Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a Catholic using birth control until I got married...at which point I could not in good conscience continue being Catholic. I was not about to base my marriage...something I hold sacred, on a bedrock of lies about my intentions. Buy bye. Had a lovely ceremony overlooking the ocean, performed by an ex-Catholic priest.

Too funny- this is my story too- married by an ex Catholic priest outside on the water. DH is not Catholic so it makes it a bit easier to leave.

That was one of our other issues as well. Our diocese said 18 months until we could get married because DH wasn't even baptized. Thing is, they really don't care if they lose people like us. The feeling is mutual.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a Catholic using birth control until I got married...at which point I could not in good conscience continue being Catholic. I was not about to base my marriage...something I hold sacred, on a bedrock of lies about my intentions. Buy bye. Had a lovely ceremony overlooking the ocean, performed by an ex-Catholic priest.

Too funny- this is my story too- married by an ex Catholic priest outside on the water. DH is not Catholic so it makes it a bit easier to leave.

Anonymous wrote:I was a Catholic using birth control until I got married...at which point I could not in good conscience continue being Catholic. I was not about to base my marriage...something I hold sacred, on a bedrock of lies about my intentions. Buy bye. Had a lovely ceremony overlooking the ocean, performed by an ex-Catholic priest.

Anonymous wrote:Unless the Catholic church will finance raising all of the kids I would have by not using birth control, I'll stick to using it. It's common sense and I don't really care what my church believes. I believe that I am financially only capable of raising two or three children. I think it would be irresponsible to keep popping them out knowing that I can't afford them.

You sound like the church busybody if you think you know the private sexual practices of almost everybody in every parish you have attended. I can guarantee that people do NOT go into the details of their private life with the gossipy church busy body. Read your own comments. You sound ridiculous and absurd. What people say and what they actually do can be very different.

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Anonymous wrote:Unless the Catholic church will finance raising all of the kids I would have by not using birth control, I'll stick to using it.

This. I just can't get worked up over the issue of birth control when the Church was so close to changing its position in the 1960s. I think the position will change eventually and that Church leaders simply do not understand the lived realities of families to think that using contraceptives is evil. It's often a smart, moral decision not to bring more children into the world than you can afford. Having seen other family members who struggled with lots of kids, no thanks!

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Anonymous wrote:Catholic. We don't use BC

Given the many, many large families (8+ kids) in my parish, I find the "98% use bc" statistic written here hard to believe...

How many is that? Seriously your parish has say 300 families and you are saying you have 50 or 75 with 8 kids? Or more like five?

I don't have access to parish records--so I can't answer specifically how many. I just know what I see in the pews on Sunday.

What you see is a handful. That is not indicative of what the parish as a whole is doing. You don't need parish records to realize that every family is not the Duggars.

I understand it is difficult for you to believe, but many Catholics accept this teaching. At my Catholic parish (not in DC metro area) I don't know a single family who uses contraception. Yes, we talk openly about this issue and yes there are hundreds of families. Some of us have no children at all, others have just one or two, and others have many children. Those with Duggar-sized families are really quite rare (in fact, I don't know a single family that large) because the Catholic Church does not say you must have as many children as physically possible; instead it asks that you prayerfully consider your ability to be open to new life, and in those times you are not able to be, you are to use natural means to avoid pregnancy. Avoiding the use of artificial contraception is really not that complicated or difficult, and definitely does not always result in a large family - in fact, for many families it will result in 3-6 children. When I lived in DC, I knew for a fact that about half the parish agreed on this issue and did not use any contraception. Again, family sizes varied because things like infertility, getting married late in life, illness and spousal separation affect Catholics, too. Oh, the other thing I tend to see is many adopted children. Those Catholics who are respectful of the Church's teachings on contraception also tend to be respectful about the teachings on ART, so they are more likely to adopt when faced with infertility. Just my observations.

I have been Catholic all my life . I grew up in one of the most Catholic cities in America. If you that none of these families are using birth control, you are sitting too close to the votive candles.

Are you disagreeing that at MY current and past parishes, there were high numbers of parishioners who were following the Church's teachings on contraception? I do not doubt that in some Catholic neighborhoods and in some parishes, nearly all the parishioners DO use birth control. And, I'm sure there are others where there is a decent mix. The point of my post was to 1) state my experience, where I have encountered many people who love the Catholic teaching on sexuality, and live it day-to-day; and 2) to acknowledge the fact that being open to life does not equal a huge family, so unless we have directly asked them, we may not know whether or to what extent any given couple has used artificial contraception.

Anonymous wrote:oops -- birth control, that should be, obviously!

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Catholic. We don't use BC

Given the many, many large families (8+ kids) in my parish, I find the "98% use bc" statistic written here hard to believe...

How many is that? Seriously your parish has say 300 families and you are saying you have 50 or 75 with 8 kids? Or more like five?

I don't have access to parish records--so I can't answer specifically how many. I just know what I see in the pews on Sunday.

What you see is a handful. That is not indicative of what the parish as a whole is doing. You don't need parish records to realize that every family is not the Duggars.

I understand it is difficult for you to believe, but many Catholics accept this teaching. At my Catholic parish (not in DC metro area) I don't know a single family who uses contraception. Yes, we talk openly about this issue and yes there are hundreds of families. Some of us have no children at all, others have just one or two, and others have many children. Those with Duggar-sized families are really quite rare (in fact, I don't know a single family that large) because the Catholic Church does not say you must have as many children as physically possible; instead it asks that you prayerfully consider your ability to be open to new life, and in those times you are not able to be, you are to use natural means to avoid pregnancy. Avoiding the use of artificial contraception is really not that complicated or difficult, and definitely does not always result in a large family - in fact, for many families it will result in 3-6 children. When I lived in DC, I knew for a fact that about half the parish agreed on this issue and did not use any contraception. Again, family sizes varied because things like infertility, getting married late in life, illness and spousal separation affect Catholics, too. Oh, the other thing I tend to see is many adopted children. Those Catholics who are respectful of the Church's teachings on contraception also tend to be respectful about the teachings on ART, so they are more likely to adopt when faced with infertility. Just my observations.

I have been Catholic all my life . I grew up in one of the most Catholic cities in America. If you that none of these families are using birth control, you are sitting too close to the votive candles.