Why do people think it's selfish to have lots of kids?

Recently there was a bit of a dust-up in the combox at my sister's blog, Mama Says*, in which one commenter in particular charged that only selfish parents have big families. Having lots of kids (eight, in this case) allegedly is harmful to the older children in the family.

This is a mainstream attitude in modern American culture. Big families are viewed with scorn and derision, the parents accused of being selfish because either (a) they are dividing their love and attention among too many kids, (b) they are contributing to overpopulation, (c) they are using more than their share of natural resources, or (d) all of the above.

As a cradle Catholic, I have known a lot of big families. I even grew up in one, as the oldest of a brood of eight. But I have yet to meet a big family with selfish parents who are focused on fulfilling their own desires at the expense of either their family or our larger society.

I think this attitude stems from the discomfort people feel when they see large families. They cannot imagine themselves having a baseball team's worth of children, so they feel subconsciously threatened when they see one. That statement is not intended to be judgmental; it's human nature, and everyone experiences feelings like that when confronted with behavior that falls outside of social norms.

Why it is not selfish to have a big family

Let me present a picture of a typical big family. This fictional family has two parents and a startling number of kids. They have a strong religious faith, perhaps Catholic or Mormon or Evangelical. The parents at times feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of people underfoot. They know they could easily take steps to prevent themselves from having so many children, but they don't, because they have decided to trust God. They see each kid as a gift and have faith that God will provide for the kids he gave them. This is not a decision made lightly. This is radical, and they know it.

All the members of the family make a lot of sacrifices in order to follow this path. Maybe the kids aren't in as many organized activities, sports, and lessons as most of their peers. Maybe they go to restaurants less often, take fewer vacations, and share bedrooms. Maybe the younger kids rarely see a new article of clothing, being clad instead in hand-me-downs.

But they also have a lot of privileges that their peers will never know. They are never lonely. Their house is the neighborhood social hub for the 18-and-under set. They probably have a groupie or two, lonely children with no siblings whose parents work all day. They have a precocious understanding of the important things in life, like love and sharing. The older ones help their parents and learn child-care skills. They all learn practical life skills by doing chores, such as how to do laundry. They see what it is like to really live according to one's ideals and values.

They never have to hear their parents say that children are burdens, or that they are "so glad" they're done having kids.

And above all, they never, ever feel unloved. Big families like to repeat the saying that "love doesn't divide, it multiplies." It's more than a cute saying, it's literally true: the kids all love each other. Each new baby has a live-in fan club. Each older child has a crowd of younger devotees who think he is the coolest person on the planet.

The truth is, every parent of a crowd has no choice but to give of the deepest part of themselves, every single day. They are practically forced to be unselfish.

Selfish parents could not do this job.

* (cough cough) Which I helped design, by the way (ahem) not that I'm boasting or anything, but I have mad skillz don't I? Nevermind that I didn't do most of the work.

I'm mulling over a move from Blogger to my own site. I know what content-management system I'll use (and it's not Wordpress), have hosting already, and really just have to bite the bullet and start setting it up. I'd like to make this a science-and-faith site, not just a science-and-faith blog. The new site will probably have separate feeds for different topics (like science, Catholicism, health), a combined feed if you want all the posts in one place, and ... a forum! I might be looking for new writers or guest posters, too. I am open to feedback about what changes you might like to see here.

This Sunday is Pentecost, the day the terrified and confused apostles were sent out from the second-floor room where they hid after Christ ascended into heaven. The Bible records that the Holy Spirit provided "tongues of fire" that let them be understood to speakers of all languages. Kind of makes Pentecostal "speaking in tongues" (untranslatable tongues, that is) pale by comparison. Wear red to church!

Father Alberto Cutie is not cute. After being caught fooling around with a woman on a public beach, he was put on leave by Archbishop of Miami John C. Favalora. That was scarcely three weeks ago, and now he has already decided to convert to Episcopalianism so he can "be with the woman he loves." (Also, as he did not say in the statement, so he can break his vows without being chastised.) Presumably, he chose his new faith so he can still be a priest, since as a Catholic, he can be married or be a priest, but not both. What kind of priestly formation did Fr. Cutie go through, that he finds switching faiths as easy as buying a new car or repainting a house? Three weeks?

The acting director of the National Institutes of Health is Dr. Raynard Kington, but some (unfortunately not very current) rumors hint that Dr. Francis Collins is a "top contender" for the permanent spot. Dr. Collins is the former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. H/T to Rebecca Taylor of Mary Meets Dolly.

My "Animals and Catholics" series will continue. Really. It's just been a distracting month, what with National Anxiety and Depression Awareness Week and everything else. Stay tuned.

Tropical depressions are forming in the Gulf of Mexico. Last year, there was a bumper crop of named storms after two lean years, though not as many as in 2005. Let us pray that this year resembles more 2006 and 2007. After all, if another storm hits southeast Texas, this blog will suffer. I had a very hard time posting last year when the power went out!

Kari Byron is pregnant. You don't know who Kari Byron is? Then you lose geek points! She's the red-headed chick on Mythbusters. The growing belly is growing obvious on the show, and she's been sitting out on the bungee jumping and skydiving. I'm just waiting for her to bust the myth that what you crave during pregnancy will tell you whether it's a boy or a girl. (I thought they had a chromosome for that.)

It's not often that the secular media get anything right about the meat of Catholic theology. Father Robert Barron gives us a splendidly reasoned exception with his argument for priestly celibacy, published on the CNN website. From the essay:

This is why, as G.K. Chesterton noted, there is a tension to Christian life. In accord with its affirmation of the world, the Church loves color, pageantry, music and rich decoration (as in the liturgy and papal ceremonials), even as, in accord with its detachment from the world, it loves the poverty of St. Francis and the simplicity of Mother Teresa.

To sum up Fr. Barron's argument, priests should be celibate because in so being, they become living models of the transcendent communion with God that we will experience in heaven.

He even mentioned G.K. Chesterton. I am pleased.

I am a cradle Catholic, but not a typical cradle Catholic. My mother was deeply suspicious of Vatican II and of the new, vernacular liturgy (the Novus Ordo Missae), so I grew up loosely affiliated with parishes of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (SSPX).

Background on the SSPX

The Society of Saint Pius X is a radical traditionalist group whose leadership was excommunicated in 1988. The story is long and complex, but in a nutshell, the head bishop, Marcel Lefebvre, illicitly consecrated four more bishops, by which action (according to the Vatican) all the bishops involved incurred a canonical latae sententiae excommunication as a result of direct disobedience.

One of Pope Benedict XVI's major missions has been to normalize relations with the SSPX, and the Catholic blogs and news sources have been abuzz with the word that the Pope last week lifted the excommunications on all the bishops of the SSPX.

Bishop Richard Williamson's infamous remarks

Unfortunately, there has been one "black sheep" SSPX bishop doing his best to muck things up. The man who confirmed me, Bishop Richard Williamson, has made many outrageous statements over the years (he once opined that Pope John Paul the Great had a "weak grasp" of Catholicism), and most recently he has publicly denied some aspects of the Holocaust.

The current head of the SSPX, Bishop Bernard Fellay, has made an extraordinary statement in response to Williamson's remarks. According to the blog Creative Minority Report, always a good source for Catholic gossip, Fellay "prohibited him, pending any new orders, from taking any public positions on political or historical questions," and publicly apologized to the Pope and to "all people of good will" for Williamson's statements.

CNN misses the point

CNN, which is among the worse of sources for Catholic gossip, has been silent on this entire issue until Monday. The headline did not refer to the historic end of the twenty-year excommunication, or to the remarkable lengths the Pope is taking to bring lost sheep back into the flock. No, the headline, astonishingly, was about the Jews: "Pope outrages Jews over Holocaust denier."

I wholeheartedly agree with Jewish leaders that Williamson's public opinions about the Holocaust are outrageous. They are outrageous not only to Jewish people, but to all "people of good will." I'm outraged. We're all outraged.

But Williamson was not excommunicated for denying the Holocaust. He was excommunicated for being consecrated a bishop, in open defiance of the will of Pope. The excommunication was an internal, administrative Catholic matter. It had nothing to do with teaching, beliefs, or opinions. And likewise, lifting the excommunication had nothing to do with teaching, beliefs, or opinions.

Bishop Fellay's public censure of Bishop Williamson could not have been expressed more forcefully. With all due respect to Jewish leaders, understandably stunned by Williamson's comments, they should take their cues from this response, not from the contemporaneous but unrelated lifting of the excommunication.

The new Vatican document on reproductive technologies, Dignitas Personae, makes only a brief, passing reference to one particular practice of assisted reproduction: surrogate motherhood. In this practice, a woman is commissioned or hired to gestate a baby whom she agrees to surrender to another family at birth. The genetic parents of the baby may include the gestating mother or one or both members of the couple who commissioned her, or one or both of the genetic parents may be third party egg or sperm donors.

Surrogate motherhood is always ethically and morally wrong. To put it more bluntly, surrogate motherhood is evil. In surrogacy, a child is commissioned (often purchased outright) as if he is a sculpture or a book rather than a human being.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, all reproductive technologies that involve outside donors, including practices from artificial insemination to surrogacy, "infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage" (CCC 2376). That paragraph bears a closer look, as it asserts a human right that many in the secular world have never even thought of:

All children have a right to be born to parents who are known to him.

This is a right written in the hearts of all babies. An infant knows his mother's voice before he is born. Newborns may not seem very aware of their surroundings — indeed, I have heard some atheists odiously describe them as not even being "sentient" — but they are, in fact, very aware of their surroundings, at least in the aspects that matter to them, and the item of foremost importance to a newborn is who his mother is.

Later in life, all human children are interested in their roots. They want to know who their biological mother and father are. If they are raised by others, this curiosity stays with them, sometimes turning into a burning search for their first parents.

According to another document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae,

Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents; it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological and moral elements which constitute those families.

Though this statement comes from a Catholic document, it makes no appeal to strictly theological principles. It asserts that the wrongness of surrogacy can be understood according to the principles of natural law.

Surrogate motherhood and adoption share some similarities. In both situations, a child is raised by people other than the mother who bore him. As an adoptive mother myself, I am keenly aware of the inalienable fact that all adoptions begin with a tragedy: the separation of a child from his first mother. In her book of the same title, Nancy Verrier calls this event "the primal wound," a permanent blow to the heart of every child relinquished for adoption, even those adopted as newborns.

In adoption, the primal wound is unavoidable, a cross to bear, a part of what makes this world (to quote the prayer) a "valley of tears." Adoption by loving parents is a step in healing this wound in a child who otherwise would have no parents at all.

In surrogacy, however, the primal wound is not a tragic circumstance, but a premeditated act. The adult parties plan in advance to tear the newborn from the mother he knows, the one who carried him. Even for non-Christians, surrogate motherhood should be viewed as universally wrong and a violation of human rights.

Today is the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, also known as All Souls Day. The church consists of all baptized people who have ever existed except for those now in hell; the rest of us are here on earth (the Church Militant), in heaven (the Church Triumphant), or in Purgatory (the Church Penitent).

"All baptized people" includes most Protestants, of course, but Protestants generally do not believe in Purgatory. And as a result, they don't pray for their dead. I find it poignant to consider people in the Church Penitent whose loved ones on earth do not pray for their purification to be complete. Here is a prayer for the forgotten souls in Purgatory:

Lord, hear the forgotten souls in Purgatory. Purify them and bring them to your side to sing your praises forever. Amen.

It has come to my attention that Leave the lights on is not unique. I have discovered another blog on "Science and Catholic faith": The Deeps of Time.

TDOT is a bulletin-style blog, which is something lacking here on LTLO. My approach here is to write articles and essays; TDOT keeps its readers up-to-date on science issues for Catholics, with recent posts on a new source for adult stem cells (wisdom teeth) and Pope Benedict XVI's prayer intention for August (awareness of God's Creation).

Interestingly, TDOT uses an opposite sort of metaphor for its title. But it's worth noting that it also uses "illumination" imagery in its banner logo. My banner shows a light shining down, while TDOT's banner shows a brilliant sunny day lighting up a cathedral.

Be sure to visit TDOT and consider subscribing.

In an old post, I tallied the assorted protests of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States. Expanding on that precedent, I present the 2008 Leave the lights on Awards for World Youth Day Protesters.

The Irony Award

For confusing one's own characteristics with those of the object of one's protest.
Winner: The Green Left for calling Benedict XVI "the reactionary pontiff."

The Most Outrageous Lie Award

For getting it so, so wrong.
Winner: Alex Bainbridge of the Socialist Alliance, who declared that the Church is waging a "war against sex"
Runner-Up: This guy, whose T-shirt reads, "I won't f---- with your gods, you don't f---- with my science"

The Most Childish Complaint Award

For the protest with the tone most akin to a child whining, "He got more pudding than I did!"
Winner: The Australian Greens, a political party, which was upset that the government of New South Wales spent so much on extra police, made road closures, and so forth — all for an event "just for Catholics"

The Most Legitimate Protest Award

For having a good point, even though the thing requested is logistically unrealistic.
Winner: Various victims' advocates who felt the Pope's public apology to sex abuse victims should have been made in personal audiences

Jen at "Et tu?" posted a response to Annie, a commenter in her blog, who wrote,

To me, it's scary to think I live in the world with people who believe this way. To think only your belief in God is what keeps you from being a bad person? You have no human decency? You have no compassion? You only have your belief in a man in the sky to keep you from doing wrong?

That's scary to the rest of us who live on secular humanism and empathy, based in something much stronger and much more sound.

This quote illustrates the great conceptual divide that believers and atheists face. I could have written almost the same thing:

To think only your belief in secular humanism is what keeps you from being a bad person? You have no human decency? You have no compassion? You only have your belief in some abstract bit of sophism to keep you from doing wrong?

That's scary to the rest of us who live in service to God and our faith, based on something much stronger and much more sound.

If I were to say that, I would just be talking past Annie, the same way she is just talking past me. The real truth is that both of us try to do good because they are internalized values.

The handy-dandy behavioral template

When I make one of my dozens of mundane moral decisions, I don't stop to think consciously, "What would be the best way to serve God? What does the man in the sky want me to do?" Anybody who did this would be paralyzed in pondering, unable to make decisions when they need to.

Instead, like everybody else, when I make a decision I just consult my conscience (as I discussed in this post). That's my internal set of moral values, and it provides quick answers. When Annie makes a moral decision, I daresay she also just consults her conscience.

That's what the conscience is there for — making quick moral decisions.

My faith is not going anywhere, but if it were to falter, I would not suddenly begin operating amorally, because my faith is not directly the source of my decisions. It's what shaped and formed that behavioral template, my conscience, and the conscience does not change shape as easily or quickly as mere belief can. Likewise, were Anna to abandon secular humanism, she would likely not suddenly begin acting like Machiavelli. Her philosophy formed her conscience.

Based on her blog, I suspect that Annie, like most of us, has met Christians who do not behave as Christians are "supposed" to behave. This contradiction does not happen because the bad actors do not "really" believe in God. It's because they have not shaped their "motivators," their consciences, according to their belief in God.

Probably a great number of them have done little to shape their consciences at all. A conscience is like a computer — you have to make sure you feed it well. Garbage in? Garbage out.

I was trying to explain to someone the other day how God wants us to rely on him for all our wants and needs. "But God helps those who help themselves," he pointed out.

"Well, it's about our attitude," I answered lamely.

But the truth is that I was at a bit of a loss. How does one reconcile the need to not only trust God, but to rely on him, with the need to be responsible and adult?

I was given the answer this morning: The solution is service. We rely on God, but in turn we are to serve him. This is how we take care of our duties while at the same time casting our needs on him.

A life of service is contrary to American values. This is the land of the self-made man, the home of the rags-to-riches story. Our culture tells us to do everything ultimately in service to ourselves -- an ideal that appeals very much to our fallen nature.

To let go of that message requires two simultaneous steps: abandon our cares to God, and commit ourselves to his service. This lifestyle is not reserved only to St. Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa; every Christian is called to it.

It's easier said than done. I'm still struggling against it in many ways — my own nature is no less fallen than anyone else's. But it's good to formulate and meditate on the ideal to help open our hearts to it.




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When I was a child, our priest preached a sermon every year on how we are to pray. He illustrated his point with the absurd example of a robot programmed to recite a prayer over and over. "This," he explained, "is not prayer."

From this, my childish heart took away the lesson that for prayer to "count," I had to "mean" every word of it. And since it was tied to the forgiveness of my sins, I figured this went double for penance prayers said after confession. So I would sit for long periods in the pew, obsessing over my concentration on every single word of my three Hail Marys.

The importance of the moment of consecration as the climax of the Mass was also impressed on me, so I figured that it was critical to focus on it. To be distracted from it was surely a sin.

This was long before anyone -- least of all me -- knew that my mind is more distractible than the typical person's.

For those of us with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), perfect focus on prayer is simply not possible. (I don't know how possible it is for less distractible types, for that matter.) It is entirely natural for one's mind to drift right at the apical moment of consecration. I now think in different way about prayer.

• First, turn your mind and heart to God. This is the most important thing. God understands if your mind wanders; he created it that way. What is important is that your will chooses prayer even if your attention does not always obey.
  
• If you are reciting a prayer, consider its topic and theme first. Try to focus on that, rather than on the individual phrases.
  
• Use a physical object to focus your prayer, such as a Bible or rosary. The sensory feedback from holding it in your hands will help you focus. (Why do you think the string of beads used for the rosary has always been popular?)
  
• Likewise, praying with your body as well as your mind will help with focus. Kneel while praying. Or pray during physical activity -- I had some of my most fruitful meditations in college, when I would pray while walking to class.
  
• Pray unscripted, rather than reciting a prayer. A spontaneous conversation with God will occupy all your attention, and you can let it wander wherever it will. If you are new to this type of prayer, simply talk in your mind as if he is listening -- he certainly is.
  
• If you find yourself anxious about your mind wandering during the liturgy, relax and remember the words of the prayer said during the Mass immediately after the Lord's Prayer: Keep us free from sin, and protect us from all anxiety. Trust that if your mind and heart are turned to him, God will not blame you for human weakness.

For further reading:

• All About Catholic meditation
  
• Forum discussion on concentration during the rosary
  
• Centering Prayer: How not to pray
  
• Quietism heresy: What happens when you remove all distractions
  
• Protect Us From All Anxiety: Meditations For The Depressed, a book by William Burke

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Every plugged-in Catholic has got to have heard by now of the "new seven deadly sins," a list constructed by Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti. They are "genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs," according to the Telegraph. With all due respect to the monsignor (and monsignors are due a lot of respect), I don't like that list. "Deadly sins" should be something that destroys the soul. The original ones actually pretty well cover it for the modern West -- they are timeless, which begs the question of whether a new list is even worth writing.

Begged question or not, I've decided to write one. Here is my list of seven modern vices that could be called deadly because they destroy the soul and hurt the people around it. My list is of insidious sins, ones which the devil uses to seduce people away from God without their even noticing. All are sins against charity.

1. Pornography. It warps one's view of the sacred gift of sex, making it into nothing but an act of self-gratification. It presents sex partners as mere vehicles to that gratification.
   


2. Character assassination. Any person who has been the victim of gossip, backstabbing, office politics, and other ruination of reputation might say that the experience is like dying a little death. Those who engage in character assassination often continue blithely through their lives, as their actions erode at any virtue of charity they may have, until they find they cannot even remember the last time they practiced Christian love.
   


3. Dangerous driving. I have first-hand experience with the destructiveness of road rage. Drunken driving, too, is a grave sin against the fifth commandment ("You shall not murder"). Since driving patterns become habits that are very hard to break, this sin qualifies as deadly to those who engage in it.
   


4. Celebrity worship.
   


5. Xenophobia. The immigration debate in the U.S. is a good example of how this qualifies as a deadly sin. Many anti-immigration voices call illegal immigrants "aliens." I have even heard one commentator routinely refer to them as "criminal aliens." No term could be more dehumanizing than "alien," which in modern culture brings to mind images of extraterrestrials. This attitude is contrary even to the term "Catholic Church," since "catholic" means that God's love applies equally to all people, foreign or not. God told Moses, "You shall not oppress an alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt." (Ex 23:9) Losing empathy destroys the soul.
   


6. Consumerism.
   


7. Birth control. (I'd love to see a church official dare publicly to call that a deadly sin)
   

I've been avoiding posting today because I don't want to post anything on Good Friday that's not faith-related, and I didn't have anything profound enough to say for this solemn day. But I read a couple of other bloggers' posts (Jen and Simcha) and decided that what I write does not need to be profound.

Mood swings have been my reality the last couple of weeks, and earlier today I was in a downward one. Lying morosely in bed after a nap today, I stared about the room thinking dark thoughts, when my eyes fell on the crucifix above the bedroom door.

That corpus looking down on me seemed to say, "You don't have to suffer this. I did it for you."

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." (Jn 15:13)

When it comes to faith, my writing style tends toward explication -- some would say pontification. I have the heart of a teacher.

But it's also a lot easier to be intellectual about faith than to examine my own heart. To be honest, I find it difficult and confusing, even after some 25 years since I learned what an examination of conscience is. Deliberate, conscious sins -- the big incidents -- are easy, but finding the little habits, the assumptions, the selfishness, that's hard. These aren't even day-to-day sins; they're minute-to-minute sins. Reading about St. Francis of Assisi, my confirmation saint, helped me become aware that they are there, but they are hard to see. To make things worse, new ones like to sneak in. I have to always keep my guard up.

What makes this really challenging, though, is the flip side: it's easy to go too far, to think of a thing (a habit, say) as being sinful when it isn't. Scrupulosity is a sly poison. And when you have a sinful habit, and you are praying and trying as hard as you can and you still keep slipping up, how much guilt do you bear?

I don't know the answers, but I have learned a thing or two (the hard way) about breaking a sinful habit. I used to struggle with my driving habits. That's a nice way to say that I used to be a serious road rager.

I yelled and cursed, I made rude gestures, I cut people off, I refused to let them pass me. I absolutely could not stand it if another car got in my way. I thought I was a better and faster driver than everyone else, and if someone passed me, it was like a challenge to my supremacy. It even put a strain on my marriage, as my husband didn't like to be in the car when I was driving (and I didn't like to let him drive because he was too slow and meek).

When I felt that anger coming on while on the road, I used to try everything I could to suppress it. I prayed, only to have a curse fly out in the middle of the prayer; I took deep breaths, only to hit the accelerator to keep from being passed; I tried to distract myself, only to have my attention jerked back to the offending car.

I would break down in tears of guilt after every serious episode, and they happened at least every other trip.

God answers our prayers in ways we don't anticipate. (After all, if we were smart enough to know what to do, we wouldn't need his help.) Mine was answered while reading the blog Waiter Rant. (I can't find the post in the archives despite all my mad skilz with Google.)

Waiter had written about driving home from work one night and getting into a conflict with another driver. He described the feeling, very familiar to me, of fury welling up as the other car whipped aggressively past him. And then he wrote that a new thought suddenly popped into his mind: "I don't have to win."

Reading that was like seeing the clouds part after forty days of rain. Was that the solution to my problem? I tried it out. The next time I got angry on the highway, I remembered Waiter and said to myself, "It's okay. I don't have to win." And the SUV zoomed past, and I didn't win, and nothing bad happened. It was true: I don't have to win!

I wasn't cured overnight, but by changing how I thought about other drivers' behavior, I changed how I reacted. Instead of trying to smother my anger, I was not getting angry at all. Instead of feeling personally attacked (yes, attacked is how I felt) when another car tried to "win" on the road, I felt content to choose to let that driver win.

I don't think I would ever have figured out by myself that I had to change my thinking, rather than my behavior. God is so willing to tell us what to do when we open our ears to listen.

In his personal journal earlier this week (a locked post, so I am not linking to it), an atheist friend mockingly posted about the new seven deadly sins. A rather snarky conversation broke out in the comments among several people of an anti-Catholic bent. Sister Mary Martha did a good job with her commentary on the story itself, but I want to address one of the remarks that appeared in the journal. Since it was a locked post, I will keep this quote anonymous.

I guess the argument is that, if you're not sure whether it's a sin or not, you offend God by running the risk. It might be a sin, but you don't care; you're ignoring the question entirely, and even God can't stand to be ignored.

I was annoyed by the assumption that blindly faithful religionists don't devote any intelligent thought to this issue. In fact, any well-catechized Catholic (sadly, a rara avis these days) can provide the answer. (In all fairness, the comment was in regard to an unfortunately worded quote by the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary.)

When in doubt as to whether something is a sin or not, we can arrive at the solution ourselves with confidence that we are not offending God. He asks we do only two things:

1. Follow our consciences.
2. Make every effort in good faith to form our consciences according to his teachings.

Of course, many people have a firm grasp on #1 while wholly ignoring #2. It should be obvious that we need to form our consciences, though; after all, even the worst criminal can twist his malformed conscience to justify his evil acts.

Formation of conscience can include referring to the Catechism, asking priests and other catechetical authorities, and generally remaining well-informed on Catholic teaching on those issues that cause us trouble.

Although lots of rules can be specified for any particular moral question -- rules upon rules, until we are drowned in scrupulous rules -- a basic, organic approach, a "rule of thumb", is these two steps. This is what I follow. Step two is the ongoing work of a lifetime, and that preparation is what makes step one work.

Last month I was blessed to give birth to my son. While filling out some of the scads of hospital paperwork, I ran across this question:

Was this pregnancy planned?

I was at a loss over how to answer. How do you plan to receive a gift?

My attitude on family planning -- wait. "Attitude" is the wrong word. This is something much more inherent. "Perspective" is a better word, with the understanding that it's the perspective from a place I am firmly anchored with a deep taproot. So I'll start over.

My perspective on family planning -- wait again. "Planning" is the wrong word. Let's say "building". I'll start over once more.

My perspective on family building is that the building blocks come from God. He is the Architect, and we construction workers -- my husband and I -- can only build the building he means us to build if we follow his blueprint. That means trusting him.

For the first seven years of our marriage, there were no pregnancies, though we were not doing anything to prevent them. Out of this came our first son, whom we adopted. I think the reason God gave us no pregnancies was just so Big Brother could join our family.

And then I did get pregnant and gave birth to our second son. I had accepted infertility, so I was confused but thrilled.

Was Little Brother planned? To me, that's like asking if I planned for the sun to shine today.

He wasn't planned in that we weren't actively trying for pregnancy. That is, we were not watching the ovulation clock. He wasn't not planned in that we were not attempting to frustrate God from giving him to us. That is, we were not using any contraception.

Confused by the question on the hospital form, I wrote "sure". I should have written "not applicable".