September 2, 2011 10:25 AM
Lawler: Why do Catholics have big families?
From Catholic Culture via New Advent - one of my favorite websites!Any mom of more than two - Catholic or not - will enjoy this. But to tell you the truth one of the things that led me to convert to Catholicism after 20 years of evangelicalism and 12 children - and after years of people asking me if I was Catholic and answering "no" - was the Church's uncompromising position on life and the family.
Compromised Catholics aside, the Catholic Church gets it, has always gotten it, and will never stop getting it about children being a blessing and about trusting God:
Why do Catholics have big families?
By Phil Lawler September 01, 2011 6:05 PM
Yes, there is such a thing as a stupid question.
If you have more than two or three children, I'm sure you've heard it--often posed by a complete stranger:
Oh, you have such a big family! Are you Catholics?Although I am delighted that our faith is commonly associated with the love for human life, I still recoil at the notion that there is something odd, something sectarian, something strange--something that requires a special explanation--about the willingness to welcome a large number of children.
On her own blog this week, my lovely wife Leila responded to a question from a young woman who is not Catholic, and who wondered how she and her husband should tell friends and acquaintances that they are expecting their fourth (!) child. I won't summarize her reply, nor do I think that I can improve on it; I encourage visitors to read it for themselves. But as I mulled over her response, I couldn't resist adding my own perspective.
Catholicism doesn't cause childbirth. I don't propose to devote this short essay to a discussion of the birds and the bees, but suffice it to say that no woman ever became pregnant as the result of a papal decree.
Years ago, Leila and I watched helplessly as a couple told a stranger that they had many children because "the Pope encourages us to have large families." We gulped. That couple--friends of ours, deeply in love with each other, wonderful parents of a happy family--had stepped directly into a trap. They had conveyed the impression that they had many children only because they were Catholics--as if they reproduced robotically, under orders from Rome.
Nonsense! Our friends had many children for the same reason that Leila and I have many children. They love one another, and the human body is designed so that when a man loves a woman, the birth of children will ordinarily ensue--unless the couple takes steps to prevent that natural result.
Yes, it's true that the Catholic Church encourages parents to welcome children. But in giving that encouragement, the Church is only recommending that we do what nature intended. In much the same way, the Church might encourage Catholics to eat healthy foods; there is nothing sectarian about the call for a healthy diet.
Read more at Catholic Culture
Also LOL funny: The Grandmultipara Pushes Back by mother-of-soon-to-be-nine and terrific writer Simcha Fisher, who blogs at I Have To Sit Down and whom I have decided to read every day. She is that good.
Posted in Big families, Catholicism, Pro-Life Issues | Permalink
Comments
http://northerncffamily.blogspot.com/2011/07/apples-of-god.html
Just wrote about that myself!!!
Posted by: Allison | September 2, 2011 12:12 PM
I hope you are all reading Leila's blog linked in the article. It is the best on the web!
Posted by: Sara | September 2, 2011 4:42 PM
