Tag Archives: education

Investigating NFP: Ignorance

Via the Natural Family Planning Discussion Board, here's a classic example of the general public's ignorance regarding NFP:

"How long is the Legislature of Nebraska going to do the bidding of the Vatican as expressed by the paid lobbyist of the Roman Catholic Church — Greg Schleppenbach — and the mouthpiece of the same church, Sen. Mike Foley?"

"He was supposedly elected to represent the best interests of the citizens, not the agenda of the Roman Catholic Church. His latest bill shows where his loyalties really lie — not for women but for his church. He is against any form of birth control. He would have women have babies who do not have the resources to care for them."

"If a woman does not have the financial resources to take care of a child, then the state must help with food stamps, welfare, Medicaid and a host of other services. Are the citizens of Nebraska compelled to support the agenda of the Roman Catholic Church as put forward by Foley and Schleppenbach?"

"Natural family planning does not have a successful track record. Birth control and condom use are far more effective. The state should be subsidizing those methods in the search to cut state expenditures."

"Sen. Ernie Chambers is the only person who always stands between Nebraska and the domination of our lives as dictated by the Vatican."

"If the rest of the Catholic legislators want domination of the Vatican over Nebraskans, then back Foley and Schleppenbach. If you think that one religious belief system should not be dominant in state law and practices, then send Foley and his Roman Catholic agenda to the wastebasket."

Ruth C. Snyder, Lincoln

I feel as though I can almost hear this woman snearing.

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The Horrible Perspective that Age Brings

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For whatever reason, a lot of the people I know have been blogging about religion lately. I’m not sure why, but it reminded me of my third-grade teacher. I don’t remember much about the third grade. I don’t even remember my teacher’s name. But what I do remember is that we had "quiet moments."

My teacher explained this to us a couple of times. I think she gave us a speech at the beginning of both semesters. She said that while she couldn’t give students time that they could use to pray in the morning, nothing in any rule book or law book forbade her from setting aside "quiet moment time" that we did not have to use for prayer, but if we found the time convenient for prayer, that would be okay and she wouldn’t stop us. Not that she was suggesting we pray. Oh, no. Perish the thought. I remember she made a very big deal about explicity stating several times that she was not telling us to pray. But if we did, and if mandating a time when we had to keep quiet and bow our heads down made that convenient, well then that would be all right.

At the time, it made no sense to me or anybody else in the class. I’ll be honest; our teacher told us to do a lot of things that seemed odd. In general we just shrugged and did what we were told. It was less trouble that way all around. So if she said, "Memorize these names and dates! You’ll need to know this!" then we did it. And if she said, "Cut these shapes out of construction paper!" then we did it. And if she said, "Bow your heads down and keep quiet–and pray if you want to, not that I’m suggesting that you should!" then we did that, too.

I remember thinking that it was strange that our teacher would make such a big deal about not telling us to pray, but I didn’t care enough to say or do anything. I wonder if I should have. Maybe, or maybe not. It probably would have gotten her into big trouble. Maybe me, too!

The strangest part about it all is that though I’ve read numerous articles about school prayer and bringing Jesus into the classroom in the newspaper and online news sources over the years, I never once thought about my experience in the third grade. I’m not even sure what made me think of it today. But it’s a little weird to look back and say, "Hey, wait a minute…"

Pro-Family Atheist

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Atheist Peter Wall is afraid that something like “Brave New World” is on the horizon.

“…I can…see the seeds of legal arguments that may give traction to the idea of removing reproduction from the hands of individuals…If both the mother and the father, both of whom are still required to contribute gametes for successful reproduction,…have no incentive or desire to take responsibility for the fruits of their reproduction, the argument only strengthens that this function be taken from them. It will get even stronger as the universal pre-school movement progresses and the two eventually meet up and create a continuous, state-mandated and state-controlled child-production facility. (I know that sounds crazy, but just keep watching. The historical trend has been going for over 150 years now; we’re closer to the end than the beginning.)”

I don’t know about you, but I’m not used to support for traditional families coming from atheists.

Investigating NFP: Pius XII

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Click here to read the previous post in this series.

I have recently come to the (re)realization that bishops are the authoritative teaching body of the Church. As such, it is their responsibility to properly and effectively teach such sticky subjects as the regulation of births. However, those teachings must be in accord with the Bishop of Rome and magisterium of the Church, so I still think there is merit in exploring the relevant papal documents. Let us then continue by hearing the thoughts of Pope Pius XII.

I had thought that Pius XII had written an encyclical about contraception. As it turns out, the only statements he made about the subject were in in various allocutions (addresses) to associations of doctors and the like. These don't carry nearly the same weight as encyclicals and are certainly not infallible. An exploration of the doctrinal authority of papal allocutions can be found here, but I cannot vouch for its accuracy. Nevertheless, Paul VI quotes from these addresses extensively in Humane Vitae, thus lending some of theauthority of an encyclical. I searched for the texts of these addresses and only found the 1951 Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession and the 1958 Address to Officers and Representatives of the Associations for Large Families-of Rome and of Italy. If anyone knows where I might find the rest of them, I'd be indebted. Anyhow, here's the address to midwives.

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Christopher West in Pittsburgh

Ales Rarus

A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog