Rules

My parents, both born in 1908, were faithful Catholics.  They were not immigrants to America or the children of immigrants.  They were well read and well informed.  They didn’t go in for special devotions and novenas.  Neither had ever attended a Catholic school.  Aside from weekly Mass, we didn’t pray together as a family, not even grace before meals.  My father said once he didn’t believe in offering up a prayer that every cake in the oven not fall.  They were, nevertheless, dyed-in-the-wool Catholics, by which I mean their religion was not superficially stenciled onto them but central to who they were. They were mindful of the rules of good living and of the rules of the Church.  We didn’t eat meat on Friday; we attended Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation; my parents observed the fasts imposed on those between the ages of 14 and 59 during Lent and (bygone) Ember Days.

And I'm almost certain the only birth control method acceptable to their consciences was abstinence.  I don't remember hearing from the altar the warnings Odette describes in an earlier post.  Maybe they were reserved for the confessional.  Or for the missions.  I remember the mission fathers as fat and jolly souls.  That’s the impression their introductory Sunday sermons made.  An aunt of mine, a convert to Catholicism, told me after I was grown up that one evening towards the end of each mission, the married women were ushered to the church basement for a talk designed especially for them.  I gather this was a fire and brimstone approach to the church’s teaching on birth control.  My gentle and deeply compassionate aunt found these sessions excruciating--and recalled them with a flash of anger.

My mother, too, harbored some anger towards the Church that she loved.  Fifty years ago, home from freshman year in college, I said to her that I didn't think the Church had always been fair to women and was surprised that she agreed.  One evening twenty years ago, I pressed upon her my copy of the new Catechism.  She handed it back the next day.  I think that she saw it as a new set of rules and that at eighty-plus she'd had enough.

An 87 Year Old Looks Back

I knew the Church said it was a sin to practice birth control, but I never felt that way.  I was married in 1952 at age 27.  My firstborn came a year later.  After that we practiced rhythm, and my husband was fine with it.  Our second child was born two years later and our third three years after that.  Then my husband and I were both ready to practice a surer method.  I never thought birth control was wrong.  I know there are three conditions necessary for a sin to be serious.  One is full consent of the will.  I knew in my heart I couldn’t give full consent. 

 

In confession, when I first started on the Pill, the priest said he couldn’t give me absolution unless I promised not to use the Pill again.  I told him I couldn’t make that promise.  I left the confessional and haven’t been to private confession since.  What do I have to confess?  I gossiped about someone?  I entertained an unkind thought?  I go to the communal penance services in our parish.  I love the communal services.  I kept going to communion and I continued my involvement in parish activities.  For some years now, I’ve been a lector.  I’ve never felt guilty about my decision.

I went on to have a fourth child, using the Pill in between.  I always knew I wanted more children.  I just didn’t want to have them all at once.  My children are spaced two, three and four years apart.  If I had my life to live over, I’d have had six children.  I’m crazy about babies.  I was content at the time but my four have turned out so well—their spouses, too—that I wish I had two more.