This is the third post in my series titled, The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Burden of Natural Family Planning which attempts to propose some practical and sensitive avenues for addressing the struggles many couples have with NFP. Click the links for Part One and Part Two. It isn’t unusual in NFP circles to run into faithful, devout, well-intentioned people who use NFP but live in a constant state of fear about it. Sometimes they are concerned about the method for... Read more
My fellow Patheosi, Will Duquette, at Cry Woof was wondering about the psychological technique of mindfulness and how it fits into Catholic spirituality. He writes… From what I’ve gathered, mindfulness involves quieting your thoughts and being aware and alert to your body and your environment. As such, it’s a way of being present, of living in the moment; and apparently the goal is to start small and increase this mindfulness in all parts of life. A caveat: I gather that mindfulness... Read more
Before you read this, I hope you’ll take a moment to read Part 1 in this series. The challenge of sexual frustration in NFP is a serious problem that deserves serious answers. Take a moment to read my original post that lays the groundwork for what follows. I’ll wait. Read it? Great. Let’s continue. Oh, in that last piece I said I’d deal with medical concerns and extended fertility etc in Part II. I see now that’s going to... Read more
Apparently all the 4th of July fireworks got a lot of couples thinking about the fireworks that weren’t happening in their bedrooms. It’s usually difficult to ever find anyone writing anything about Natural Family Planning. This week brings two different posts on the challenges of using NFP. America Magazine has an article about the struggles various couples have with the method due to everything from medical complications to failure of the method to struggles with periodic abstinence and the sexual... Read more
From my interview with Aleteia Zoe Romanowsky Everyone has heard the stories by now: How relatives of the nine victims gunned down by 21 year-old Dylann Roof at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, NC, appeared at Roof’s bond hearing and spoke words of forgiveness and mercy to him. It’s not the first time we’ve seen this kind of response by devastated family members in the face of unimaginable loss. When Charles Roberts, a 32 year-old milk truck driver,... Read more
My latest article for OSV’s Daily Take If your child came home from school with a test grade of 22 percent would you be concerned? How about 17 percent or 13 percent? Sadly, new research by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown found that similar numbers reflect the spiritual health “grades” of Catholic families. The first-of-its-kind study was sponsored by Holy Cross Family Ministries, an organization promoting family prayer and family well-being around the world... Read more
This post is part two in my Head to Head debate with John Mark Reynolds on whether one can be moral without God. My position is that one can be moral without believing in God. John is arguing the opposite. When we were first assigned the question, “Is a deity necessary for morality” I thought about asking the powers-that-be to revise it because my first reaction was, “Well, of course, God is necessary for morality! God is necessary for everything!”... Read more
I’ve been hearing from a lot of parents who, especially in the wake of SCOTUS decision on gay marriage have serious concerns about raising faithful, moral kids in the present culture. It’s never been easy, but recent events take the challenge to parents to a whole new level. How do we convey the Catholic vision of love and marriage to our kids in a world that defines these terms in completely different ways than we do? How can we hope... Read more
A colleague sent me the following question today. “I’ve heard Pope Francis and others say that children have a right to a mom and dad, but I don’t know what that means in the concrete. I wouldn’t say, for example, that single parents have a responsibility to search for a spouse, or that the mom in Secondhand Lions was necessarily wrong to have her uncles raise her son. If SSM were ever banned again, should the state be empowered... Read more
We’ve all had times when it was hard to forgive someone for having hurt us or when our attempts to gain someone else’s forgiveness have fallen flat. Heart Health Sometimes, “I’m sorry” isn’t enough because owe have an unforgiving heart. We want to hold on to the pain because it makes us feel self-righteous and superior to the person who hurt us and it gives us a weapon to use against the offender. “Oh, yeah? NOW you want to be... Read more
Faith on the Couch
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