Birth prevention quizzes : to a street preacher &^Y)bl e , Leslie. BY FATHERS RUMBLE AND CARTY Radio Replies Press, St. Paul t , Minn., U. S. A. RADIO REPLIES Vol. I Vol. II Vol. Ill Each Volume, 50c for Mission Edition $2.00 each for Cloth Bound Edition All Three Cloth Bound Volumes, $6.00 Booklet Quizzes to a Street Preacher No. 1. Bible No. 2. Purgatory No. 3. Indulgence No. 4. Confession No. 5. Marriage No. 6. Hell No. 7. Birth Prevention No. 8. Eucharist No. 9. True Church No. 10. Virgin and Idol Worship Single copy, 10c Ten Quizz Pamphlets Bound in Book Form for Instructor, $1.50. WAY OF THE CROSS For Congregational Praying and Singing Single copy, 10c; 100 at 7c each Plastic bound, large type booklet for priest, 50c THE JEHOVAH WITNESSES 10c each Copyright 1943 by the RADIO REPLIES PRESS Printed in U. S. A. IMPRIMATUR Joannes Gregorius Murray Archiepiscopus Sancti Pauli For copies address FATHERS RUMBLE & CARTY Radio Replies Press Saint Paul 1 , Minn., U. S. A. BIRTH PREVENTION QUIZZES TO A STREET PREACHER 1. Why is the Catholic Church opposed to birth control? She is not opposed to controlling the number of children by lawful means, such as by self-control and by mutual consent to abstain from the use of marital privileges. But she is opposed to birth control as commonly understood to mean the prevention of con- ception after indulgence in actions calculated to result in the generation of children. The use of such privileges and the deliberate frustration of their normal effects is a very grave sin against the law of God because its ultimate implication is the destruction of the human race. And for this reason the Catholic Church cannot but forbid it. Birth controllers have eliminated births, says Chesterton, and made control unnecessary. Birth control is the one thing that can persuade selfish mor- tals to be systematically selfish and to dodge responsi- bility. 2. Birth rate is falling in both Catholic and Protes- tant countries—Therefore birth control is widespread. That is true, but the less Catholic the country, the greater the fall or decline. Where Protestantism is strongest, the fall is devastating. In Catholic countries containing a Protestant and irreligious element, a de- cline is noticeable, though it is due chiefly to the non- Catholic element and to such weak Catholics as are affected by the new paganism. In the Catholic country of Italy things are ever so much better than in other countries. 3. Birth control has come to stay. Contraception by various methods flourished in the pagan civilization of Rome in the early days of Chris- tianity. Pagan Rome went to pieces. But Christians refused to indulge in the evil practice. In the 3rd cen- tury, Origen wrote to the pagan Celsus, “Christians marry, as do others, and they have children. They do not stifle their offspring.” Despite the boast that our civilization is Christian, paganism has been revived by non-Catholics, with open advocacy of birth control. And the non-Catholic social fabric is doomed if birth control continues. But no man can say that birth control has come to stay. The Catholic Church triumph- ed over ancient paganism, continuing on her way towards the building up of a new civilization on the ruins of this. She did it before. She can do it again. 4. The Catholic Church is beating the air by opposing birth control. In stating the moral law, the Church is no more beat- ing the air than was Almighty God in giving the com- 2 CATHOLICS PRACTICE BIRTH CONTROL mandments; however, many human beings have refused to observe those commandments. The moral law must be stated. If many men observe it, many will reap happiness; if many break it, many will reap misery. Good Catholics obey the law, and repudiate birth con- trol, both in theory and in practice. 5. Catholics practice birth control as well as Protes- tants and Jews. That not all Catholics who live in a morally rotten social fabric are good Catholics, I admit. It is difficult for Catholics to live in a pagan atmosphere without some being contaminated. It was very difficult for the early Christians to live in the pagan atmosphere of Rome, enduring both physical and moral persecution. We hear much about the Christian martyrs but little about the Christian cowards, or lapsed Christians. To- day it is even harder for Catholics to stand firm in their principles. Then their opponents were openly pagan. Now they profess to be Christians, and give out their principles of pagan morality in the name of Christian- ity. The danger is obviously more subtle. But the Catholic Church alone remains firm, and far more Cath- olics remain true to the teachings of their Church than the superficial might think. 6. No civil or military authority has ever succeeded in suppressing contraception. That is true. But you overlook religious authority. The religious authority of the Catholic Church did suc- ceed in breaking the immorality of pagan Rome, and it succeeds today in stemming the tide of contraception amongst those of her subjects who are loyal to her, and who have refused to take their cue from the pagans around them. Those who do not accept the authority of the Catholic Church will yield to the dictates of no authority on earth where their personal morals are concerned. And Catholics who have been affected by the loose principles of a non-Catholic environment, and who have weakened in their respect for the authority of Christ and of His Church, have also, alas, been con- taminated. But with genuine and faithful Catholics the authority of their Church does succeed in suppressing any temptations to adopt contraceptive methods of birth control. 7. What is the moral law on birth control? The controlling of birth is lawful if lawful means are used. To control the quality of children, unsuitable people should not marry at all, and that is why the Church makes close blood-relationship an impediment. To control the number of children, parents may by mutual consent practice SELF CONTROL, by conti- nence taking such prudent measures as suggest them- BIBLE CONDEMNS BIRTH CONTROL 3 selves in order to ensure absence of strong temptation. But the moral law insists that, if they avail themselves of their marital rights, they must do nothing deliberate- ly to prevent God’s normal natural laws from taking effect. The apostles of artificial birth control want “fewer births and no control.’* They wish to render sensuality lawful for its own sake, indulging in actions intended by God to result in children but deliberately frustrating God’s intentions. This gratification of desire, for its own sake, whilst deliberately excluding the pur- pose of such actions, is forbidden by divine law, de- grades marriage, reducing it to merely legalized sensu- ality and is sinful of its very nature. But it is useless to tell Proponents of Birth Control that, if it is arti- ficial, it is immoral. Mrs. Margaret Sanger (Birth Control Review 1917) says, “NO LAW IS TOO SACRED TO BE BROKEN.” Why reason with such a logician? 8. Can you quote any prohibition from Scripture? It would not matter if I could not. The general principles are given clearly enough in the Bible, but not every concrete application of those principles. For example, you would admit that it is morally wrong for a man to allow himself to become a drug-fiend, addict- ed to cocaine, and depriving himself of reason and human responsibility. Yet you could not find in Scrip- ture any text saying, “Thou shalt not become a drug- fiend, addicted to cocaine.” 9. Where does the Bible prohibit birth control? The name birth control is not mentioned in the Bible, for that is a name concocted as a propaganda catch word thirty years ago by the apostles of this vice. St. Paul Rom. I, 26, certainly speaks of artificial birth control when he says, “For their women have changed the NATURAL USE into that use which is AGAINST NATURE.” In Gen. 38, 10, you will find a reference, clearly indicating God’s mind on the subject. Onan paid the death penalty for frustrating the natural act in the wasting of his seed. “And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing.” Jews, Protestants, or Catholics who have this text in their respective Bibles cannot escape the force of this text. St. Augus- tine, writing in the 4th century, rightly sums up Apostolic tradition on the subject. In his treatise on the sin of adultery, Bk. II, C.12, he writes: “Marital relations even with a lawful wife, are unlawful and degrading when the conception of a child is deliberately frustrated. This was the sin of Onan, and God struck him dead because of it.” We must not forget that the natural moral law is antecedent to all civil and ecclesi- astical codes, and even to the ten commandments. The 4 KILLING SARA’S SEVEN HUSBANDS gravity of the punishment meted out to Onan shows the gravity of the crime. Cornelius a Lapide remarks, “If God so punished Onan, what must He think of Christians?” 10. Does the Book of Tobias narrating the sudden deaths of Sara’s seven husbands mean that God allowed the devil Asmodeus to kill them for birth controlling? The book of Tobias III, 8, says that Sara “Had been given to seven husbands, and a devil named Asmodeus had killed them, at their first going in unto her.” Since Sara was still a Virgin then her seven husbands were killed for birth controlling. Listen to the prayer of Sara, “Thou knowest, O Lord, that I never coveted a husband, and have kept my soul clean from all lust. Never have I joined myself with them that PLAY; neither have I made myself partaker with them that walk in lightness. But a husband I consented to take, with thy fear, not with my lust. And either I was un- worthy of them, or they perhaps were not worthy of me; because perhaps thou hast kept me for another man.” Tobias instructs his son “Take heed to keep thyself, my son, from all fornication, and beside thy wife never endure TO KNOW A CRIME.” Beside thy wife never endure to know a crime means Birth Con- trol. The Angel Raphael, instructing the youthful Tobias who was destined to be Sara’s husband, says, “Hear me, and I will show thee who they are, over whom the devil can prevail. For they who in such manner receive matrimony, *as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not under- standing, over them the devil hath power.” VI 16. And the prayer of Tobias is full of significance, “O Lord, Thou knowest that not for fleshly lust do I take Sara to wife, but only for the love of posterity in which Thy name be blest.” VIII., 9. Hence birth control is con- demned by revelation, and the natural moral law which is antecedent to all civil and ecclesiastical codes, and even to the ten commandments. Every marriage couple ought . to be MADE TO READ the marvellous advice and admonition contained in the Book of Tobias before marriage. The Book of Tobias will not be found in the Protestant Bible. It was rejected by the Reformers together with six other books of the Bible. 11a. Why is birth control condemned by the natural moral law? Goodness is measured by purpose. Food is good if it nourishes. It is for that. Our actions are good if they are in accordance with the obvious intentions of the God who endowed us with the faculty. And, above all, the important life-instincts of self-preservation and IF PEOPLE DON'T KNOW 5 race-preservation must be subject to the natural moral law. Hunger and sex-desire are obviously ordained to the preservation of individual life and the life of the race. Pleasure attached to the indulgence of these ap- petites is secondary, and ordained to their primary purpose—the attaining of the results intended by God. Now the more necessary certain functions are to the individual or to the race, the more pleasure there is attached to them to render them attractive. Food is necessary to the -individual, and eating is a pleasant operation—but the pleasure is to induce one to nourish himself. To eat and vomit to frustrate nourishment and eat again for the mere pleasure is a sin of glutton- ous sensuality. Contraception is only another and worse form of gluttonous sensuality. Contraceptive practices carry their own punishment—for violated nature has its revenge—mutual respect is forfeited—the true dig- nity of the wife is forfeited—her health is impaired — marriage is degraded to a state of legalized sensual indulgence—and increased infidelities to the marriage bond and divorces are the result of such conduct. lib. Suppose people don't know—then what? People should KNOW, even if they don’t accept the divine authority of the Catholic Church, that the prac- tice is all wrong. If they DON’T know, it is only because they pretend they don’t, or have deadened their own consciences. If those who say they don’t know were on the point of death and were asked what they regretted most in life they certainly would blurt out their offenses against the laws of the sanctity of the marriage bed. For Catholics there is not a trace of doubt. They know their Church’s law. If they sin, they sin and know it without being told they are birth controllers. They know enough to refuse to justify such conduct and pretend that it is lawful. They may be weak—but they are not hypocrites, calling vice a virtue. 12. Some advocates of birth control declare that con- traception is right so long as it is properly carried out, with delicacy of feeling and proper restraint. Contraception is wrong and gravely sinful in itself. To say that it is right if carried out with delicacy of feeling and proper restraint is like saying, “Don’t worry, old chap. I am only going to murder you. I know that murder is ordinarily wrong. But that ap- plies only to brutal murder. I murder people with delicacy of feeling and proper restraint. I shall blind- fold you, so that you won’t see my horrible prepara- tions. And, having thus spared your feelings, I shall murder you with proper restraint, quite moderately, and with no frenzy for unnecessary mutilation." Birth 6 PEOPLE MARRY FOR A MATE NOT FOR CRADLE control by contraceptive means cannot really preserve delicacy of feeling, except by drugging one’s conscience, and is in itself a violation of proper restraint, apart from all further excesses. 13. What do you mean by immoral? I mean that which violates the moral dignity of rran. In what does his moral dignity consist? It consists in the rational control of his lower faculties according to the dictates of his higher and nobler faculty of intelli- gence. It is obvious that blind bodily passions must be subject to, and at the service of, reason. Reason must not be subject to, and at the service of the passions. Now in birth control, man’s moral dignity is over- thrown. It is not advocated in order that man’s higher spiritual nature should dominate his lower material nature, but in order that the flesh should satisfy its blind passions, yet escape the f>urdens which the law of nature, established by God, decrees as the purpose of such functions. 14. Would you say that solitary indulgence is im- moral? All know full well that solitary indulgence in the vice of impurity (which is certainly not purity) is immoral and the person given up to such indulgence could be termed as one given up to “vicious habits.” But what is birth control but mutual co-operation in similar habits, quite divorced from any essential rela- tion to procreation, and subordinated to individual pleasure. G. B. Shaw has rightly pointed out that birth control is simply a form of reciprocal self-in- dulgence and as immoral as solitary self-indulgence. It is not the regulation of man’s moral nature, but the violation of man’s moral nature, and, therefore, im- moral. Reason is subordinated to sensuality—and that’s all there is to it. 15. Well, people marry for a mate, not for a cradle. Remember that we are dealing with the law of God. The Church does not make the law. Meantime, those who are still Christians marry both for a mate and for a cradle, begging God to bless their union with children. They do not marry for lust. There is some- thing higher than that. And if they make use of their lawful privileges, they know they must not unlawfully hinder actively and deliberately the operation of nat- ural laws. The parents of the LITTLE FLOWER, St. Theresa of Lisieux lived as brother and sister for ONE WHOLE YEAR after their marriage, praying to God that their marriage would be blessed with many chil- dren. After a year of prayer and continence they entered their wedlock and brought forth nine children. THE MOTHER’S HEALTH 7 the most famous being the world renowned Little Flower. 16. It is impossible to live up to the standard set by the Catholic Church. The standard is not set up by the Catholic Church. She did not make the law and she cannot unmake it. And God does not ask the impossible. If a man takes the means he can live up to it, either practicing self- control, or accepting the children God sends. God offers sufficient help with every difficulty to the man of goodwill who meditates upon Christian truth and is earnest in prayer for the necessary grace. Abstention is certainly not impossible. At times it is absolutely necessary, as in case of permanent invalids. And even with normally healthy people, abstinence for given periods is certainly not impossible; nor does it have harmful results. If periodic abstinence be nec- essary for grave reasons, it is possible for those who will take the means. If a husband should take a trip to Europe does that mean that the wife is unable to remain faithful during his absence? 17. Don’t preach self-denial to us. The unbelieving Jews made a similar reply to Christ when He gave them a doctrine they did not like. “This is a hard saying. Who can hear it.” Birth controllers may emancipate themselves from duty and from some temporal difficulties, but in doing so they will find that they have emancipated themselves from God, from the restrictions of virtue, from the grace of Christ, and from their prospects of eternal salvation, unless God’s great mercy gives them the gift of sincere repentance before they die. 18. Birth control may be necessary for the sake, of the mother’s health. What if the doctor says that she cannot have more children? Doctors are not infallible, and irreligious doctors are often only too ready to please women by telling them that they are unable to fulfill the duties of motherhood. And as a matter of fact contraception normally has a worse effect upon a woman’s health than childbirth. She becomes a neurasthenic wreck in the end. But in any case, since contraception is evil of its very nature, no earthly consideration can justify it. However, if the wife’s health is such that her life is really endangered, then the husband has the obligation to think of her rather than of himself, and to forego his own pleasure. If death took her from him, and he could not re-marry, he would be obligated to practice continence. But even if the wife’s health be not really endangered, it is lawful to space children by mutual restraint and absti- 8 THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS nence. Indulgence and deliberate frustration constitute immoral conduct, and any arguments based on pleas- ure or convenience involve the immoral principle that the END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS. The Jesuits were accused of teaching this principle, but it has never been proved. Do not the Federated Churches of Ameri- ca today uphold the principle that THE END JUSTI- FIES THE MEANS when they tolerate birth control? 19. Does contraception prevent souls from existing which God intended to he born? People who practice contraception certainly prevent souls from coming into existence. Did God ordain them to be born? Certainly not by His absolute will, or He would not permit people to succeed in their crime. But He does ordain them to be born condi- tionally, that is, provided the parents do the right thing He intended them to do. If they fulfill the con- ditions required for the generation of children, He intends children to result. At the same time, whilst commanding parents to observe the law of nature. He leaves them physically free to serve Him or to rebel, as in the case of any other commandments. Those who practice contraception violate God’s law, and deprive Christ of children to redeem. And if they die in such sin they will most certainly be lost. If they say that conscience does not reproach them, then they have warped their conscience, and will have to answer for it. 20. But contraception does not destroy existent life. It is true that contraception is not murder by the direct killing of an existent being. But indirectly con- traception does repudiate the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” By that commandment God reserved to Himself dominative rights over human life. Man directly usurps God’s rights when he takes it upon himself to destroy the life of another. He indirectly violates this law of God when he deliberately frustrates the natural laws ordained by God for the production of life and the perpetuation of the human species. 21. Is contraceptive birth control forbidden by a law of the Catholic Church? The Catholic Church did not make the law. She has merely declared clearly to men the right interpretation of the natural moral law imposed by God. And since Christ said to His Church, “He who hears you hears Me,’’ it is really Christ who still teaches men through His Church. 22a. Could the Catholic Church change her teaching? No. She is here to explain the law of God, not to break it. The evil of contraceptive birth control is for- bidden by God Himself, and the Church has no pm- BIRTH CONTROL PREVENTS CONVERTS 9 thority to dispense from the prohibition. Such birth control is evil of its very nature. 22b. Is not the motive of the Church merely to in- crease her membership? No. If she held that as a motive, then wouldn’t she command all her priests and nuns to make an end 'of celibacy and go out and get married in order to swell up her ranks? Julius Caesar was wise as Hitler and Mussolini are wise. Caesar wanted his empire populat- ed and in 59 B. C. he gave farms to parents of three children, offered further prizes for large families, and prohibited celibacy after a certain age. The Church condemns birth control because it is morally wrong and intrinsically evil in itself. The Church’s position is not easy and popular but a church will never endure which moves according to EXPEDIENCY. We might win MANY CONVERTS by permitting pagan practices, but the Church will never come down from her cross and compromise and shake dice for the seamless gar- ments of Christ any more than Christ came down to satisfy the Good Friday mob. The Catholic Church demands a loftier standard, and she offers far more spiritual helps than those with the lower standard outside her fold at present possess. The Catholic Church could never be Christ if she considered only what is expedient instead of what God commands. Rev. C. Penney Hunt, a Wesleyan Minister, lamenting the weak- ness of Protestantism writes, “The Roman Church is far less unpopular than she was a decade past. Has she lowered her flag and become more amenable to pop- ular ideas? Not one whit. Then why does a democracy respect her? Because she has the courage of her con- victions, and believes in her authority whilst other churches do not or fear to use it. The world despises a church which is always toadying and compromising for fear of hurting somebody’s feelings.’* 23. Is not contraception better than bringing into the world children one cannot adequately nourish? No. It is certainly better to face any temporal trial than to commit mortal sin—or any sin. A good end in view cannot justify the use of sinful means and actions. Remember that there are no privileges which do not carry with them obligations, and at times awkward obligations. Selfish temporal comfort is not the supreme good. Nor does God send a single mouth that cannot be filled. Do you read in your papers of babies dying by the thousands in the U. S. A. for want of nourish- ment? Many children may mean self-sacrifice, but they mean great blessings, and additional temporal comfort in later years. More often than ever the question is not nourishing another child tut whether there shall be a 10 WHY CHILDREN AND NO MONEY? NEW CAR next spring or a trip abroad instead of having another child. 24. You Priests don’t know what it is to support a wife and family on a few dollars a week. We can know that, without having a wife and chil- dren. Christ who was without wife and child cried out that the laborer was worthy of his hire, which, of course, means a living wage. We have eyes and ears. We have seen the difficulties of poverty, and have heard from the lips of hundreds the story of their distress. And we have heard the story always with sympathy and heavy hearts. We are not indifferent, hard, and callous. Many a priest is supporting many a family in his parish. But not all our appreciation of people’s difficulties gives us the right to abrogate God’s law. 25. Do you call it religion for a mother to continue bringing children into the world, with her husband on relief or WPA? No. I would call it continued maternity despite trials and difficulties. If such a mother were actuated by religious principles—fulfilling the duties of her state in life and accepting the consequences, she would be a very good and practically religious mother—one well worth having. Certainly she would be a far higher type of person than one who would pervert the whole purpose intended by God, refuse to face the self-denial and mortification essential to a Christian and live only for sensual self-satisfaction. 26. Children of the poor are born at the expense of the state, are fed by the state, and are a burden on their fellow citizens. That is not true, for these children are ordinarily a great asset to the common good. If we are going to boast that America contains so many head of cattle and of sheep, let us not moan that she also contains so many human citizens. In any case, the most heart- breaking of temporal trials does not justify morally wrong conduct. New Zealand has the slogan, “GIVE US MORE AND BETTER BABIES.” Scholars are at last waking up to the fact that the fundamental cause of our depression is LACK OF BABIES, which is the reason of our supply and no demand even here or abroad. 27. I am disgusted with parents who so little love their children as to bring them into the world in pitiful cases of want. Not every large family of which you speak is a pitiful case. Where real poverty and destitution exist, it is pitiful from that aspect—but the children themselves THE HUSBAND WHO DOES NOT WANT THEM 11 are a blessing and more of a blessing than a brood *of poodle dogs who are taking the place of the children you and your wealth ought to have. Children bring further blessings as they grow up and are able to help their parents and appreciate the sacrifices their parents made for them. This is apart from the fact that each child, despite all temporal trials, has a definite oppor- tunity of securing eternal happiness in heaven—an op- portunity I would not wish to lack, even if it meant being brought up in an orphanage. Instead of being disgusted that parents should have so little love for their children, you should be filled with respect for those who have such little love for themselves and such great love for God and for the little ones God sends. You are measuring things on wrong standards, and arguing as would a pagan who does not believe in God, nor in the eternal destiny of each soul. Rather you seem to think that this world is all and that any evil practice is permissible if it spells earthly comfort. 28. What thanks does a woman get for having children from a selfish husband who does not want them? If she has a selfish husband she may not receive many thanks from him. But is his gratitude any com- pensation for sin and the loss of the gratitude of Christ for all eternity? After all, a husband cannot go to God and answer at the judgment for the soul of his wife. She came into the world independently of her husband, and her soul will go out of the world independently of her husband, and she will have to answer to God for her own violations of conscience. St. Paul declares, “A woman shall be saved through childbearing, if she continue in faith and love of God, and the sanctification of herself.” I Tim. II., 15. Such a woman, after all, gives Christ little children to re- deem. “Suffer little children to come to Me, and forbid them not” is true in more senses than one. And yet again, if a woman receives no thanks from her husband, she receives compensating blessings even in this life. She secures a greater immunity from many dangerous diseases and neurasthenic disorders. She is spared that wretched misery, the loss of an only child. She has the love of many devoted children, children who are unselfish and doubly devoted precisely because many. Difficulties unselfishly borne when the children are small are compensated as they grow up and begin to earn. And such a mother certainly has a happier old age than the woman who was a wife but refused to be a mother, looking back in lonely sadness to the children who only “might have been”—a woman whose conscience tells her that if she was ever able to prac- i2 IF THE WIFE IS INNOCENT tice birth control it was only because her own mother did not when it was her turn to receive the gift of life. No. Thanks of a selfish husband are not everything. 29. Whose sin is it if the husband will not desist from acts of onanism as mentioned in the first book of the Bible. Gen. 38, 8-10.? If the wife gives frequent counsel that the husband desist from any kind of contraceptive action then it is no sin on the part of the wife, and the husband alone must atone. You will notice that God did not kill the wife of Onan, nor did Asmodeus kill Sara, whose seven husbands he killed in the first act of their wedlock. See Tobias III, 8 and VI, 17. 30. Could the Church permit contraceptive means where health is likely to be endangered? ' No. We cannot fall back upon expediency or utility as the standard of what is lawful or unlawful. We must face the question as to what is right or wrong in itself. Expediency cannot render what is morally wrong morally right. If the natural laws intended by God to result in children are set in operation, they may not be frustrated. The true respect for what is right and good shone out in the words of a good Cath- olic wife and mother to a non-Catholic doctor, much to his astonishment, “I would rather die keeping God's law than live breaking it.” To die rather than offend God is heroism. Far better die serving God than live offending Him. No one has greater love than to give one’s life for God, and of such a woman St. Paul’s words are surely true, “A woman shall be saved through childbearing, if she continue in faith, and love, and sanctification.” I Tim., 11:15. 31. Surely the Catholic Church permits family limi- tation for poorer people. The Catholic Church does not say that people are obliged to have a multitude of children. If people feel that they cannot afford many children, they may re- strict the number. But they must choose between the inconvenience of having children, or the inconvenience of self-restraint by mutual consent. Not using privi- leges is lawful. Use and frustration is simply a sinful abuse, not justified by any temporal considerations. That the observance of God’s law is at times difficult does not abrogate the law. We are not dispensed from every law of God that is inconvenient, and bound to observe only such as happen to be convenient. If it were expedient to break the law, “Thou shalt not steal,” honesty would no longer oblige. The economic system which makes children impos- sible to parents is wrong and should be changed. The MOTHERS OF SMALL AND LARGE FAMILIES 13 birth control apostles would be of great service to the nation if they worked to improve our economic con- ditions by using some of their tireless energy and time for this cause. It would be a boon if they collected funds not for clinics for disseminating their literature but for maternity funds which will make possible cheap and safe deliveries for the victims of our economic system. 32. Birth control makes for quality of the race. If that is so what has happened to the Mayflower stock who have practically wiped themselves out by not reproducing their Mayflower stock? The Metropol- itan Life Insurance Co. in a report shows that with the increase of income for married couples there were less children. All of Yale’s graduates average less than 2.4 child per father. Harvard’s classes from 1891 to 1900 averaged 1.5 per father. Vassar’s classes from 1897 to 1906 averaged 1.1 child per mother Hence the so-called “blue bloods” or “better families” are extinguishing themselves because of RACE SUICIDE. The so-called better classes would like to have the poorer classes practice their vices so that they will not rise up in numbers and overwhelm them who are already over- whelmed History shows that the great geniuses of time have come from large families, and this gives the lie to your concept of quality in the race. 33. Mothers of small families are healthier than mothers of large families. Figures of Insurance Companies show the opposite Why? Dr. F. J. McCann gives the answer: “In preg- nancy woman attains her full physiological consumma- tion, while the lack of this attainment favors the de- velopment -of pathological changes in her sex organs. It is well known that many women live to a ripe old age who have given birth to a large number of children. Thus to regard pregnancy, or still more, repeated preg- nancy, as a disease, is not only pathologically unsound, but it is untrue ” 34. Should married women be allowed to hold down jobs that ought to be held by men or by unmarried women who are now out of work? Birth control is to blame for this sad mess. Birth controllers have made women selfish, by driving out of their minds the ideals of motherhood. They have made women career-minded instead of home-minded which is the greatest of all vocations. They have caused the business world to be filled with childless, avaricious, comfort-seeking wives who take up jobs that ought to be held by others. They have deprived the nation of thousands of potential homemakers, wives and 14 OVERPOPULATION OF THE WORLD mothers. Selfish married women filling positions in the business and professional world are most respon- sible for our depression. Some married women must for example, take the place of an invalid husband and become the breadwinner. No one condemns this class. In 1930 the number of both sexes employed in the U. S. A. was 48,849,920; 38,077,804 were men and 10,772,116 were women; of these women 3,071,002 were married. Hence we have over three million women holding jobs which make it impossible for them to live as wives and mothers. This is the greatest con- tributing factor for killing mother love. 35. But what is to happen if the world does become overpopulated? Whatever happens—you again propose temporal con- venience as sufficient justification of sinful conduct. It won’t do. Meantime, the future must be left to God. The world as a world is by no means over- populated yet. In almost every age this problem has occurred to men. Yet, as population has increased, production has increased, and there is more than enough today to fill every mouth and leave hundreds of tons of baskets of fragments left over. These spec- ulative difficulties can safely be left to God/ Let each individual keep God’s moral laws. Plato and Aristotle began to worry about OVERPOPULATION 2300 years ago. They saw humans stepping over one another like ants fighting for food and a place on the ground to sleep, but after 2300 years we still have the wide open spaces;* and as for food there is too much of it—so we plow under every second or third row and make fer- tilizer out of little pigs. Doesn’t this make champions of artificial birth control look SILLY in advocating such a viewpoint? 36. An increase in population will mean an increase in unemployment? It will mean just the opposite. Things are run on the principle of supply and demand. If you have no supply of infants there will be no demand for products. Dr. O. E. Baker, of the United States Department of Agriculture, is not excessively alarmed about the fu- ture. He claims that on our present rich, meat-eating diet we can support easily 275,000,000 or twice our present population; and on a vegetarian diet we could support 500,000,000. The World Almanac says the earth’s population is 1,700,000,000. Pearl estimates that the earth cannot take care of more than 2 billion. Pipkin jumps that figure to 13 billion. Penck increases that figure to 16 billion. And to show you what prophets can prophesy, Oppenheimer runs the number up to 20 billion, about 12 Vz times what it now contains. BIRTH AND DEATH RATES 15 So why worry about overpopulation? Rome and Greece practiced infanticide as a result of philosophi- cal panics about overpopulation and in the end they had to import barbarians to keep up the level of pop- ulation. Only eight million American farmers today produce enough for 130 million Americans. Lincoln said that by 1930 our population should be 250 million. We are not getting out of this depression for want of demand for our supply. Brazil is burning coffee, the South is ploughing under cotton, Cuba is stranded with sugar, etc. 37. Certainly surplus population is responsible for the unemployed. Dr. Kuczynski, of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, writes, “I even venture to say that if we set out to increase unemployment in this country for the next fifteen years, we could find no more effi- cient means than birth restriction on a very large scale.” You do not need a college diploma to figure out that falling population means a falling market; falling markets mean reduced production and reduced production means depression, or unemployment. De- gression always means UNDERCONSUMPTION and never OVERPOPULATION. The blind leaders of the blind must awake to realize that what we need is more mouths to eat our produce, more bodies to wear our clothes and wear out our furniture, more people to buy and consume our products. We are suffering from UNDERCONSUMING. 38. Has artificial birth control changed the history of mankind? Widespread birth control even alarmed its proponent, Mrs. Margaret Sanger, who at a recent birth control convention expressed alarm that the rich were not re- producing. Let us take a look at the figures on pop- ulation. In 1933 births in England per 1.000 were 14.4 and deaths were 12.3. That means a falling population. France in 1930 had a birth rate of 16.1 and a death rate of 16.1. That means the population is rapidly fall- ing and France is dying out. In the first three months of 1934 there were in France 12,286 more deaths than births and in 1935 during the first three months there were 13,546 more deaths than births. Germany during that period had 101,879 more births than deaths. France is killing herself through her birth controllers. Hitler is naturally making France tremble. In 1935 Ireland had 14.9 births and 10.9 deaths; hence Ireland may yet live to see the Ehglish Empire follow the death path of the Roman Empire. Italy in 1930 had 23.5 births per 1.000 and a death rate of 13.5. Italy increases each year 300.000 in numbers. Pagan Japan in 1930 had 32.9 births IS AMERICA DYING? and 17.7 deaths. The yellow races will no doubt rise to supplant those of the Western World. 39. What about America? Is she facing the music the same as dying France and depleted England? Our population dropped 8 per 1,000 in 17 years through the successful campaign of the birth control- lers. We have 23,353,000 married couples; 7,447,000 of these couples have no children; 5,255,000 have but one child; 4,246,000 have but two children. It takes 330 children to every 100 couples in the U. S. A. to keep the population steadily level. In 1931 we had only 220 children per 100 couples. So we, too, are on the down- grade with France and England. We are becoming a nation of old people and no nation can endure with an overbalance of elders. 40. Would not birth control improve the quality of the race? In breeding stock we mate only the best and secure perfect sheep and cattle. Your analogy does not fit the case. You mate only suitable stock. But that does not suggest that unsuit- able people should marry, and violate God’s laws in order to avoid having children. It does suggest that people unfit for parentage should not be mated by mar- riage. To a certain degree that would be desirable, and for that reason the Church has certain impediments forbidding marriage between certain types of people. But if people do marry, and make use of their privi- leges, no temporal considerations can justify contracep- tive birth control. Nor will birth control by contra- ceptive means result in better children. Violated nature takes its revenge. The health of the wife is impaired, and a neurotic mother is less likely than ever to give birth to a really sound and healthy child. Contraceptive sensuality did not improve Home, but destroyed that nation. 41. I know Catholic couples who have few or no children. You must remember that the law forbidding birth control by contraceptive methods is simply the law of God Himself—it is not my rule, nor are they rules invented and imposed by the Catholic Church. The law of God does not forbid people to limit the number of their children lawfully, i. e. by abstaining from the use of those marital privileges which normally result in children If you know of Catholic couples who have few or no children, you would have to know by what means the number of their children was limited before you could accuse them of violating God’s laws. If physical incapacity or sterility is the cause, or if they have mutuall: -agreed to practice self-control, they are CATHOLICS WITH NO BABIES 17 not disloyal to God. We have not the right to, judge others, and charity bids us put a lawful construction upon their having but few children. If Catholics sin in this matter, well, they are sinning, and that’s all about it. But their sin is their own responsibility, not the fault of their Catholic Faith. Catholic individuals give scandal by dishonesty, by excess in drink, by neg- lect of their religious duties, and in many other ways. It is quite possible then that some Catholics are also guilty of sin in the matter of birth control by evil means. The Catholic Faith is not the cause of the sin — the Faith is all right even if some given Catholic is not. And there are thousands of Catholics who do live up to their Faith in this matter. Protestants have ad- mitted to me over and over again that their consciences have protested against such conduct, and that the Cath- olic law is undoubtedly right. 42. Cannot Catholics sin regularly and go to Confes- sion regularly? If a Catholic sins, then as often as he truly repents, he can receive sacramental absolution of such sins as he may have committed. But Confession absolves past sins of which one has truly repented. If a Catholic goes to Confession in a state of grave sin, but with no real repentance of such sin, no sins are forgiven; the Confession is sacrilegious, and such a Catholic would very much deceive himself if he thought that by merely going through the procedure of Confession all is well. It is bad enough then, when he lacks true repentance of past sins. It is far worse when he IN- TENDS to continue the same sins in the future. If a man at the moment of Confession is sincerely sorry for the sins of the past, he at least intends to TRY to avoid them in the future. Whether he succeeds or not is another matter. But at the moment of absolu- tion, he must at least intend to do his best to avoid future transgressions. 43. Could not a Catholic continue sinning for years, continuing his Confessions, and die with a last peni- tent Confession? If he continued with regular Confessions, yet had no intention of trying to rectify his conduct, he would simply have a series of additional sins by such bad Confessions. As regards dying with a last PENITENT Confession—did he do so, he would, of course, save his soul. But that would be a miracle of God’s mercy. He cannot know that God will give him an opportunity at a last Confession. Should he save his soul who knows what ages must be spent in Purgatory? No man after a long series of insincere Confessions, has any guarantee that he will obtain the grace of true 18 BIRTH CONTROL IS NOT MODERN and sincere repentance sufficient for valid absolution. To say, “God is merciful,” and then use His mercy as an excuse to offend Him still more, is to forfeit any right to His mercy in the end. The Catholic Church exists to lift men to holiness and the observance of God’s law—not to water down God’s law in order to suit the passions of men. Nor to win people to the Catholic Church can we be silent about the obligations of Catholics. If men want the true religion, we simply have to say, “There it is.” We say with Christ, “if any man wants the true religion, and is willing to serve God, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” in the teachings of Christ as maintained by the Catholic Church. There is a cross in Catholicity, and the Catholic who finds that he is not called upon to deny himself fairly frequently in many things is simply not living up to his religion. 44. Is it not only recently that the Catholic Church forbade it? No. But the recent publicity and advocacy given to this wretched vice have led to new statements of the permanent Catholic doctrine. This vice ruined pagan Rome, and Origen wrote against the pagan Celsus in the third century. “At least the more our people obey Christian doctrine, the more they love purity, abstaining from even lawful sex-pleasure that they may the more purely worship God. Christians marry as do others, and they have children; but they do not stifle their offspring. They are in bodies of flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh.” In the fourth century St. Augustine wrote, “Relations with one’s wife, when conception is deliberately prevented, are as un- lawful and impure as the conduct of Onan who was slain.” St. Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, taught clearly the constant doctrine of the Christian religion that birth control is a grave sin. He writes, “Next to murder, by which an actually existent human being is destroyed, we rank this sin by which the generation of a human being is prevented.” Contra Gent., Bk. 111., c. 122. It is not a new law by any means. 45. God dispensed from other laws given to the Jews. He has never dispensed from such laws as involve the principles of natural morality. The violation of some law is wrong because it is contrary to the order of nature established by God or because God has for- bidden a thing, or commanded some disciplinary meas- ure. 46. Do you deny that one can follow his conscience? One should follow a right conscience. But conscience can be warped just as any other judgment. Therefore BACHELOR PRIESTS 19 a man needs some test by which he can know his conscience is true. What is that test? He must see whether his conscience squares with the known law of God. The Church, as the authorized interpreter of the law, tells us clearly that law in this matter, and once we know the law from the mouth of the Church, conscience bids us follow it. 47. Celibacy denies life to millions. Is not that birth control? Not in the sense in which birth control is forbidden. Birth control affects those who enter married life, or those who live as married people without warrant. If people use privileges proper to the married state, they sin if they deliberately frustrate children. But there is no obligation to enter the married state. 48. Your arrogance in interferinp with the domestic relations of man and wife is astounding. It would be arrogance did I pretend to be the legis- lator. But it is not when I simply declare what God demands. He, as Creator, has full rights over His creatures, and the right to make conditions upon which they may use the faculties He gave them, forbidding their use in a way which offends and insults Him. 49. Your teachings on birth control come with no weight from bachelor priests. You seem to think that it is a law made by un- married men. Get that idea out of your head. God made the law. The celibacy of priests has nothing to do with the question. God’s law has the same force whether a bachelor priest declares the law, or a mar- ried layman. Would you say that the teachings of Christ are to be accepted in every case except when He refers to marriage, your exception being based on the fact that He was never married? A priest hasn’t got to have a wife and family to be able to explain the moral law regulating the conduct of husband and wife. The priest does not make the law—nor does he legislate for married people. God makes the law. The priest explains the law. If, before a priest can explain the moral law to married people he has to be married, must he be a thief before he can explain the moral law to thieves? 50. Who is likely to be right, the unmarried man who views things through the distorting spectacles of his Church, or the reasonable man who loves truth for its own sake? The man who knows what God says about the mat- ter is likely to be right rather than the one who knows little or nothing of God’s law. Meantime the birth 20 ONE CANNOT KEEP ON PRAYING controller does not love truth for its own sake. Rather he loves sensuality for its own sake. Violation of Catholic teaching in this matter is also a violation of reason, and those who violate Catholic ideals have to warp their reason to do so, or just ignore it. 51. Priests can be continent, but when they say that continence is easy in marriage they lack experience — an essential quality in a lawmaker. No one dreams that it is an easy matter in marriage. It is difficult indeed. Prudent measures must be taken, and the definite help of Almighty God must be sought in prayer. But you cannot speak of lack of experience in the lawgiver. God made the law, and we cannot accuse Him of not having forseen all the future diffi- culties in each individual case. But the general good prevails over individual trials, even as the general good of a country may demand the very lives of some individual members in its defense. Continence is certainly possible, for it is absolutely necessary at times, as when the wife is ill, or during the weeks associated with actual childbirth. Is a man compelled to be unfaithful to her at such times? 52. The Catholic Church Is inhuman and takes the joy out of life. How can one believe in her? The Church is not inhuman. She has never pretended that fallen human nature will find the service of God easy. She calls this world a valley of tears, and she has tears for the sufferings of her children. But she has to be true to God, and to tell us the law. What would be the good of the Church if she did not do so? The Church must tell us the right thing. Whether we do it or not is quite another matter which concerns our personal salvation. But to lose faith in the Cath- olic Church because she tells us the right thing is rather foolish. There would be some sense in reject- ing her if we discovered that she was telling us the wrong thing. As being deprived of joy, remember that there is no earthly state of life which is one of unmiti- gated pleasure and self-indulgence. Every state has its irksome duties, even marriage. And no earthly pleasure or benefit is sufficient compensation for the loss of God’s grace. Indeed, one who really and sincerely loves in a Christian way would rather endure a personal de- privation of pleasure than inflict the evil of serious sin upon the soul of the one loved. 53. One cannot keep on praying and denying oneself indefinitely. We must keep on praying as indefinitely as this life lasts. Always to pray and not to faint is our Lord’s command. As for denying oneself indefinitely, many CATHOLIC LAWS DRIVE PEOPLE OUT OF CHURCH 21 people do in this matter, and have to do so, when cir- cumstances forbid anything else. Self-denial is bur- densome. Children are burdensome. The choice al- lowed by God depends upon our idea as to which is the less burdensome. If self-denial is too difficult, God will give the grace to face the temporal trials associated with children, and the children themselves will prove a blessing and a consolation. If conditions render the prospect of children too burdensome then husband and wife must ask God the grace of mutual self-control. 54. I have tried prayer and self-denial and have found them wanting. Prayer may have been tried, but not fervently enough; self-denial but halfheartedly. The goodwill to correspond with God’s grace is wanting and prob- ably, too, ordinary prudence. Some measures must be taken to render the difficulty less, as by self-denying separation. 55. It tempts one to give up the Church. That is foolish, and will not better things. Will you neglect other obligations because you have failed in this, and give up religion on the principle that he who commits one sin might just as well commit a dozen sins? The only thing to do after failure is to repent as men do of other sins, and try again to be faithful. 56. You speak of laws adapted to the welfare of the race. But if married men are guilty in violating those laws, what of single men? The essential evil of all sins of impurity including birth-control is the implied destruction of the human race or race-suicide. The nature of man is such that abstention from sex-indulgence will never endanger the race but the perversion of the sex function in every case frustrates * the purpose of God. If a man enters that state which God ordains as the essential unit of society for the multiplication of the race, and if within that state he puts into operation those forces God intends to result in children, he is bound to accept the children in a spirit of service primarily to God, and secondarily to humanity. 57. Then the pain and suffering and risk of death to the mother count for nothing? All childbirth involves some risk, and the merely possible danger would not oblige abstinence. Child- bearing, too, is normally accompanied by pain. It is an inescapable penalty. “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children’* (Gen. Ill, 16). Christ Himself has said that a woman when she is in labor, is in distress; but that her sorrow is turned to joy in her child, John XVI, 21. 22 WHEN THE DOCTOR WARNS AGAINST CHILDREN Every state in life has its difficulties, and marriage is no exception. But danger of death is remote as a rule. Nature provides in a remarkable way for various con- tingencies. Even diseases such as cancer and tuber- culosis have been noticed to suspend their activities in the presence of this great physiological function of nature. 58. What if a doctor, a reliable doctor, says that death will result absolutely from any further concep- tion? In such a case the moral theology of the Catholic Church says that a wife is justified in refusing marital privileges to her husband, and that he has an obligation to practice self-restraint and continence, thinking more of his wife than of himself. He must content himself with the other benefits of married life, mutual love, companionship, etc. But never can the Church per- mit contraceptive methods. The choice lies between offending God seriously with consequent risk to sal- vation, and continence. It may seem hard, but there is no other possible choice. And such continence is possible if a man is prepared to live a truly spiritual life and to avoid proximate occasions of temptation in the matter. If such difficulties drive a man to God, to more fervent prayer and a consequent deepening of faith and merit, he will bless God for the necessity of such Christian mortification. 59. Would it not be better for thousands of children of physically, mentally, morally, or financially unfit parents never to have been born? If there were no God; if there were no hope of any future life; and if I were not a Christian, I might be tempted to say yes. But there is a God who forbids contraception, and it is far better to accept what God’s providence permits than to break any of His com- mandments. There is also a future life. A child does not consist of a body only. It has also a soul. If the child is baptized and attains salvation, far better be born no matter how physically deformed the body may be in this life . This life of so few years scarcely mat- ters compared with eternity, where there will be no suffering, and no deformity in heaven. Physical de- formity often means pain, but pain is not an evil that really matters in the end. There was no evil in Christ, yet He had much pain. Mental deficiency does not prevent the reception of Baptism, and diminishes re- sponsibility. God knows how to make allowances for factors diminishing such responsibility for one’s con- duct. Financial deficiency means poverty, but Christ too had much of that. The opportunity of attaining eternal salvation and happiness is worth any priva- HOW EDUCATE WITH A LARGE FAMILY? 23 tion in this life. Many a cripple has been full of gratitude to God and to his parents for existence and the chance to love God and to suffer with Christ. God’s ways are not our ways. With twisted and deformed bodies, it is better to be born if we do no wrong culpably. With a strong and healthy body, it is better not to be born if we sin like Judas and die without having repented. 60. Do you say that all large families are sufficiently provided for? If they were not, that would not justify birth control. The end does not justify the means. However, I do not deny that individual cases of extreme poverty occur where there happens to be large families. I deny, however, that parents cannot normally support the children which will result from their marriage if God’s laws are observed. Because some large families suffer poverty, it does not follow that every man who has' a large family can expect similar poverty. A lot of men’s trials are those which never happen! I admit that many children mean difficulty, self-sacrifice, and real service of God. But as a rule the difficulties are confined to the early stages of married life, when youth is able to bear them. As the children grow up, begin to earn and bring in revenue, conditions are bet- tered, and the later years of husband and wife are doubly blest. 61. A higher standard of life and education is de- manded today than in medieval times, and one can't do it with a large family. That could not justify birth control by contracep- tive methods. The choice today is between Christ and the modern pagan philosophy. If modern godless civilization is right, and this life is all, then let us measure everything by utility and pleasure. If Christ is right, and the beatitudes, directed against worldly self-indulgence are the road to eternal happiness, then a small family cannot be had if it means sin and the recrucifixion of Christ in the name of sensuality. And is not the higher standard of living based on discontent with the necessities of life, and upon the desire to possess as many superfluous and pleasurable goods as possible? A man who is not content with Christian simplicity of life will lack what he considers fitting means to support children. His preference is for tem- poral comfort. The idea of providing Christ with little children to redeem, who may share a happiness he himself hopes to enjoy for all eternity has little appeal to him. “The sensual man,” says St. Paul, “does not perceive the things which ate of . the spirit of God,” 1 Cor, II, 14. And remember that many of the greatest 24 HOW PRACTICE SELF CONTROL? geniuses in the world have come from large but poor families, whilst men whose parents spent vast sums on their education have been failures. A child brought up without luxury is more energetic, more resourceful, and, if encouraged, can quite well make good in the world. Normally, it is good to give children a higher and a secondary, or even a university education, al- though they are not always the better for it. Character is the true education, and that is much better attained in a large family than in any other circumstances. The father and mother of a large family have more lovable qualities than those who restrict their families, and prolific parents communicate their characteristics to a larger number of children who will glorify God and edify their fellow men. 62. What help does the Church give a man to prac- tice self-control? She gives him right ideas of man’s true dignity, of the law of God, of the rewards and punishments attached to the keeping or breaking of that law. A good Cath- olic has also the special graces dispensed through the Mass and the Sacraments, absolution for past sins in Confession, and Holy Communion, or the reception of Christ’s most holy Body and Blood, which directly at- tacks evil habits of the soul, and indirectly breaks the grip of passion upon the body. Let a man make good and fervent use of the means of grace, and take pru- dential measures even to the extent of a partial sep- aration if necessary, and he will have the courage and receive the help from God to take up his cross, deny himself, and follow Christ even in the duties of the married state. 63. Which is the lesser of two evils—to bring under- nourished children into the world for whom you cannot provide, or to practice contraception? To bring children into the world and not to be able to provide for them is easily the lesser of the two evils. Better any* temporal trials than sin by breaking God’s law But you have no certainty that you will be unable to provide for the children God sends, or that they will be undernourished. There is such a thing as Divine Providence, above all for those who are faithful to Him. In fact God has a special Providence for large families. At best you are but making a con- jecture which may never be realized; yet you talk of violating a certain obligation by contraceptive prac- tices because of merely possible contingencies; con- tingencies which, even did they eventuate, could not excuse such conduct. But there is another alternative, involving discomfort to self, I know, but less than either of the two you mention. It is self-denial. You BLINDNESS OF CHURCH 25 speak as if one had to choose either of your two al- ternatives. He need not. Mutual self-restraint is law- ful. Anyway, if people do use their privileges, God absolutely forbids contraception. Nor will He send a mouth He cannot fill. Even if it meant poverty; even if an orphanage had to take care of me, I would pre- fer to be born and have my chance of eternal happi- ness with God. And I certainly thank God that, when it was my turn to come, my own mother did not say, “No more/* 64. You seem blind to the practical reasons against the Catholic doctrine. I am not. But you are blind to the innate immorality of contraceptive practices, and your reasons are based upon expediency only. And if what is expedient is going to be lawful, then goodbye to morality. Slan- derers of the Catholic Church have accused her of teaching the frightful doctrine that the end justifies the means. The Church has always indignantly denied such a doctrine. She has ever taught that men are not free to do what is morally wrong because they think they have some good end in view. But where the world used to say, “Those evil Catholics teach that one may do any harm that good may come/* it now cries, “Look at that tyrannical Church! She dares to tell us that the end does not justify the means, and that we are not free to do anything we like if we have a good end in view/’ Once again I must say that you cannot have it both ways! 65. Priests condemn prevention of life by birth-con- trol yet prevent life by their celibacy! Those who undertake the duties of married life are forbidden deliberate and artificial birth-prevention. Priests called, not to married life, but to a different state altogether, have neither the rights nor duties of the married state. There is a vast difference between preventing children by setting God’s natural laws- in operation yet frustrating their effects, and simply omitting to have children. No one is obliged to set the natural productive laws in operation. So, too, the obligation to pay bills is not violated by the man who has no bills. I may omit having creditors, but if I have them, I must not prevent them from receiving what is due to them. That should make it clear. Human beings may omit those actions which God in- tends to result in life, but if they exercise them and then prevent human life, they violate God’s law. 66. Birth Control has its merits. The principle that what would be wrong for all peo- ple is wrong for each person. Would not the human 26 ONLY FOR TEMPORARY DISTRESS race become extinct after the death of those now liv- ing, if all people practiced birth prevention habitually? No moral reasons can be offered in defense of Birth Control, because there are no moral principles by which it could be defended. 67. But people practice birth control only on account of temporary distress. Well then how about the RICH? You must know that what is wrong in itself may not be permitted even temporarily. It would be just as proper to advocate thieving TEMPORARILY by those who are in want We arrest the thief and the burglar even during de- pression. Do you advocate that thievery be made legal for all who are on WPA, or Relief? Mrs. Carolina H. Robinson, speaking before the Eugenics Research As- sociation in June, 1937, observed: “The birth rate is dropping like a plummet in all classes, except the un- skilled, the illiterate and the non-self-supporting, where it remains high. We are recruiting the nation from these groups.” 68. Is abortion ever justified? No, for abortion is nothing short of murder. Murder means the taking of life, and life exists in the unborn child as much as it exists in the child after birth. Abortions are becoming more numerous because of the Birth Control propaganda, which makes people run the risk of illicit relationships and become involved — since contraceptive devices are, generally speaking very unsafe. 69. Would the widespread practice of birth preven- tion be harmful to the welfare of the nation? The late President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the evil as “race suicide.” “Those who today are recommending the practices to which we refer, have not the remotest idea of the slippery downward slope upon which they have set their feet ... it is true that these artificial methods may momentarily relieve much suffering. In the long run, however, they must in- crease the sum total of human suffering in every sphere of life—for their effect is immeasurably to increase the subjugation of man to passion and to arti- ficial sensuousness. A married life in which all motives for the overcoming of self have been arti- ficially eliminiated must necessarily lead in the direc- tion of racial degeneration.”—Professor Foerster of Zurch University, Switzerland, in his book, Marriage and the Sex Problem. 70. Many argue for quality-children. President Meyrick, writing in the Hibbert Journal for October, 1914, says. “Much information exists tend- QUALITY CHILDREN 27 ing to show that heredity strongly favors the third, fourth, fifth and subsequent children born to a given couple, rather than the first two, who are apt to inherit some of the commonest physical and mental defects (upon this important point the records of the Uni- versity of London should be consulted). A population with a low birth-rate thus naturally tends to degen- erate.” The Journal of Heredity, commenting on a re- port of Dr. Alexander Bell, who associated longevity with large families, writes: ‘‘Those who preach birth control are responsible for the idea that large families are an evil. This idea is false and dangerous. For the sake of eugenics it is important that it be not spread ... In Dr. Bell’s table, 2,964 individuals are dealt with. In 41 ‘only child’ cases a majority died young. The bigger the family the better off are its members, if survival beyond the age of twenty be the measure- ment. Small families make the poorest showing under- all conditions; their members are handicapped at all ages. The larger families, those around ten children, make the best showing at all ages, few of their mem- bers dying young and many living to an old age.” In our own country Benjamin Franklin was the eighth among ten children. There were ten children in the Thomas Jefferson family; twelve in the Madison fam- ily; fifteen in the John Marshall family; eleven in the General Pershing family. There were six in the Wash- ington family and eight in the Nancy Hanks family, which gave us Lincoln. Grant was one of six children; Horace Greeley one of seven; General Sherman one of eleven. There were eight in the Longfellow family; eleven in the Washington Irving family; twelve in the Fennimore Cooper family, and nine in the Phillips Brooks family. There would have been no Beethoven if his parents had been satisfied with eleven children. There were twelve children in the great Composer Haydn’s family. English literature would be extremely poor if the parents of the classical authors had been in- tent on preventing quantity. For instance, there were eight children in the Shakespeare family; twelve in the Walter Scott family; twelve in the Tennyson fam- ily; eight in the Charles Dickens family; nine in the Carlyle family.—J. F. N., Our Sunday Visitor. 71. Against the upper classes Dr. Barton C. Hirst, of Philadelphia noted that: ‘‘Those who could pass on the best qualities through their children are practicing birth control, and thus may be depriving the country of many geniuses and benefactors. I doubt that the pampered child and a half of today is better than the child of a former gen- eration with eight or nine brothers and sisters. I 28 DANGER TO YOUTH think that more consumers might absorb the surplus products of mass production and stimulate foreign trade. An undue limitation of fecundity has been one of the precursors to the extinction of a civilization or the subjugation of a people by a more virile and pro- lific race. We have already gone some distance on this road. There are dirty and degenerate rich as well as dirty and degenerate poor; the stocks from the better stocks are not always better stocks.” 72. Would not a smaller population in the United States mean less unemployment? It is absolutely certain that there would be many more unemployed, for wheq nearly half the popula- tion is in the old age group, there will not be the same demand by the people in this group for the products of industry, as in the middle age group; 40,000,000 aged people would not need the things re- quired by the 40,000,000 of the middle age, or the 40,- 000,000 under middle age. Money spent on luxury would be of a different nature, food taste would differ, clothing would differ as also consumption of food. 73. Is every nation troubled with the problem of birth control? Yes. All excepting a rare few of the Western hem- isphere. Mussolini, speaking on birth control, says, “What might China, with 400,000,000 of men in a centralized state mean in the future history of the west? Or Russia, whose birth rate is very high despite wars, epidemics, Bolshevism, famine, and mass execu- tions?” He calls attention also to the high birth rate among the Negroes of the world, even of those in the United States and to that of the Turks, which is twice as high as in Christian countries. 74. Isn’t this evil menacing the youth of America? Dr. Victor C. Pedersen, an eminent New York physi- cian and surgeon, denounces the practice in these words: “It is concubinage, not marriage; the new era of prostitution, teaching our mothers and daughters, sweethearts and wives the common practices of the brothel. There is nothing in this birth-control move- ment which the common prostitute does not practice in one way or another.” 75. Has birth-control propaganda actually perverted the youth of America? Those who have carefully taken even local surveys are certain that it has. In a certain midwest city, with a population of about 130,000, a survey disclosed the fact that contraceptive devices were sold at 503 places, IT INCREASES DIVORCES 29 and that, in addition, they were peddled by high school children for pin money. In Time, January 29, 1934, Stella Bloock Hanau, of the Birth Control Review, is quoted as saying that in the vicinity of New York alone 300 manufacturers are making contraceptives of one sort or another; that, as far back as 1932, a survey of western Florida showed that “one form of contra- ceptive was being sold in 376 gasoline stations, garages, restaurants, soda fountains, barber shops, pool rooms, cigar stands, newsstands, shoe shine parlors, grocery stores. Slot machines for dispensing them exi$t in sev- eral states.**—J. F. N., Our Sunday Visitor. 76. Does birth control increase divorces, Yes, there is a very intimate relationship. Divorces are most numerous among wedded pairs who, either with or without their fault, have none or only one or two children. Recently six Chicago judges, represent- ing Protestants, Catholics and Jews, were interrogated separately on this subject. To the question: “Do large families mean fewer divorces?**, each answered in substance: “Nothing stabilizes a marriage like a large family.** They were all agreed that a large family exercises a strong restraining influence on parents. One of them remarked: “Every little youngster born to a couple is an added insurance that their marriage will never be dissolved in a divorce court.** The proper use of marriage, which alone brings God’s blessing down upon it, from which spring children, who tie husband and wife closer to one another, usually guar- antees a permanent union. The applicants for a di- vorce are usually a childless couple or the parents of one or two children.—J. F. N., Our Sunday Visitor. Supreme Court Justice Harry F. Lewis, says, “Not long ago a home meant something. It was the location of our birth. It was the place where we entertained our friends and where we held all our family functions. Today we are born in hospitals, we entertain in our clubs, we eat in restaurants, we entertain our visiting friends in cabarets and we are buried from funeral parlors. I cannot help but reach the conclusion that if our Brooklyn women had children there would be more happiness and fewer divorces. Presence of chil- dren attracts the husband to his home and keeps the mothers from the gossiping neighbors and bridge parties. Absence of children promotes discord. Their presence makes for harmony.** 77. Do birth-control promoters act from religious motives? “Promoters of birth control do not relate religion to God, but entirely to man. Their religion is “natural- 30 MEDICAL OPINION ism,'* or “secularism,” which is now-a-days called “humanitarianism.” They are advocates of the princi- ple that the end justifies the means. They aim to alleviate social conditions by means that are morally illicit. They encourage individual selfishness at the expense of social well-being. If they were religious- minded, they would understand that “all these things will be added unto you, if you seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” If they had real faith in God they would be disposed to believe that He “Who cares for the birds of the air and lilies of the field” would certainly take care of His own. They fail to grasp the difference between religion and one of its essential products. In other words, religion is not identical with concern for the poor or with sympathy for the suffering; these golden-rule interests are dictated by the religion of Christ, but, of course, not when they violate His moral law. We must love our neighbor not precisely because he is our neighbor, but because with him we have a common Heavenly Father, Who is concerned primarily about our eternal well-being. The Christian must believe that the King- dom of Heaven “suffers violence and only the violent can bear it away.” (Matt. II, 12.) In other words, he must believe that Heaven will be earned through the practice of self-control rather than self-indulgence.” Read Catechism on B. C. by J. F. N., Our Sunday Visitor. 78. What has the medical world to say about birth control? Doctor McCann of London, England, president of the League of National Life, has devoted most of his life to the study and treatment of women diseases and his answer is: “I unhesitatingly affirm that the practice of contraception is evil, and should be condemned be- cause it is physically harmful to the female, while some of the methods of contraception are harmful to both sexes. I repeat: All known methods of con- traception are harmful to the female, they only differ in being more or less so.” Doctor Alexis Carrel states, “that any method of contraception which effectually blocks the entrance to the cavity of the womb, and thereby hinders the ascent of the male ejaculation or otherwise prevents or hinders the secretory absorption, deprives the female of far-reaching benefits to her bodily metab- olism. Various contraceptive devices bring other dangers in their trial from infection, to which I shall only make a passing reference. Infection, however, is a real danger, which may be fraught with disastrous consequences to health and even to life. “Contra- PHYSICAL HARM 31 ception cannot, therefore, be supported on medical grounds because it interferes with the full physio- logical value of the sexual act. To think that con- traception may be continually practiced with impunity is to ignore and stultify all knowledge of the human body.” “Females seem to attain their full development after one or more pregnancies. Women who have no chil- dren are not so well balanced and become more nervous than the others. The presence of the fetus, whose tissues greatly differ from hers, because they are young and are, in part, those of the husband, acts profoundly on the woman. ... It is, therefore, absurd to turn woman against maternity.” Dr. James T. Nix, in his work, “The Unborn,” writes: “In all probability thirty per cent or more of persons who go to the operating table or are otherwise inca- pacitated by long illness resulting from pelvic infec- tion, are there as a result of malicious interference with conception or impregnation. I would like to suggest also that one of the principal causes of sterility in the female comes from this same cause. If I were asked a percentage of this, I would state about sixty per cent.” Speaking for England, Dr. Arthur Vernon Davies, in the House of Commons, declared that: “Competent medical opinion in this country is over- whelmingly against birth control. Only a few weeks ago a meeting of a medical society was held in London to discuss this very point, and the opinion was over- whelmingly against birth control. Therefore, when people say they are in favor of birth control they are speaking from ignorance. Let honorable members talk to any obstetric surgeon or a medical man or woman accustomed to a large gynaecological practice, and almost without exception these people will say that birth control is detrimental to the woman and detrimental to the child.” Dr. William G. Morgan in an address before the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representa- tives, Washington, D. C., May 20, 1932. “It cannot be successfully gainsaid that the habitual use of birth control through contraceptive contraptions makes an indelible, unwholesome impression upon the moral outlook of every woman who turns to them to escape motherhood. It removes moral restraint and gives reign to profligacy. Every physician of experience knows that all contraceptive devices and methods have a direct, more or less, effect upon the pelvic organs and the nervous system,” 32 RHYTHM THEORY Dr. Friedlander, in the American Journal of Ob- stetrics and Gynecology, January, 1927. “Unsatisfied cohabitation, onanism, excessive sexual intercourse, and all the possible methods of preventing conception in this day and age, cause nothing but sexual irritation. Any of these may bring on metropathy (diseases of the uterus). ” Dr. Howard Kelly, Professor Emeritus of Gynecology of Johns Hapkins University, who is not a Catholic, says: “After meddling with sex relations to secure faculta- tive sterility degrades the wife to the level of a prostitute. There is no right or decent way of con- trolling births but by total abstinence.” 79. What do you think of the so-called rhythm theory? The research of medical science which is the basis of the rhythm theory indicates that ovulation occurs most frequently at the mid-term of the menstrual cycle and thus enables those who are eager for parent- hood to plan for children with greater assurance of success, the most fertile period varying from the first to the nineteenth day of the cycle. Those who seek to use the theory for the frustration of parenthood cannot be assured of success in their effort because the period of immunity from conception is reckoned backward from the next onset of the menses, which is subject to variation from a variety of causes arising from unforeseen mental or physical shock, grief, fright, illness or any other unusual experience. 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