with the intention of limiting the matrimonial right itself to the periods of sterility, and not only its use, in such a manner that during the other days the other party would not even have the right to ask for the debt, than this would imply an essential defect in the marriage consent, which would result in the marriage being invalid, because the right deriving from the marriage contract is a permanent, uninterrupted and continuous right of husband and wife with respect to each other.

However if the limitation of the act to the periods of natural sterility does not refer to the right itself but only to the use of the right, the validity of the marriage does not come up for discussion. Nonetheless, the moral lawfulness of such conduct of husband and wife should be affirmed or denied according as their intention to observe constantly those periods is or is not based on sufficiently morally sure motives. The mere fact that husband and wife do not offend the nature of the act and are even ready to accept and bring up the child, who, notwithstanding their precautions, might be born, would not be itself sufficient to guarantee the rectitude of their intention and the unobjectionable morality of their motives. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.) 

This is a specific rejection of the liberal view provided in a few of the ethics books used in seminaries in the 1940s and 1950s. It is not enough to simply be "open" to the birth of a child without using any artificial means to interfere with conception. Pope Pius XII taught that this "would not be itself sufficient to guarantee the rectitude of their intention and the unobjectionable morality of their motives." 

Pope Pius XII went on to explain the reason that this is so:

The reason is that marriage obliges the partners to a state of life, which even as it confers certain rights so it also imposes the accomplishment of a positive work concerning the state itself. In such a case, the general principle may be applied that a positive action may be omitted if grave motives, independent of the good will of those who are obliged to perform it, show that its performance is inopportune, or prove that it may not be claimed with equal right by the petitioner—in this case, mankind.

The matrimonial contract, which confers on the married couple the right to satisfy the inclination of nature, constitutes them in a state of life, namely, the matrimonial state. Now, on married couples, who make use of the specific act of their state, nature and the Creator impose the function of providing for the preservation of mankind. This is the characteristic service which gives rise to the peculiar value of their state, the bonum prolis. The individual and society, the people and the State, the Church itself, depend for their existence, in the order established by God, on fruitful marriages. Therefore, to embrace the matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper to such a state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life.

Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called "indications," may exempt husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life. From this it follows that the observance of the natural sterile periods may be lawful, from the moral viewpoint: and it is lawful in the conditions mentioned. If, however, according to a reasonable and equitable judgment, there are no such grave reasons either personal or deriving from exterior circumstances, the will to avoid the fecundity of their union, while continuing to satisfy to to the full their sensuality, can only be the result of a false appreciation of life and of motives foreign to sound ethical principles. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)

It stands reason and truth on their heads to contend that the Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession was designed to instruct engaged and recently married couples in how to use a woman's monthly periods of sterility to avoid conception as a matter of routine without the presence of the grave reasons listed by Pope Pius XII. No such "mandate" exists. None.

Indeed, Pope Pius XII explained that the conditions wherein that which is proper to the married state may be avoided during a wife's fertile periods arise from "medical, eugenic and social so-called 'indications'" that "may be lawful from the moral viewpoint: and it is lawful in the conditions mentioned." Whether such conditions exist, however, is something that is to be discussed by a married couple with a priest, either individually in the confessional or in confidence in private counseling without anyone descending to the level of vulgar physicality. Could one imagine the Cure of Ars, Saint John Mary Vianney, or Padre Pio or Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, the Patron Saint of Moral Theologians, or Saint Pius X speaking in such terms? What gives us license to do so now? The conditions listed are exceptions to the blessing given by God to Adam and Eve to "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth" (Genesis 1: 28.) 

The procreation and education of children constitute the first end of marriage. No one can change this end. God desires that married couples be open to as many or as few children as He sees fit to bestow upon them. He wants new lives to be brought forth generously and educated in the truths of the true Faith so that they can know, love and serve Him in this life as a preparation to enjoying His Beatific Vision for all eternity in Heaven. New life is to be accepted generously, not avoided as a matter of routine. Pope Pius XII explained the conditions very carefully. Very carefully.

And while it is true that the Holy See had reaffirmed several times, starting, as noted at the beginning of this article, with the Sacred Penitentiary as early as 1853, that it is morally licit to use the privileges of marriage exclusively during a woman's monthly periods of infertility during her child-bearing years it is also true that Pope Pius XII laid down conditions for couples to do so, conditions that cannot be dismissed casually by references to old ethics books that did not explore some of the theological undercurrents that would result in the widespread acceptance of "natural methods" as  permanently established means to avoid the conception of children absent the presence of those conditions. The systematic, routinized use of a women's sterile periods to avoid conception absent exceptional circumstances was condemned by Pope Pius XII in the text cited above. Look again at the words:

The matrimonial contract, which confers on the married couple the right to satisfy the inclination of nature, constitutes them in a state of life, namely, the matrimonial state. Now, on married couples, who make use of the specific act of their state, nature and the Creator impose the function of providing for the preservation of mankind. This is the characteristic service which gives rise to the peculiar value of their state, the bonum prolis. The individual and society, the people and the State, the Church itself, depend for their existence, in the order established by God, on fruitful marriages. Therefore, to embrace the matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper to such a state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)

Grave reasons. Not for any reason. Not as a matter of routine. Not because spouses aren't "ready" for children. Not because they might resort to artificial contraception, meaning that they will proceed with the limitation of their family size no matter what means the must use to accomplish that end. Those are not "grave reasons." Those are selfish reasons. They are rationalizations that deny the efficacy of the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All graces, to resist surrender to sinful temptations.

There are specific conditions that could be construed, whether individually or collectively, as grave reasons sufficient enough to justify a married couple's exclusive use of the privileges of marriage in a woman's monthly periods of infertility. Those conditions matter. They are very specific. They are exceptions to the precepts governing marriage that must be discussed with a priest, whether in or out of the confessional. Why? It is very simple. We are weak vessels of clay who are prone to find some "way out" of carrying something we believe to be too "burdensome" for us. This is even more the case now than it was in the 1950s as young couples planning to be married in our time have been bombarded with the whole ideology that it is necessary to engage in some kind of "family planning." It is part of fallen human nature for a person to think that he's got an "exceptional" case that exempts him from the general law.

It can't get any clearer than this. Pope Pius XII condemned the very mentality that is at the root of what it is known and practiced as "natural family planning."

Contemporary Explications of Pope Pius XII's Address Published in the 1950s

All of the "answers" to various problems are not to be found exclusively in the old textbooks of the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s as at least a few of those texts were written by authors whose sole concern was moral "legality," therefore not admitting that there were Modernist undercurrents seeking to overturn and invert the ends of marriage. We know now more than did these authors, many of whom, especially those steeped in the Suarezian "loophole" theology of the Society of Jesus that finds one mental reservation after another to justify things that are of dubious morality, wanted to find some way to give Catholic parents in the 1950s and early 1960s a means to limit the size of their families without resorting to "artificial" means to do so.

Indeed authors such as Father Gerald Kelly, S.J., were true revolutionaries in the field of medico-moral ethics as they attempted to find these "loopholes" not only in what pertains to marriage but also in what constitutes "extraordinary" and "ordinary" means of medical treatment and care (see To Live and Let Die; the role of the Jesuits in undermining Catholic moral theology will be treated as part of tomorrow's article on this site). The books of these authors must be examined with great care as many of them were seeking to "change the conversation" on matters of morality as far as they could in the years before Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII "opened wide" the doors of what he thought was the Catholic Church to Modernity and Modernism.

One book that attempted to explicate Pope Pius XII's Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession was Toward Happiness and Holiness in Marriage, which had been published in 1955 by the Family Life Bureau, which was in existence between 1929 and 1974 as part of the then named National Catholic Welfare Conference (that became, by successive turns, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference--N.C.C.B/U.S.C.C.-- and then the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, U.S.C.C.B), as part of its marriage preparation course for engaged couples. This book treated of the conditions outlined by Pope Pius XII in his October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession from pages eighty to eighty-five in what could be construed as a somewhat liberally expansive view as to their applicability in the cases of "social" and "economic" reasons for using rhythm method licitly. Interestingly, however, the book also provided a detailed description, found in pages sixty-five to sixty-seven of its text, of the various approaches to the rhythm method then in use, thereby covering the biological aspect first and the moral aspect later. The successor of the Family Life Bureau is known today as the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which promotes the unrestricted use of "natural family planning" with eager enthusiasm. 

Parenthood is the Business of Parents: There were, however, some authors of the older marriage manuals who did indeed warn Catholic couples not to consider "family planning" as the norm, something that has occurred precisely because of the popularization of the term "natural family planning" in the aftermath of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI's Humanae Vitae.

One such book was written by Monsignor George A. Kelly (1916-2004), who was no relation to Father Gerald Kelly, S.J. Monsignor Kelly was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and a co-founder of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He wrote the following in a chapter on "birth control and the rhythm method" in The Catholic Marriage Manual:

It is one of the signs of our times that a chapter on birth control and the rhythm method appears in a Catholic book on marriage. In former times having no children or having only a few children would be so scandalous and so un-Christian as to merit only a short note of condemnation. The small family would be looked upon as something unusual and its parents deserving of sympathy. Fruitfulness in marriage was always considered one of the signs of God's blessing until the twentieth century. Nowadays it almost seems as if the couple having a fourth or fifth child must defend its right to that child and to more children besides. Tremendous social pressures have been organized in favor of controlled family size small family housing for one, neighborhood gossip for another, the constant parade of pictures depicting the "ideal" American family, always with two children, the erroneous identification of feminine beauty with infrequent motherhood, the presumption, too often accepted uncritically, that a few children reared in prosperity will necessarily be happier and better than many children brought up in modest circumstances, and the equally common feeling that after a few children pregnancy is more of a pathology than a state of health.

The reasons usually advanced by married couples for restricting the size of their family are usually not real reasons at all. The birth-control state of mind is nowhere more clearly manifested than by many engaged couples who, without any grave problems at all, enter marriage with family limitation uppermost in their young minds. For a couple after ten years of marriage and five children to think in terms of family limitation is one thing. For a couple with two or three children to exaggerate their money, health, or space problems is much more common and much more deserving of criticism. And the fact that the average American woman has her last child several years before she is thirty is certain evidence of a lack of the will to parenthood. "Where there is a will, there is a way," says the maxim. People who will not to be parents will find the way of birth control very easy, even though very wrong.

There is little question, too, that the growth of the birth control mentality coincides with the desire of many Americans for soft living. Yet, if we are a strong people we may well enjoy modern opportunities for happiness and still do whatever our job requires us to do, even though some sacrifice of comfort or convenience is demanded. The propaganda in favor of the limited family puts a premium on comfort while disparaging duty. It sells American woman the idea that motherhood is a kind of bondage and American man the conviction that the hard work necessary to support a large family is an unreasonable requirement for modern marriage. The modern Catholic couple must be reminded that parenthood is the business of marriage. This is their vocation. The Catholic husband and wife should do this work with wisdom and prudence, and, where there is good cause, may consider family limitation. But family limitation does not have to be considered. Most of you will find that the best evidence of a lifetime of worthwhile work will be your children. You should want children; and parenthood, God willing, should be more than an incidental experience in your married lives. If you have a truly Catholic conscience and a love of children you will find that alleged obstacles can be overcome. Far from losing happiness, you will gain great long-range satisfaction.

Those of you who are blessed by God with the faith and courage to live a heroic married life and accept parenthood cheerfully, far from feeling cheated, ought to delight in your extraordinary achievement. Other couples may not be so well endowed by nature or circumstance, and a small family or even a childless marriage may be your lot. But even here, as long as you are doing the best you can to serve God's purpose, you deserve high praise and should not permit conscienceless neighbors to deprive you of your sense of accomplishment. The control of births, therefore, should always be the exceptional situation in marriage, never the normal. (Monsignor George A. Kelly, The Catholic Marriage Manual, published by Random House in 1958, pp. 44-46.)

Monsignor Kelly, who I knew very well from personal contacts and professional conferences, went into great detail to discuss the conditions outlined by Pope Pius XII in his October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, explaining that the conditions listed by Pope Pius XII for the use of the rhythm method were exceptions, not the norm, to married life:

Holy Father's statement on rhythm: Who may practice the rhythm method? A clear answer was given by Pope Pius XII in 1951 in an address to the Italian Catholic Union of Midwives. His Holiness pointed out that married couples are obliged to procreate and to help conserve the human race. In the Pontiffs words: "Matrimony obliges to a state of life which, while carrying with it certain rights, also imposes a fulfillment of positive work connected with that state of life." This means that rhythm is not to be used indiscriminately. The small-family or no-family state of mind is not necessarily good simply because contraceptives are not used. (Monsignor George A. Kelly, The Catholic Marriage Manual, published by Random House in 1958, pp. 55-56.)

It is only because most young Catholics today have been exposed to the "birth control mentality" in the world and to the counterfeit church of conciliarism's propagation of the ideology of "natural family planning" in reaction to that contraceptive mentality that the "planning" of families is now considered to be a "norm" that is almost beyond question, which is why even many traditionally minded engaged Catholic couples jump at the opportunity to "learn" about a method to avoid conception that is to be used in truly exceptional circumstances.

Human nature is what it is. Fallen. Fallen creatures will seek the path of "least resistance" if they are given an "escape hatch" to avoid the primary end of marriage without the conditions listed by Pope Pius XII, which were discussed at some length by Monsignor Kelly, who gave examples of what these conditions might be in concrete situations, being present. The widespread, indiscriminate teaching of what is called today "natural family planning" only feeds into this mentality. There is no need for such teaching as couples with truly exceptional cases can approach their confessor or spiritual director to discuss the matter, something that, unlike Monsignor Kelly's belief, premised upon the rightly formed consciences of young Catholics, couples could decide such things for themselves, quite necessary today precisely because "natural family planning" is considered to the "norm" and not the exception.

To emphasize the point made earlier,  Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani would not have been aghast at suggestions made during the proceedings of the "Second" Vatican Council to "plan" family size as a matter of routine if this had been mind of Pope Pius XII. It was not. It was not the mind of Holy Mother Church at any time in her history prior to the conciliar church's "Second" Vatican Council and Paul VI's Humanae Vitae.

However, there was an atmosphere favorable to the mentality of birth control in many Catholic circles in the materialistic 1950s that were not such a "golden age" of Catholicism as they are made out to be by so many traditional Catholics today. It was thus the goal of some of the older ethicists and moral theologians to provide Catholic married couples with an "out," if you will, to avoid the evil of contraception by natural means with expansive interpretations of the conditions outlined in the Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, something that stands Pope Pius XII's 1951 caveat against the indiscriminate use of the rhythm method on its head.

A strict adherence to the mind of Pope Pius XII as expressed in his October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of their Profession would have not seen it as advisable to provide every engaged couple with an instruction manual, such as that published under the auspices of the American bishops, replete with ways for them to avoid the primary end of marriage without a truly exceptional case. Many lax consciences were formed as a result of such manuals. There was no mandate from our last true Holy Father to do so. That the American bishops authorized such an approach is yet another reminder that the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath did not such "occur" on the spur of the moment.

Please, do not say that this writer is inventing a "straw man." The desire on the part of at least a handful of these ethicists and moralists, some of whom were teaching in Catholic universities and colleges and at Catholic medical colleges, to find some "moral means" to limit the size of families is why there was such interest in the Pontifical Commission for the Study of Population, Family and Births that had been established by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII shortly before his death on June 3, 1963,  and reestablished by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI following his "election" on June 21, 1963.

Let's face facts: the opposition to Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI's reiteration of the Catholic teaching on birth control in Humanae Vitae (July 25, 1968) did not come out of thin air. The contraceptive mentality had been, pun intended, alive and well in Catholic intellectual circles some decades before, dating back to the Anglican sect's famous "Resolution Fifteen" issued, as noted earlier, by the Lambeth Conference of 1930.

Fostering The Contraceptive Mentality

Humanae Vitae is not, however, an orthodox statement of the Catholic Faith. It is, much like everything else in the false "pontificate" of Paul VI (referred to by former friend of longstanding in the conciliar structures as "Paul the Sick"--great phrase, Father, one of many of yours), a revolutionary document that inverted the ends proper to marriage as the phenomenology of philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand  and the theology of Father Herbert Doms were used to assert that the "unitive" end of marriage was primary. 

Humanae Vitae was also a revolutionary document in that it continued Paul VI's acceptance of a nonexistent "population crisis" as the foundation for expanding the conditions to use "natural" methods to avoid conceiving children. The hideous false "pontiff," who appointed and promoted all manner of lavender types as "bishops" throughout the conciliar structures, wrote the following in Populorum Progressio, March 26, 1967, that laid the groundwork for the further inversion of the ends of marriage to be found in Humanae Vitae by means of an more expansive view of the reasons that married couples could avoid children than provided in Pope Pius XII's Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession in that wonderful year of 1951:

37. There is no denying that the accelerated rate of population growth brings many added difficulties to the problems of development where the size of the population grows more rapidly than the quantity of available resources to such a degree that things seem to have reached an impasse. In such circumstances people are inclined to apply drastic remedies to reduce the birth rate.

There is no doubt that public authorities can intervene in this matter, within the bounds of their competence. They can instruct citizens on this subject and adopt appropriate measures, so long as these are in conformity with the dictates of the moral law and the rightful freedom of married couples is preserved completely intact. When the inalienable right of marriage and of procreation is taken away, so is human dignity.

Finally, it is for parents to take a thorough look at the matter and decide upon the number of their children. This is an obligation they take upon themselves, before their children already born, and before the community to which they belong—following the dictates of their own consciences informed by God's law authentically interpreted, and bolstered by their trust in Him. (39)(Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio MariaMontini/Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, March 26, 1967.)

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio MariaMontini/Paul VI was a Marxist sympathizer, if not a Marxist himself. Indeed, Father Michael Roach, who taught Church History at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, said in a class lecture in the Fall of 1981 that he had been with the then rector of the seminary, Monsignor Harry Flynn, who would later denounce Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., as an "anti-Semite" (see Disconnects), in his capacity as the conciliar "archbishop" of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the time of the death of Montini/Paul VI on August 6, 1978. According to Father Roach, the then Monsignor Flynn, a priest of the Diocese of Albany, New York, said, "Ah, yes, Paul VI. A marvelous man. A Marxist, but a marvelous man nonetheless."

The point is this: Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio MariaMontini/Paul VI, who betrayed the identity of Catholic priests behind the Iron Curtain when serving the the Vatican's Secretariat of State under Pope Pius XII, accepted the Malthusian myth of "overpopulation" and "depleted resources" to assert that it is parents who decide how many children they are to welcome into the world. Wrong. God decides this, not parents. God can see to it that children are conceived despite the more careful "precautions" taken against their conception, something that is as true of the use of what is called today "natural family planning" as it is of artificial contraception. God decides this matter. No one else. God is alone the Sovereign over the sanctity and the fecundity of marriage. No one else.

As noted at the beginning of this essay, Pope Pius XI, writing in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930, stated this quite explicitly:

10. Now when We come to explain, Venerable Brethren, what are the blessings that God has attached to true matrimony, and how great they are, there occur to Us the words of that illustrious Doctor of the Church whom We commemorated recently in Our Encyclical Ad salutem on the occasion of the fifteenth centenary of his death:[9] "These," says St. Augustine, "are all the blessings of matrimony on account of which matrimony itself is a blessing; offspring, conjugal faith and the sacrament."[10] And how under these three heads is contained a splendid summary of the whole doctrine of Christian marriage, the holy Doctor himself expressly declares when he said: "By conjugal faith it is provided that there should be no carnal intercourse outside the marriage bond with another man or woman; with regard to offspring, that children should be begotten of love, tenderly cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere; finally, in its sacramental aspect that the marriage bond should not be broken and that a husband or wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring. This we regard as the law of marriage by which the fruitfulness of nature is adorned and the evil of incontinence is restrained."[11]

11. Thus amongst the blessings of marriage, the child holds the first place. And indeed the Creator of the human race Himself, Who in His goodness wishes to use men as His helpers in the propagation of life, taught this when, instituting marriage in Paradise, He said to our first parents, and through them to all future spouses: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth."[12] As St. Augustine admirably deduces from the words of the holy Apostle Saint Paul to Timothy[13] when he says: "The Apostle himself is therefore a witness that marriage is for the sake of generation: 'I wish,' he says, 'young girls to marry.' And, as if someone said to him, 'Why?,' he immediately adds: 'To bear children, to be mothers of families'."[14]

12. How great a boon of God this is, and how great a blessing of matrimony is clear from a consideration of man's dignity and of his sublime end. For man surpasses all other visible creatures by the superiority of his rational nature alone. Besides, God wishes men to be born not only that they should live and fill the earth, but much more that they may be worshippers of God, that they may know Him and love Him and finally enjoy Him for ever in heaven; and this end, since man is raised by God in a marvelous way to the supernatural order, surpasses all that eye hath seen, and ear heard, and all that hath entered into the heart of man.[15] From which it is easily seen how great a gift of divine goodness and how remarkable a fruit of marriage are children born by the omnipotent power of God through the cooperation of those bound in wedlock.

13. But Christian parents must also understand that they are destined not only to propagate and preserve the human race on earth, indeed not only to educate any kind of worshippers of the true God, but children who are to become members of the Church of Christ, to raise up fellow-citizens of the Saints, and members of God's household,[16] that the worshippers of God and Our Savior may daily increase.

14. For although Christian spouses even if sanctified themselves cannot transmit sanctification to their progeny, nay, although the very natural process of generating life has become the way of death by which original sin is passed on to posterity, nevertheless, they share to some extent in the blessings of that primeval marriage of Paradise, since it is theirs to offer their offspring to the Church in order that by this most fruitful Mother of the children of God they may be regenerated through the laver of Baptism unto supernatural justice and finally be made living members of Christ, partakers of immortal life, and heirs of that eternal glory to which we all aspire from our inmost heart.

15. If a true Christian mother weigh well these things, she will indeed understand with a sense of deep consolation that of her the words of Our Savior were spoken: "A woman . . . when she hath brought forth the child remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world";[17] and proving herself superior to all the pains and cares and solicitudes of her maternal office with a more just and holy joy than that of the Roman matron, the mother of the Gracchi, she will rejoice in the Lord crowned as it were with the glory of her offspring. Both husband and wife, however, receiving these children with joy and gratitude from the hand of God, will regard them as a talent committed to their charge by God, not only to be employed for their own advantage or for that of an earthly commonwealth, but to be restored to God with interest on the day of reckoning. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii ,December 31, 1930.)

God decides how many or how few children a Catholic married couple will have. No one else. Men may try to the thwart the natural end of marriage. They may be able to be "successful," as they count "success," perhaps even more often than not. No human means of deliberately frustrating the natural end of marriage is infallible, and no carefully planned use of the gift proper to the married state in those times during a month when a woman is more apt it to be infertile than others will avoid the conception of a new child in all instances. God is the Sovereign of the fecundity of marriage.

As a Modernist and a socialist who was, as noted earlier, at the very least sympathetic to Marxism, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, however, thought and spoke in naturalistic terms that were tinged with vestigial after-effects of the Holy Faith. He accepted the myths of "progress" and "world peace" represented by the United Masonic Nations Organization, about which Pope Pius XII, although at first supportive of the organization, began to sour in the 1950s, and accepted the myths of "overpopulation." It was for this reason that he continued the work of the aforementioned "Pontifical Commission for the Study of Population, Family and Births so that its members could study the biological operation of the "birth control pill" to determine if it could be used morally to prevent the conception of children, especially in areas of endemic poverty,. A member of that commission, Archbishop Albino Luciani of Venice, Italy, the future "John Paul I," is said to have voted to endorse "the pill," which, apart from the denying the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage, is a chemical abortifacient, because of his concerns for "the poor."

Montini/Paul VI was open to "the pill" to deal with the nonexistent problem of overpopulation. Unable to endorse its use, though, he used Humanae Vitae to expand the conditions outlined by Pope Pius XII in his Allocution to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession in 1951 to invert the ends of marriage, an inversion that would be institutionalized later by the "personalist phenomenologist" named Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and the hideously disgusting "theology of the body" that he explicated over the course of years in his "general audience" talks in the early-1980s (talks he was giving at the time he was shot by Mehmet Ali Agca on Wednesday, May 13, 1981, by the way), thus paving the way for the propagation and acceptance of the cottage industry that became known as "natural family planning" as the expected norm for married couples, who must be "educated" in matters that violate modesty of speech and detract from the sanctity of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony: 

Montini/Paul VI prefaced Humanae Vitae's expanded conditions for the use of a woman's infertile periods as the basis of avoiding the conception of children upon with yet another reference to the myth of overpopulation:

1. The most serious duty of transmitting human life, for which married persons are the free and responsible collaborators of God the Creator, has always been a source of great joys to them, even if sometimes accompanied by not a few difficulties and by distress.

At all times the fulfillment of this duty has posed grave problems to the conscience of married persons, but, with the recent evolution of society, changes have taken place that give rise to new questions which the Church could not ignore, having to do with a matter which so closely touches upon the life and happiness of men.

2. The changes which have taken place are in fact noteworthy and of varied kinds. In the first place, there is the rapid demographic development. Fear is shown by many that world population is growing more rapidly than the available resources, with growing distress to many families and developing countries, so that the temptation for authorities to counter this danger with radical measures is great. Moreover, working and lodging conditions, as well as increased exigencies both in the economic field and in that of education, often make the proper education of a larger number of children difficult today. A change is also seen both in the manner of considering the person of woman and her place in society, and in the value to be attributed to conjugal love in marriage, and also in the appreciation to be made of the meaning of conjugal acts in relation to that love.

Finally and above all, man has made stupendous progress in the domination and rational organization of the forces of nature, such that he tends to extend this domination to his own total being: to the body, to psychical life, to social life and even to the laws which regulate the transmission of life.

3. This new state of things gives rise to new questions. Granted the conditions of life today, and granted the meaning which conjugal relations have with respect to the harmony between husband and wife and to their mutual fidelity, would not a revision of the ethical norms, in force up to now, seem to be advisable, especially when it is considered that they cannot be observed without sacrifices, sometimes heroic sacrifices?

And again: by extending to this field the application of the so-called "principle of totality," could it not be admitted that the intention of a less abundant but more rationalized fecundity might transform a materially sterilizing intervention into a licit and wise control of birth? Could it not be admitted, that is, that the finality of procreation pertains to the ensemble of conjugal life, rather than to its single acts? It is also asked whether, in view of the increased sense of responsibility of modern man, the moment has not come for him to entrust to his reason and his will, rather than to the biological rhythms of his organism, the task of regulating birth.

4. Such questions required from the teaching authority of the Church a new and deeper reflection upon the principles of the moral teaching on marriage: a teaching founded on the natural law, illuminated and enriched by divine revelation. (Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968.)

It is upon these false premises that the hideous friend of the lavender collective, of which he may very well have been a charter member, handed so many Catholic couples over to the devil so that they could immersed in considerations of physicality that have never had any place in Catholic teaching. Although Montini/Paul VI re-stated the immutable teaching of the Church concerning the begetting of children, this was part of the "bait and switch" game as he used his own text to place what he called the "unitive" end before that of procreation:

And finally this love is fecund for it is not exhausted by the communion between husband and wife, but is destined to continue, raising up new lives. "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents."⁸

10. Hence conjugal love requires in husband and wife an awareness of their mission of "responsible parenthood," which today is rightly much insisted upon, and which also must be exactly understood. Consequently it is to be considered under different aspects which are legitimate and connected with one another.

In relation to the biological processes, responsible parenthood means the knowledge and respect of their functions; human intellect discovers in the power of giving life biological laws which are part of the human person.

In relation to the tendencies of instinct or passion, responsible parenthood means that necessary dominion which reason and will must exercise over them.

In relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised, either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth.

Responsible parenthood also and above all implies a more profound relationship to the objective moral order established by God, of which a right conscience is the faithful interpreter. The responsible exercise of parenthood implies, therefore, that husband and wife recognize fully their own duties towards God, towards themselves, towards the family and towards society, in a correct hierarchy of values.

In the task of transmitting life, therefore, they are not free to proceed completely at will, as if they could determine in a wholly autonomous way the honest path to follow; but they must conform their activity to the creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the Church.

11. These acts, by which husband and wife are united in chaste intimacy, and by means of which human life is transmitted, are, as the Council recalled, "noble and worthy,"and they do not cease to be lawful if, for causes independent of the will of husband and wife, they are foreseen to be infecund, since they always remain ordained towards expressing and consolidating their union. In fact, as experience bears witness, not every conjugal act is followed by a new life. God has wisely disposed natural laws and rhythms of fecundity which, of themselves, cause a separation in the succession of births. Nonetheless the Church, calling men back to the observance of the norms of the natural law, as interpreted by their constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marriage act (quilibet matrimonii usus) must remain open to the transmission of life.

12. That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man's most high calling to parenthood. We believe that the men of our day are particularly capable of seeing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental principle. (Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria  Montini/Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968.)

Who had been calling for "responsible parenthood" for five decades prior to her death on September 6, 1966? The nymphomaniac, racist and eugenicist named Margaret Sanger, the founder of the Birth Control League that became known as Planned Parenthood, that's who. Her followers continue to champion this shopworn slogan that found its way into the text of an alleged "papal" encyclical letter. Montini/Paul VI's acceptance of "responsible parenthood" slogan of Margaret Sanger and her diabolical minions, coupled with the inversion of the ends of marriage propagated by Dietrich von Hildebrand, constitutes a revolution against the ends of marriage that have "baptized," if you will, a supposedly "natural" form of contraception that is to be used as a matter of routine, not in truly extraordinary cases, where is it only lawful, that is, permissible, and never mandated.

The inclusion of "psychological" reasons to abstain from the conception of children by the use of "knowing" the physicality of a woman's body has been interpreted rather broadly, shall we say. In plain English: the use of "psychological" reasons to abstain from the conception of children has been used to reaffirm the "consciences" of those who are "not ready" for children. This is no different whatsoever than those who have chosen the use of artificial means to prevent the conception of children because they are "not ready" to have them. They have careers. They have poor finances. They have elderly parents for whom to care. They have "plans." They have to get through school. And on and on on. Everybody's got a "serious reason." These are nothing other than excuses and rationalizations that consider marriage in purely naturalistic and materialistic, if not utilitarian, terms without any true love of God and thus of trust that He will send married couples all of the supernatural and temporal helps that they need to provide for the children that God sees fit to send them.

The "teaching" that led to what is called today as "natural family planning" is not to be found in Pope Pius XII's October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession. It is to be found in Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, devoted to the "responsible parenthood" slogan of Planned Parenthood and the United Nations and environmental groups.

Truly responsible Catholic parenthood is founded in a love for God's Holy Will and by training however many or few children in the truths of the Catholic Faith, which require parents to eschew worldliness and to arm them with the supernatural and natural means to live in a "popular culture" devoted to the glorification of the very thing that caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and that caused those Seven Swords of Sorrow to be pierced through and through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, that is, sin. That's truly responsible Catholic parenthood. Not that which is represented by "Paul the Sick" and Humanae Vitae.

How the Adversary Used Humanae Vitae to Further Advance Contraception With the Help of Believing Catholics

As has happened in the realm of civil politics, the devil used "false opposites" to divide and conquer believing Catholics as a result of the issuance of Humanae Vitae nearly forty-three years ago now in several ways. Permit me a brief word of explanation.

There were a number of ultra-progressive revolutionaries who were poised to oppose Humanae Vitae even before its release on July 25, 1968. Led by Father Charles Curran, a priest of the Diocese of Rochester, New York, who was then under the authority of his diocesan bishop, a man named Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, and was teaching at The Catholic University of America in Washington, District of Columbia, a number of Catholic "dissenters," funded by Planned Parenthood and related organizations, were able to take a major advertisement in The New York Times to express their "loyal opposition" to Humanae Vitae's reaffirmation on the proscribed nature of artificial methods of contraception. Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle, the Archbishop of Washington, sought to fire Curran. He was overruled by the other cardinals who constituted the governing board of The Catholic University of America. Montini/Paul VI did not discipline Curran. Neither did Bishop Sheen, who could have called Curran home to Rochester right then and there.

The rise of the "loyal opposition" posed by Father Charles Curran and his fellow "dissenting" signatories made acceptance of Humanae Vitae a touchstone of what was considered to be Catholic "orthodoxy" in "conservative" Catholic circles. These "conservative" Catholics "rallied around the 'pope,'" embracing Humanae Vitae without once considering it to be a truly revolutionary document that helped to launch and institutionalize a "natural" form of contraception that has become the expected norm in conciliar circles (and even in some sedevacantist venues). The "poor, suffering 'pope'" syndrome that afflicts "conservative" and traditionally-minded Catholics in the conciliar structures to this day began with the issuance of Humanae Vitae and the opposition it engendered from the "ultra-progressives."

It was to protect the "poor, suffering 'pope'" that many "conservative" Catholics, although uneasy with the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service when it was promulgated on April 3, 1969, and implemented on Sunday, November 30, 1969, accepted the "liturgical reform" and became strong defenders of it as to otherwise would be to place themselves in the same camp as the "ultra-progressives." This was a point that had been made to me first by the conciliar presbyter who had referred to Montini rather consistently as "Paul the Sick." It was a good point, a correct one as he was ahead of me on the harm of the Novus Ordo by about ten years.

Some have even speculated that Montini/Paul VI wanted to use the opposition to Humanae Vitae to "rally the troops" around the Novus Ordo a year later, much in the same way that Ratzinger/Benedict has used the opposition of many of his ultra-progressive conciliar "bishops" to Summorum Pontificum, issued on July 7, 2007, to evoke "sympathy" for him as seeks to further institutionalize the blasphemies, sacrileges and apostasies of conciliarism that will result one day in his "reform of the reform. Regardless as to whether Montini/Paul VI had this in mind when issuing Humanae Vitae, he, a master exploiter who engaged in massive bouts of self-pity, used opposition to Humanae Vitae as a means to engender support for the rest of his conciliar agenda although he could have put a stop to the "opposition" by having "taken of business" with Curran, which he refused to do.

Having thus become a touchstone of "doctrinal orthodoxy" and of "loyalty to the 'pope,'" Humanae Vitae launched the cottage industry of "natural family planning" (there is something called the "Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction" in Omaha, Nebraska) that was defended by such believing Catholics as Father Paul Marx, O.S.B, who had debunked the myth of overpopulation and who was hated by his Benedictine superiors for his criticism of the conciliar "bishops'" refusal to oppose "artificial" contraception, and Father John A. Hardon, S.J., who was equally hated by his own superiors in the Society of Jesus for his defense of the Faith as best as he was able to do in difficult circumstances. (I would not be surprised if Monsignor George Kelly also became an enthusiast of "natural family planning" out of loyalty to "the pope.") And then there was the syncretist Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who helped to champion the "pope's" cause in this regard. Unfortunately, the cause was that of a false "pope," a true revolutionary who went beyond anything ever intended by Pope Pius XI's Casti Connubii and Pope Pius XII's Allocution to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession.

Montini/Paul VI helped to pave the way as a perverse "John the Baptist" for the endless "personalist" tripe of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II that made discussion of matters that would never pass from the lips of Catholics in any age prior to this a very casual part of the related cottage industry called "the theology of the body." This cottage industry has enriched the likes of Christopher West and others who are obsessed with physicality and thus immodesty and indecency of speech as that which is opposed to Catholic teaching is presented as actually being part of the Sacred Deposit of the Faith in "loyalty" "Blessed" John Paul II. (For a thumbnail sketch of the road from Dietrich von Hildebrand, who was, ironically, opposed to the Novus Ordoservice and told Paul VI so to his face, to Christopher West, see Mrs. Randy  Engel's The Phenomenology of Dietrich von Hildebrand and His Novel Teaching on Marriage.)

Pope Pius XII Condemned the Personalist View of Marriage That Gave Rise to Humanae Vitae and Natural Family Planning

Pope Pius XII's Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, which is being treated by some in sedevacantist circles as a positive mandate to teach and practice "natural family planning," contained a complete rejection of the "personalist" view of marriage championed by Dietrich von Hildebrand, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Albino Luciani/John Paul I, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

"Personal values" and the need to respect such are a theme which, over the last twenty years or so, has been considered more and more by writers. In many of their works, even the specifically sexual act has its place assigned, that of serving the "person" of the married couple. The proper and most profound sense of the exercise of conjugal rights would consist in this, that the union of bodies is the expression and the realization of personal and affective union.

Articles, chapters, entire books, conferences, especially dealing with the "technique" of love, are composed to spread these ideas, to illustrate them with advice to the newly married as a guide in matrimony, in order that they may not neglect, through stupidity or a false sense of shame or unfounded scruples, that which God, Who also created natural inclinations, offers them. If from their complete reciprocal gift of husband and wife there results a new life, it is a result which remains outside, or, at the most, on the border of "personal values"; a result which is not denied, but neither is it desired as the center of marital relations.

According to these theories, your dedication for the welfare of the still hidden life in the womb of the mother, and your assisting its happy birth, would only have but a minor and secondary importance.

Now, if this relative evaluation were merely to place the emphasis on the personal values of husband and wife rather than on that of the offspring, it would be possible, strictly speaking, to put such a problem aside. But, however, it is a matter of a grave inversion of the order of values and of the ends imposed by the Creator Himself. We find Ourselves faced with the propagation of a number of ideas and sentiments directly opposed to the clarity, profundity, and seriousness of Christian thought. Here, once again, the need for your apostolate. It may happen that you receive the confidences of the mother and wife and are questioned on the more secret desires and intimacies of married life. How, then, will you be able, aware of your mission, to give weight to truth and right order in the appreciation and action of the married couple, if you yourselves are not furnished with the strength of character needed to uphold what you know to be true and just?

The primary end of marriage

Now, the truth is that matrimony, as an institution of nature, in virtue of the Creator's will, has not as a primary and intimate end the personal perfection of the married couple but the procreation and upbringing of a new life. The other ends, inasmuch as they are intended by nature, are not equally primary, much less superior to the primary end, but are essentially subordinated to it. This is true of every marriage, even if no offspring result, just as of every eye it can be said that it is destined and formed to see, even if, in abnormal cases arising from special internal or external conditions, it will never be possible to achieve visual perception.

It was precisely to end the uncertainties and deviations which threatened to diffuse errors regarding the scale of values of the purposes of matrimony and of their reciprocal relations, that a few years ago (March 10, 1944), We Ourselves drew up a declaration on the order of those ends, pointing out what the very internal structure of the natural disposition reveals. We showed what has been handed down by Christian tradition, what the Supreme Pontiffs have repeatedly taught, and what was then in due measure promulgated by the Code of Canon Law. Not long afterwards, to correct opposing opinions, the Holy See, by a public decree, proclaimed that it could not admit the opinion of some recent authors who denied that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of the offspring, or teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinated to the primary end, but are on an equal footing and independent of it.

Would this lead, perhaps, to Our denying or diminishing what is good and just in personal values resulting from matrimony and its realization? Certainly not, because the Creator has designed that for the procreation of a new life human beings made of flesh and blood, gifted with soul and heart, shall be called upon as men and not as animals deprived of reason to be the authors of their posterity. It is for this end that the Lord desires the union of husband and wife. Indeed, the Holy Scripture says of God that He created man to His image and He created him male and female, and willed—as is repeatedly affirmed in Holy Writ—that "a man shall leave mother and father, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh".

All this is therefore true and desired by God. But, on the other hand, it must not be divorced completely from the primary function of matrimony—the procreation of offspring. Not only the common work of external life, but even all personal enrichment—spiritual and intellectual—all that in married love as such is most spiritual and profound, has been placed by the will of the Creator and of nature at the service of posterity. The perfect married life, of its very nature, also signifies the total devotion of parents to the well-being of their children, and married love in its power and tenderness is itself a condition of the sincerest care of the offspring and the guarantee of its realization.

To reduce the common life of husband and wife and the conjugal act to a mere organic function for the transmission of seed would be but to convert the domestic hearth, the family sanctuary, into a biological laboratory. Therefore, in Our allocution of September 29, 1949, to the International Congress of Catholic Doctors, We expressly excluded artificial insemination in marriage. The conjugal act, in its natural structure, is a personal action, a simultaneous and immediate cooperation of husband and wife, which by the very nature of the agents and the propriety of the act, is the expression of the reciprocal gift, which, according to Holy Writ, effects the union "in one flesh".

That is much more than the union of two genes, which can be effected even by artificial means, that is, without the natural action of husband and wife. The conjugal act, ordained and desired by nature, is a personal cooperation, to which husband and wife, when contracting marriage, exchange the right.

Therefore, when this act in its natural form is from the beginning perpetually impossible, the object of the matrimonial contract is essentially vitiated. This is what we said on that occasion: "Let it not be forgotten: only the procreation of a new life according to the will and the design of the Creator carries with it in a stupendous degree of perfection the intended ends. It is at the same time in conformity with the spiritual and bodily nature and the dignity of the married couple, in conformity with the happy and normal development of the child".

Advise the fiancée or the young married woman who comes to seek your advice about the values of matrimonial life that these personal values, both in the sphere of the body and the senses and in the sphere of the spirit, are truly genuine, but that the Creator has placed them not in the first, but in the second degree of the scale of values. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)

This is a ringing condemnation of the very philosophical and theological foundations of the indiscriminate, institutionalized teaching and practice of "natural family planning" in the lives of Catholic married couples. It is also yet another papal condemnation of conciliarism's view of marriage.

One cannot overemphasize the importance of Pope Pius XII's condemnation of the very personalist ideology that is at the root of what is called today "natural family planning" as it just a little over seven years and one-half years after the Holy Office's condemnation of the work, which was identical to that of Dietrich von Hildebrand's, of Father Herbert Doms, who had inverted the end of marriage. The condemnation of Father Doms' work was alluded to in a passage from the October 29, 1951, address just cited above. Here it is once again for the sake of emphasis:

It was precisely to end the uncertainties and deviations which threatened to diffuse errors regarding the scale of values of the purposes of matrimony and of their reciprocal relations, that a few years ago (March 10, 1944), We Ourselves drew up a declaration on the order of those ends, pointing out what the very internal structure of the natural disposition reveals. We showed what has been handed down by Christian tradition, what the Supreme Pontiffs have repeatedly taught, and what was then in due measure promulgated by the Code of Canon Law. Not long afterwards, to correct opposing opinions, the Holy See, by a public decree, proclaimed that it could not admit the opinion of some recent authors who denied that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of the offspring, or teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinated to the primary end, but are on an equal footing and independent of it. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)

Catholics who seek to comment on the foundation of the ideology of "natural family planning" must understand the connection between the work of the likes of Dietrich von Hildebrand and Father Hebert Doms and others that served as the revolutionary basis for Humanae Vitae and thus of "natural family planning" and the "theology of the body." It is also very important for one to familiarize himself with and become conversant in Pope Pius XII's condemnation of these false presuppositions that are the very heart of "NFP" as it is taught and practiced on an institutionalized basis, especially at the likes of the "Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction."

The Foundation of True Married Love: Love of God Above All Else

Higher than any human love is the love that each of is us to have for the God Who created us, the God Who redeemed us, the God Who sanctifies us. Love of God and of His Holy Faith comes before the love that offer to any mere creatures, including our spouses and our children. A husband and a wife's love for each other is inauthentic and thus actually damaging to their eternal salvation if either loves the spouse--or, worse yet, himself or herself and his or her own disordered desire to be the center of the other's universe--more than the true God of Divine Revelation as He has revealed to us exclusively to His true Church. No spouse can be said to be a good husband or a good wife who complains that the one to whom he is wedded in Christ the King loves God more than himself or herself. Such is narcissism. It is egotism. We are called to love to God above all creatures and thus to love all creatures for love of Him, meaning that we will their good, the ultimate expression of which is the salvation of their immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has taught us how single-hearted our love for Him must be:

[36] And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. [37] He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. [38] And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. [39] He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. [40] He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. (Matthew 10: 36-40.)

[26] If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. [27] And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14: 26-27.)

The Bishop Challoner commentary on the Douay-Rheims Bible explains the meaning of Luke 14: 26:

[26] "Hate not"... The law of Christ does not allow us to hate even our enemies, much less our parents: but the meaning of the text is, that we must be in that disposition of soul, as to be willing to renounce, and part with every thing, how near or dear soever it may be to us, that would keep us from following Christ.

Husbands and wives must love each other so much for the love of the Most Blessed Trinity that they are willing to renounce even the privileges of the married state if there are circumstances that might require them to consider doing so. Many saints have done this, including Saint Henry the Emperor and his wife, Saint Cunigunde, for purely supernatural reasons. Nothing is impossible with God. Nothing.

It is with this in mind that one must consider these words of Pope Pius XI when discussing the mutual agreement of husband and wife to refrain from the privileges of the married state in exceptional circumstances:

53. And now, Venerable Brethren, we shall explain in detail the evils opposed to each of the benefits of matrimony. First consideration is due to the offspring, which many have the boldness to call the disagreeable burden of matrimony and which they say is to be carefully avoided by married people not through virtuous continence (which Christian law permits in matrimony when both parties consent) but by frustrating the marriage act. Some justify* this criminal abuse on the ground that they are weary of children and wish to gratify their desires without their consequent burden. Others say that they cannot on the one hand remain continent nor on the other can they have children because of the difficulties whether on the part of the mother or on the part of family circumstances .

54. But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. . . .

60. We are deeply touched by the sufferings of those parents who, in extreme want, experience great difficulty in rearing their children.

61. However, they should take care lest the calamitous state of their external affairs should be the occasion for a much more calamitous error. No difficulty can arise that justifies the putting aside of the law of God which forbids all acts intrinsically evil. There is no possible circumstance in which husband and wife cannot, strengthened by the grace of God, fulfill faithfully their duties and preserve in wedlock their chastity unspotted. This truth of Christian Faith is expressed by the teaching of the Council of Trent. "Let no one be so rash as to assert that which the Fathers of the Council have placed under anathema, namely, that there are precepts of God impossible for the just to observe. God does not ask the impossible, but by His commands, instructs you to do what you are able, to pray for what you are not able that He may help you."[48]

62. This same doctrine was again solemnly repeated and confirmed by the Church in the condemnation of the Jansenist heresy which dared to utter this blasphemy against the goodness of God: "Some precepts of God are, when one considers the powers which man possesses, impossible of fulfillment even to the just who wish to keep the law and strive to do so; grace is lacking whereby these laws could be fulfilled."[49]  (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

There is some merit in elaborating on these points, if only for a brief moment or two.

Although some of "The Nine" who were expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X in 1983 have demonstrated a most unfortunate tendency to "beat the sheep" when they dare to bring to them their legitimate pastoral concerns and to force them to accept pastoral positions and practices that have not been enunciated by Holy Mother Church, they were correct about many things, including their firm, unequivocal statement against Archbishop Lefebvre's blithe acceptance of the decrees of nullity issued by conciliar "marriage tribunals." "The Nine" stood forth in defense of the integrity of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, exhibiting the courage of Saint John the Baptist as they did so.

This means, of course, that "The Nine"--and those they have trained--hold to the correct view that those who have, sometimes at the direction of the conciliar authorities themselves and not infrequently with real and legitimate "cases" (such as ratum et nonconsummatum, something reserved to a pope himself to decide), received a decree of "nullity" from the conciliar authorities must live in Josephite marriages until the death of the one they had espoused in the conciliar church. This is not harsh. This is not "tough." As a true priest in the conciliar structures told a man in my acquaintance who proceeded with an ill-considered marriage even though everyone he knew, including priests, was opposed to his doing so, "Marry in haste, repent at leisure." And part of the repentance that those who married unwisely in the conciliar structures or who have been abandoned by their spouses because of their embrace of the true state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal is to forfeit that which proper to the married state.

This is not impossible. Those who love God above all else recognize that He sends all of the graces through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, that necessary to bear whatever crosses we are asked to carry at every point in our lives. And this is no different than what married couples who find themselves in some very truly extraordinary cases of very rare physical threats to a woman's life or severe economic distressmay certainly consider themselves called to do: to bear the cross with love and gratitude as they forfeit by mutual agreement without being an occasion of sin to either spouse, for however long a time is necessary and by means of their mutual consent and consultation with a spiritual director, whether in or out of the confessional, that which is proper to the married state,

Pope Pius XI had noted this in Casti Connubii. So did Pope Pius XII in his Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession on October 29, 1951:

Perhaps you will now press the point, however, observing that in the exercise of your profession you find yourselves sometimes faced with delicate cases, in which, that is, there cannot be a demand that the risk of maternity be run, a risk which in certain cases must be absolutely avoided, and in which as well the observance of the agenesic periods either does not give sufficient security, or must be rejected for other reasons. Now, you ask, how can one still speak of an apostolate in the service of maternity?

If, in your sure and experienced judgment, the circumstances require an absolute "no," that is to say, the exclusion of motherhood, it would be a mistake and a wrong to impose or advise a "yes." Here it is a question of basic facts and therefore not a theological but a medical question; and thus it is in your competence. However, in such cases, the married couple does not desire a medical answer, of necessity a negative one, but seeks an approval of a "technique" of conjugal activity which will not give rise to maternity. And so you are again called to exercise your apostolate inasmuch as you leave no doubt whatsoever that even in these extreme cases every preventive practice and every direct attack upon the life and the development of the seed is, in conscience, forbidden and excluded, and that there is only one way open, namely, to abstain from every complete performance of the natural faculty. Your apostolate in this matter requires that you have a clear and certain judgment and a calm firmness.

It will be objected that such an abstention is impossible, that such a heroism is asking too much. You will hear this objection raised; you will read it everywhere. Even those who should be in a position to judge very differently, either by reason of their duties or qualifications, are ever ready to bring forward the following argument: "No one is obliged to do what is impossible, and it may be presumed that no reasonable legislator can will his law to oblige to the point of impossibility. But for husbands and wives long periods of abstention are impossible. Therefore they are not obliged to abstain; divine law cannot have this meaning."

In such a manner, from partially true premises, one arrives at a false conclusion. To convince oneself of this it suffices to invert the terms of the argument: "God does not oblige anyone to do what is impossible. But God obliges husband and wife to abstinence if their union cannot be completed according to the laws of nature. Therefore in this case abstinence is possible." To confirm this argument, there can be brought forward the doctrine of the Council of Trent, which, in the chapter on the observance necessary and possible of referring to a passage of St. Augustine, teaches: "God does not command the impossible but while He commands, He warns you to do what you can and to ask for the grace for what you cannot do and He helps you so that you may be able".

Do not be disturbed, therefore, in the practice of your profession and apostolate, by this great talk of impossibility. Do not be disturbed in your internal judgment nor in your external conduct. Never lend yourselves to anything which is contrary to the law of God and to your Christian conscience! It would be a wrong towards men and women of our age to judge them incapable of continuous heroism. Nowadays, for many a reason,—perhaps constrained by dire necessity or even at times oppressed by injustice—heroism is exercised to a degree and to an extent that in the past would have been thought impossible. Why, then, if circumstances truly demand it, should this heroism stop at the limits prescribed by the passions and the inclinations of nature? It is clear: he who does not want to master himself is not able to do so, and he who wishes to master himself relying only upon his own powers, without sincerely and perseveringly seeking divine help, will be miserably deceived.

Here is what concerns your apostolate for winning married people over to a service of motherhood, not in the sense of an utter servitude under the promptings of nature, but to the exercise of the rights and duties of married life, governed by the principles of reason and faith. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)

To quote the late John Vennari, "There you have it." For anyone to assert that it is "impossible" for a married couple to maintain complete marital abstinence by mutual consent if truly extraordinary circumstances require it, whether for reasons of being remarried invalidly after having received a decree of nullity from a conciliar tribunal or for the reasons outlined by Pope Pius XII in 1951, that it is "too tough" for them to do so, perhaps it would be more than little wise to become familiar with these words of Pope Pius XII cited just above:

In such a manner, from partially true premises, one arrives at a false conclusion. To convince oneself of this it suffices to invert the terms of the argument: "God does not oblige anyone to do what is impossible. But God obliges husband and wife to abstinence if their union cannot be completed according to the laws of nature. Therefore in this case abstinence is possible." To confirm this argument, there can be brought forward the doctrine of the Council of Trent, which, in the chapter on the observance necessary and possible of referring to a passage of St. Augustine, teaches: "God does not command the impossible but while He commands, He warns you to do what you can and to ask for the grace for what you cannot do and He helps you so that you may be able". (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)

Although Pope Pius XII taught that it was permissible to the fulfill the rights of the marital contract in the natural periods of sterility during a woman's childbearing years in a limited number of conditions, he did not mandate this upon anyone. Indeed, Pope Pius XII's Address to Hematologists in 1958, far from providing a license for the indiscriminate instruction and practice of what is called today "natural family planning," reiterated the conditions expressed in the address to midwives seven years before, a little fact that is entirely absent from some of those old musty ethics books that must be considered in light of the evidence that we now have before us of being suspect of attempting to find a way to justify a legitimate method of Catholic avoiding the conception of children.

It is also suggested that contraceptives and the Ogino-Knaus method10 be used to prevent the transmission of hereditary defects.

Some experts in eugenics who condemn their use absolutely when there is simply a question of giving rein to passion, approve of both these systems when there are serious hygienic indications. They consider them a less serious evil than the procreation of tainted children. Even if some approve of this position, Christianity has followed and continues to follow a different tradition.

Our Predecessor, Pius XI, explained the Christian position in a solemn way in his Encyclical Casti connubii of December 31, 1930. He characterizes the use of contraceptives as a violation of natural law; an act to which nature has given a capacity to produce new life is deprived of that capacity by a human will: "quemlibet matrimonii usum," he wrote, "in quo exercendo, actus, de industria hominum, naturali sua vitae pro creandae vi destituatur; Dei et naturae legem infringere, et eos qui tale quid commiserint gravis noxae labe commaculari."11

On the other hand, to take advantage of natural temporary sterility, as in the Ogino-Knaus method, does not violate the natural order as does the practice described above, since the conjugal relations comply with the will of the Creator. When this method is used for proportionately serious motives (and the indications of eugenics can have a serious character), it is morally justified.

We have spoken on this subject in Our address of October 29, 1951, not to expound on the biological or medical point of view, but to allay the qualms of conscience of many Christians who used this method in their conjugal life. Moreover, in his Encyclical of December 3 1, 1930, Pius XI had already formulated the position of principle: "Neque contra naturae ordinem agere ii dicendi sunt coniuges, qui lure suo recte et naturali ratione utuntur, etsi ob naturales sive temporis sive quorundam defectaum causas nova inde vita oriri non possit."12

We stated in the discourse delivered in 1951 that married couples who make use of their conjugal rights have a positive obligation; in virtue of the natural law governing their state, not to exclude procreation. The Creator, in effect, wished human beings to propagate themselves precisely by the natural exercise of the sexual function. But to this positive law We applied the principle which holds for all the others: that these positive laws are not obligatory to the extent that their fulfillment involves great disadvantages which are neither inseparable from the law itself nor inherent in its accomplishment, but which come from another source and which the law-maker did not intend to impose on men when he promulgated the law.  (Pope Pius XII, Address to Hematologists, 1958, published in The Pope Speaks in 1960.)

This particular address referred to eugenics (the likelihood of mental or physical deformity in a preborn child), not the institutionalized instruction for the routinized use for the indiscriminate avoidance of conception, as a justification for a married couple's use of the privileges of marriage exclusively during a woman's monthly periods of infertility.

The higher path in extraordinary circumstances is indeed virtuous continence if this does not pose a threat to the integrity of a valid marriage, and for anyone to assert that this is not "possible" is to think naturalistically, as he falls into the same pit of "personalism" with the conciliar revolutionaries themselves. There can be no greater--or sadder--irony than this.

Welcoming Large Families

One of the saddest consequences of the mentality of Catholic contraception that has been fostered by "natural family planning" is a bias against large families.

I believe that it was back in 2001 that some Catholic psychologist in the City of New York, whose name has long since escaped my mind, argued in behalf of "natural family planning" because large families were said to be "maladjusted" psychologically. The full-throated promotion of "natural family planning" that occurred after the issuance of Humanae Vitae forty-three years ago today has nothing whatsoever to do with Pope Pius XII's 1951 Address to the Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession. This full-throated promotion of "natural family planning" that has taken place in the last four decades has created a strong bias in many Catholic circles against large families, a bias that extends also against those parents of large families who have been willing to run the risk of ostracism and ridicule to protect their children from the scourge of worldliness about which so many saints have warned parents to avoid lest they imperil the salvation of their own immortal souls.

Pope Pius XII addressed the matter of large families quite directly in an address that he delivered on January 20, 1958, just a little over eight months before his death on October 9, 1958, explaining that the cases in which the conception of children could be limited were "exceptional," making an allusion to the October 29, 1951, address:

On the part of Catholics, We must urge the wide dissemination of the principle, firmly founded on truth, that the only way to protect the physical and moral health of the family and of society is through whole-hearted obedience to the laws of nature, or rather of the Creator, and most of all by fostering a sacred, heart-felt respect for them.

In this matter, everything depends on the intention. You can multiply laws and make the penalties heavier; you can give irrefutable proofs of the stupidity of birth-control theories and of the harm that comes from putting them into practice; but as long as there is no sincere determination to let the Creator carry on His work as He chooses, then human selfishness will always find new sophistries and excuses to still the voice of conscience (to the extent it can), and to carry on abuses.

Now the value of the testimony offered by the parents of large families lies not only in their unequivocal and forceful rejection of any deliberate compromise between the law of God and human selfishness, but also in their readiness to accept joyfully and gratefully these priceless gifts of God—their children — in whatever number it may please Him to send them.

This kind of attitude frees married couples from oppressive anxieties and remorse, and, in the opinion of outstanding doctors, creates the ideal psychological conditions for the healthy development of children born of the marriage. For, right at the beginning of these new lives, it eliminates all those worries and disturbances that can so easily leave physical or psychological scars on the mother or child.

Apart from exceptional cases and We have had occasion to speak of these before — nature's law is basically one of harmony, and it leads to discord and contradictions only in cases where its normal operation is upset by particular circumstances which are for the most part abnormal, or by deliberate opposition from a human will. There is no eugenics that can improve upon nature: it is good as a science only so long as it aims at gaining a profound knowledge of nature's laws and respects these laws — although in some cases it may be wise to dissuade people who suffer from serious defects from getting married (cfr. Enc. Casti connubii, Dec. 31, 1930: A.A.S. 22 (1930) p. 565).

Physical and moral health

Again, good common sense has always and everywhere looked upon large families as a sign, a proof, and a source of physical health, and history makes no mistake when it points to violation and abuse of the laws governing marriage and procreation as the primary cause of the decay of peoples.

Far from being a "social malady," large families are a guarantee of the moral and physical health of a people. Virtues flourish spontaneously in homes where a baby's cries always echo from the crib, and vice is put to flight, as if it has been chased away by the childhood that is renewed there like the fresh and invigorating breath of spring.

So let the weak and selfish take their example from you; let the nation continue to be loving and grateful toward you for all the sacrifices you have taken upon yourselves to raise and educate its citizens; just as the Church is pleased with you for enabling her to offer, along with you, ever healthier and larger groups of souls to the sanctifying activity of the divine Spirit.

II

In the modern civil world a large family is usually, with good reason, looked upon as evidence of the fact that the Christian faith is being lived up to, for the selfishness that We just pointed out as the principal obstacle to an increase in the size of a family group cannot be successfully overcome without recourse to ethical and religious principles.

In recent times we have seen how so-called "demographic politics" have failed to achieve any noteworthy results; it is easy to see why, for the individual interest will almost always win out over the collective pride and selfishness which this idea so often expresses, and the aims and methods of this policy debase the dignity of the family and the person by placing them on the same level as lower species.

The light of Christianity

Only the divine and eternal light of Christianity gives full life and meaning to the family and this is so true that right from the beginning and through the whole course of its history, large families have often been considered as synonymous with Christian families.

Respect for divine laws has made them abound with life; faith in God gives parents the strength and vigor they need to face the sacrifice and self-denial demanded for the raising of their children; Christian principles guide them and help them in the hard work of education; the Christian spirit of love watches over their peace and good order, and seems to draw forth from nature and bestow the deepest family joys that belong to parents, to children, to brothers and sisters.

Even externally, a large, well-ordered family is a kind of visible shrine: the sacrament of Baptism is not an exceptional event for them but something constantly renewing the joy and grace of the Lord. The series of happy pilgrimages to the Baptismal font is not yet finished when a new one to Confirmation and first Communion begins, aglow with the same innocence. The youngest of the children will scarcely have put away his little white suit among the dearest memories of life, when the first wedding veil appears to bring parents, children, and new relatives together at the foot of the altar. More marriages, more Baptisms, more first Communions follow each other like ever-new springtimes that, in a sense, make the visits of God and of His grace to the home unending. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Large Families, January 20, 1958. The entirety of this address is appended below. It includes a reference to "overpopulation" that Pope Pius XII said was partly real and partly blown out of proportion. Father Paul Marx later proved the fallacy of the whole "overpopulation" myth beyond any question whatsoever.)

A bias against large families? Such is a bias against the laws of God Himself. The large family is supposed to the norm, not the exception, in Catholic family life.

While it is true it may not be within the Providence of God for some married couples to have any children, permitting them to choose to adopt children or to devote their married lives to supporting the work of the Church by means of their prayers and their performing of the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy for their relatives and friends, or to have just one child (we have lost at least one that we know of, perhaps two others) or two or three children, the point is this: God is the Sovereign of the sanctity and fecundity of marriage. Married couples may, by mutual consent, lawfully avoid their marital duties only for the reasons outlined in Pope Pius XII's Allocution to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, reasons that Pope Pius XII himself said in his address to large families were "exceptional," meaning that there is no "mandate" to avoid periods of fertility in such circumstances, less yet to do so as a matter of routine.

Simplicity and Trust in God

Catholics need to eschew naturalism in all of its varied forms. They need to have the simplicity and trust in God of one of the fairest flowers of the America and of the Third Order Penance of the Order of Preachers, Saint Rose of Lima. Father Frederick William Faber summarized this simplicity of Saint Rose, the first canonized saint of the Americas, in the concluding chapter he authored in book he edited about The Life of Saint Rose of Lima:

The Brief of Clement IX. for the beatification of S. Rose, is dated the 12th of February, 1668; and she was canonized three years later, 1671, by Clement X., who appointed the 30th of August for her feast. Thus solemnly has the Church of God set the seal of Her unerring approval upon that series of wonders, that endless chain of miracles, which, reaching from her cradle to her grave, make up the life of this American virgin. There was never a time and never a land, when and where it was more needful for the daughters of the Church to learn how to make for themselves a cloister in the world, than England and America in the present age; and it is precisely this lesson which the Life of S. Rose conveys. Amidst so much that is false and hollow, heartless and unreal, how beautiful before Almighty God would be the child-like simplicity of this Virgin of the South, copied even faintly in the lives of our Catholic country-women! For it is this simplicity which was her fairest ornament: indeed, so completely child-like was she herself, and so child-like the wonders which her Divine Spouse encircled her, that in reading her Life it seems hardly to strike us that she was any thing but a little girl. It is as though she grew no older, but remained still the baby, cradled in the arms of Jesus, as when the vermillion rose bloomed miraculously on her little face when three months old. Let us also thank Almighty God in the fervent simplicity of our faith for the seal His Church has set upon these authentic wonders; wonders not lost in dubious antiquity, but adequately proved in face of modern criticism so short a time ago; and remembering that this bold exhibition of the marvellous is by no less an authority than the Catholic Church presented to our veneration and our love, let us take it like awe-struck children, as a page from the lost chronicles of Eden, and strive to unlearn that bold timidity with favour where we shall never get it, and to avoid sneers which are to us an heritage and vouchers of our truths, by smiling with the profane, and doubting with sceptical. For one of the faithful to try to look as like an unbeliever as he can, is a sight which never won a soul to Christ, or gained for the Church the esteem of an opponent. Rose of Lima is now raised upon the altars of the Church by the decree of her canonization; she is a Catholic Saint; no sneer of man can wither the marvellous blooming of her leaves; but he will find a thorn who shall dare to handle roughly this sweet mysterious Rose which S. Dominic planted in the garden of his Master. (The Life of Saint Rose of Lima, edited by Father Frederick William Faber. Published originally in 1855, republished as a photocopied book by Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprints, pp. 263-264.)

Yes, we need simplicity, not complexity. Married couples must to be taught to be open to new life at all times. If there is a genuine pastoral need falling within the conditions outlined by Pope Pius XII in his October 30, 1951, address to midwives, it is enough for the matter to be dealt with in the confessional and/or in spiritual counseling. Pope Pius XII would be horrified to learn that his words are being twisted to instruct engaged couples on an institutionalized basis as a matter of routine to immerse themselves in a physicality that degrades from the beauty and the true joy of their sharing in the creative power of God Himself. And that is as simple as I can make this matter.

Father Gerard Rusak, a priest of the Society of Saint Pius X, put the matter this way when referring to Monsignor Kelly's The Catholic Marriage Manual:

The Catholic Marriage Manual also states: "Practicing rhythm is particularly inadvisable for young couples. During the early years of marriage, the emotional and physical needs for intercourse probably are at their greatest. Moreover, a young husband and wife who abstain during the fertile 'period have no way of knowing whether their marriage really will be fertile. And If they are not fertile, the best time to discover this condition is when they are young - and when cures for sterility have the best chance to succeed." If rhythm is not advisable for young couples, self-restraint is. Pius XI warns that the married should: "use their matrimonial rights always in a Christian and sacred way, especially in the early days, so that, should circumstances subsequently require them to observe continence, their habit of self restraint will help them more easily to do so" (Casti Connubii, Dec. 31, 1930, 377). (Father Gerard Rusak, Natural Family Planning; this is, as indicated on my home page, an article well worth reading in its entirety.)

As is ever the case, we must stay close to the Mother of God as we offer unto her Divine Son all of the sufferings of the present moment through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, invoking also the selfless, chaste and just head of the Holy Family, Saint Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faithful. Ever Rosary that a married couple says before they are blessed with children and that they pray after their conceptions and births unites them more closely to each of the three members of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. And it is by possessing and demonstrating the same simplicity of each member of the Holy Family that individual members of families can save their souls and remain as simple as Saint Rose of Lima their entire lives.

Viva Cristo Rey!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint James the Greater, pray for us.

Saint Christopher, pray for us.

Appendix

Pope Pius XII's Address to Large Families, January 20, 1958

Beloved sons and daughters, Officers and Representatives of the Associations for Large Families-of Rome and of Italy, this visit of yours has to be listed among those that bring deepest pleasure to Our heart.

You are well aware of the lively interest We have in family life, of how We never miss an opportunity to point out its many-sided dignity, to re-assert its rights and defend them, to inculcate the duties it involves—in a word, We make it a key-point of Our pastoral teaching.

It is this same anxious interest in families that makes Us agree so readily to spend at least a few moments with family groups that come to Our home (whenever the duties of Our office do not make this impossible), and this is why, on occasion, We consent to be photographed in the midst of them, so as to leave some kind of lasting record of Our joy and theirs.

Father of the human family

The Pope in the midst of a family! Isn't that right where he belongs? Isn't he (in the loftiest spiritual sense of the word) the Father of the whole human family that has been reborn in Christ and in the Church? Is it not through him, the Vicar of Christ on earth, that the wonderful plan of creative Wisdom is put into effect — a plan that has conferred on all human fatherhood the destiny of preparing a chosen family for heaven, where the love of the One and Triune God will enfold them in a single eternal embrace and give them Himself as the inheritance that will make them perfectly happy?

A triple testimony

But you do not represent just any families at all; you are and represent large families, those most blessed by God and specially loved and prized by the Church as its most precious treasures. For these families offer particularly clear testimony to three things that serve to assure the world of the truth of the Church's doctrine and the soundness of its practice, and that redound, through good example, to the great benefit of all other families and of civil society itself.

Wherever you find large families in great numbers, they point to: the physical and moral health of a Christian people; a living faith in God and trust in His Providence; the fruitful and joyful holiness of Catholic marriage.

We would like to say a few words about each of these points.

Surely, one of the most harmful aberrations that has appeared in modern society with its pagan tendencies is the opinion of those who are eager to classify fruitfulness in marriage as a "social malady," and who maintain that any nation that finds itself thus afflicted must exert every effort and use every means to cure the disease. This is the basis for the propaganda that goes under the name of "planned parenthood"; at times it is promoted by persons and organizations who command respect because of their positions in other fields, but who, unfortunately, have taken a stand in this matter which must be condemned.

Birth control

Sad as it is to realize how widespread doctrines and practices of this kind have become, even among the traditionally healthy classes, it is comforting to see indications and proofs of a healthy reaction in your country, both in the legal and in the medical fields. As you know, article 31 of the current Constitution of the Italian Republic, to cite just one source, pays "special attention to large families," and the prevailing teaching among Italian doctors is along a line of opposition ever more strongly against birth-control practices.

This does not mean that the danger has passed and that we have destroyed the prejudices which tend to make marriage and its wise norms submit to the aims of reprehensible pride and selfishness on the part of society or of individuals. We particularly deplore that section of the press that every so often takes up the question once again with the obvious intention of confusing good people and drawing them into error with misleading evidence, questionable polls, and even falsified statements from some cleric or other.

Obedience to nature's laws

On the part of Catholics, We must urge the wide dissemination of the principle, firmly founded on truth, that the only way to protect the physical and moral health of the family and of society is through whole-hearted obedience to the laws of nature, or rather of the Creator, and most of all by fostering a sacred, heart-felt respect for them.

In this matter, everything depends on the intention. You can multiply laws and make the penalties heavier; you can give irrefutable proofs of the stupidity of birth-control theories and of the harm that comes from putting them into practice; but as long as there is no sincere determination to let the Creator carry on His work as He chooses, then human selfishness will always find new sophistries and excuses to still the voice of conscience (to the extent it can), and to carry on abuses.

Now the value of the testimony offered by the parents of large families lies not only in their unequivocal and forceful rejection of any deliberate compromise between the law of God and human selfishness, but also in their readiness to accept joyfully and gratefully these priceless gifts of God—their children — in whatever number it may please Him to send them.

This kind of attitude frees married couples from oppressive anxieties and remorse, and, in the opinion of outstanding doctors, creates the ideal psychological conditions for the healthy development of children born of the marriage. For, right at the beginning of these new lives, it eliminates all those worries and disturbances that can so easily leave physical or psychological scars on the mother or child.

Apart from exceptional cases and We have had occasion to speak of these before — nature's law is basically one of harmony, and it leads to discord and contradictions only in cases where its normal operation is upset by particular circumstances which are for the most part abnormal, or by deliberate opposition from a human will. There is no eugenics that can improve upon nature: it is good as a science only so long as it aims at gaining a profound knowledge of nature's laws and respects these laws — although in some cases it may be wise to dissuade people who suffer from serious defects from getting married (cfr. Enc. Casti connubii, Dec. 31, 1930: A.A.S. 22 (1930) p. 565).

Physical and moral health

Again, good common sense has always and everywhere looked upon large families as a sign, a proof, and a source of physical health, and history makes no mistake when it points to violation and abuse of the laws governing marriage and procreation as the primary cause of the decay of peoples.

Far from being a "social malady," large families are a guarantee of the moral and physical health of a people. Virtues flourish spontaneously in homes where a baby's cries always echo from the crib, and vice is put to flight, as if it has been chased away by the childhood that is renewed there like the fresh and invigorating breath of spring.

So let the weak and selfish take their example from you; let the nation continue to be loving and grateful toward you for all the sacrifices you have taken upon yourselves to raise and educate its citizens; just as the Church is pleased with you for enabling her to offer, along with you, ever healthier and larger groups of souls to the sanctifying activity of the divine Spirit.

II

In the modern civil world a large family is usually, with good reason, looked upon as evidence of the fact that the Christian faith is being lived up to, for the selfishness that We just pointed out as the principal obstacle to an increase in the size of a family group cannot be successfully overcome without recourse to ethical and religious principles.

In recent times we have seen how so-called "demographic politics" have failed to achieve any noteworthy results; it is easy to see why, for the individual interest will almost always win out over the collective pride and selfishness which this idea so often expresses, and the aims and methods of this policy debase the dignity of the family and the person by placing them on the same level as lower species.

The light of Christianity

Only the divine and eternal light of Christianity gives full life and meaning to the family and this is so true that right from the beginning and through the whole course of its history, large families have often been considered as synonymous with Christian families.

Respect for divine laws has made them abound with life; faith in God gives parents the strength and vigor they need to face the sacrifice and self-denial demanded for the raising of their children; Christian principles guide them and help them in the hard work of education; the Christian spirit of love watches over their peace and good order, and seems to draw forth from nature and bestow the deepest family joys that belong to parents, to children, to brothers and sisters.

Even externally, a large, well-ordered family is a kind of visible shrine: the sacrament of Baptism is not an exceptional event for them but something constantly renewing the joy and grace of the Lord. The series of happy pilgrimages to the Baptismal font is not yet finished when a new one to Confirmation and first Communion begins, aglow with the same innocence. The youngest of the children will scarcely have put away his little white suit among the dearest memories of life, when the first wedding veil appears to bring parents, children, and new relatives together at the foot of the altar. More marriages, more Baptisms, more first Communions follow each other like ever-new springtimes that, in a sense, make the visits of God and of His grace to the home unending.

Trust in God

But God also visits large families with His Providence, and parents, especially those who are poor, give clear testimony to this by resting all their trust in Him when human efforts are not enough. A trust that has a solid foundation and is not in vain! Providence — to put it in human words and ideas — is not a sum total of exceptional acts of divine pity; it is the ordinary result of harmonious activity on the part of the infinite wisdom, goodness and omnipotence of the Creator. God will never refuse a means of living to those He calls into being.

The Divine Master has explicitly taught that "life is worth more than food, and the body more than clothing" (cf. Matt. 6, 25). If single incidents, whether small or great, seem to contradict this, it is a sign that man has placed some obstacle in the way of divine order, or else, in exceptional cases, that God has higher plans for good; but Providence is something real, something necessary since God is the Creator.

Overpopulation

The so-called problem of overpopulation of the earth is partly real and partly unreasonably feared as an imminent catastrophe for modern society; but undoubtedly the rise of this problem and the continued failure to arrive at a solution of it is not due to some mix-up or inertia on the part of divine Providence, but rather to disorder on man's part — especially to his selfishness and avarice.

With the progress that has been made in technology, with the ease of transportation, and with the new sources of energy that are just beginning to be tapped, the earth can promise prosperity to all those who will dwell on it for a long time to come.

As for the future, who can foresee what new and unsuspected resources may be found on our planet, and what surprises may be uncovered outside of it by the wonderful scientific achievements that have just barely begun? And who can be sure that the natural rhythm of procreation will be the same in the future as it is now? Is it not possible that some law that will moderate the rhythm of expansion from within may come into play? Providence has reserved the future destiny of the world to itself.

It is strange to find that the fears of some individuals are able to change well-founded hopes for prosperity into catastrophic spectre at the very moment when science is changing what used to be considered the dreams of wild imaginations into useful realities.

So overpopulation is not a valid reason for spreading illicit birth control practices. It is simply a pretext used by those who would justify avarice and selfishness — by those nations, for instance, who fear that the expansion of others will pose a danger to their own political position and cause a lowering of the general standard of living, or by individuals, especially those who are better off, who prefer the greatest possible enjoyment of earthly goods to the praise and merit of bringing new lives into existence. The final result is that they break the fixed and certain laws of the Creator under the pretext of correcting supposed errors on the part of His Providence.

It would be more reasonable and useful if modern society would make a more determined, universal effort to correct its own conduct, by removing the causes of hunger in the overpopulated or "depressed areas," through a more active use of modern discoveries for peaceful aims, a more open political policy of collaboration and exchange, a more far-seeing and less nationalistic economy; above all, by reacting to all suggestions of selfishness with charity, to those of avarice with a more concrete application of justice.

God is not going to ask men for an accounting of the general destiny of mankind; that is His business; but He will demand an accounting of the single acts that they have deliberately performed in accordance with or against the dictates of conscience.

As for you, parents and children of large families, keep on giving a serene and firm testimony of your trust in divine Providence, and be assured that He will not fail to repay you with the testimony of His daily help and, whenever necessary, with those extraordinary helps that many of you have been happy to experience already.

III

And now a few words on your third testimony — words that may give new strength to those who are fearful and bring you a little comfort.

Large families are the most splendid flower-beds in the garden of the Church; happiness flowers in them and sanctity ripens in favorable soil. Every family group, even the smallest, was meant by God to be an oasis of spiritual peace. But there is a tremendous difference: where the number of children is not much more than one, that serene intimacy that gives value to life has a touch of melancholy or of pallor about it; it does not last as long, it may be more uncertain, it is often clouded by secret fears and remorse.

Happiness in a large family

It is very different from the serenity of spirit to be found in parents who are surrounded by a rich abundance of young lives. The joy that comes from the plentiful blessings of God breaks out in a thousand different ways and there is no fear that it will end. The brows of these fathers and mothers may be burdened with cares, but there is never a trace of that inner shadow that betrays anxiety of conscience or fear of an irreparable return to loneliness, Their youth never seems to fade away, as long as the sweet fragrance of a crib remains in the home, as long as the walls of the house echo to the silvery voices of children and grandchildren.

Their heavy labors multiplied many times over, their redoubled sacrifices and their renunciation of costly amusements are generously rewarded even here below by the inexhaustible treasury of affection and tender hopes that dwell in their hearts without ever tiring them or bothering them.

And the hopes soon become a reality when the eldest daughter begins to help her mother to take care of the baby and on the day the oldest son comes home with his face beaming with the first salary he has earned himself. That day will be a particularly happy one for parents, for it will make the spectre of an old age spent in misery disappear, and they will feel assured of a reward for their sacrifices.

When there are many children, the youngsters are spared the boredom of loneliness and the discomfort of having to live in the midst of adults all the time. It is true that they may sometimes become so lively as to get on your nerves, and their disagreements may seem like small riots; but even their arguments play an effective role in the formation of character, as long as they are brief and superficial. Children in large families learn almost automatically to be careful of what they do and to assume responsibility for it, to have a respect for each other and help each other, to be open-hearted and generous. For them, the family is a little proving ground, before they move into the world outside, which will be harder on them and more demanding.

Vocations

All of these precious benefits will be more solid and permanent, more intense and more fruitful if the large family takes the supernatural spirit of the Gospel, which spiritualizes everything and makes it eternal, as its own particular guiding rule and basis. Experience shows that in these cases, God often goes beyond the ordinary gifts of Providence, such as joy and peace, to bestow on it a special call — a vocation to the priesthood, to the religious life, to the highest sanctity.

With good reason, it has often been pointed out that large families have been in the forefront as the cradles of saints. We might cite, among others, the family of St. Louis, the King of France, made up of ten children, that of St. Catherine of Siena who came from a family of twenty-five, St. Robert Bellarmine from a family of twelve, and St. Pius X from a family of ten.

Every vocation is a secret of Providence; but these cases prove that a large number of children does not prevent parents from giving them an outstanding and perfect upbringing; and they show that the number does not work out to the disadvantage of their quality, with regard to either physical or spiritual values.

Vigilence and action

One last word to you, Directors and Representatives of the Associations for Large Families of Rome and of Italy.

Be careful to imprint the seal of an ever more vigilant and fruitful dynamism on the action that you intend to carry out in behalf of the dignity of large families and for their economic protection.

With regard to the first of these aims, keep in line with the directives of the Church; with regard to the second, you have to shake out of its lethargy that part of society that is not yet aware of its social responsibilities. Providence is a divine truth and reality, but it chooses to make use of human cooperators. Ordinarily it moves into action and comes to our aid when it has been summoned and practically led by the hand by man; it loves to lie hidden behind human activity. While it is only right to acknowledge that Italian legislation can legitimately boast of being most advanced in this area of affording protection to families and especially to large families, We should not close our eyes to the fact that there are still a considerable number of them who are tossed back and forth between discomfort and real privation, through no fault of their own. Your action must aim at bringing these people the protection of the laws, and in more urgent cases the help of charity. Every positive achievement in this field is like a solid stone set into the structure of the nation and of the church; it is the very best thing you can do as Catholics and as citizens.

Calling down the divine protection upon your families and those of all Italy, placing them once again under the heavenly protection of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, We impart to you with all Our heart Our paternal Apostolic Blessing. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Large Families, January 20, 1958.)