To put me off a teaching career, Mom would say: “Those who can’t, teach.” The adage took on new meaning when Sister Gloria taught us sex education in high school.
I salute her for grace under fire. We greeted with mocking incredulity her lessons on the mysteries of reproduction. By then we had gained much knowledge of these mysteries through independent study, without guidance, encouragement, or permission from teachers or parents. Some of the research was participatory: before we graduated, three classmates had graduated into maternity.
Participatory or not, independent research was more fun than lectures on reproductive organs, delivered valiantly by a soft-spoken celibate who hadn’t had to use them.
I have no quarrel with consecrated celibacy. The choice to stay single and chaste for the service of God and humanity makes perfect sense to me. The Church tells us matrimony is also a holy vocation, but it is easier to serve God and humanity unencumbered by the care and feeding of a spouse and children. And some people are so large of heart God must have meant their love to be a shared planet, big enough for the rest of us.
Yet however large of heart, consecrated celibates are apt to be greeted with some incredulity when they tell the rest of us how to manage the care and feeding of spouses and children—especially that form of care for spouses that may produce children. Here they may invoke the authority of divine revelation and of moral reasoning; but if they are faithful to their vows, they cannot invoke the authority of experience.
Not to say they can’t talk credibly about sex. Outsiders to a relationship may be quicker to see something troubling about it than those actually in it. So, too, consecrated celibates can look at how we have sex and see something troubling about it. Their outsider status may give them a clarity about sex that we, submerged in its compulsions, have not. So when the bishops say contraceptives devalue sex and life, we may want to think about it.
But celibates are still aliens to the world of those who have sex and children. One process that may help them understand that world is inculturation, discussed in the Conciliar Document of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II).
“In the process of inculturation,” says PCP II, “the Church and the culture of a people interact …. Without in any way changing the Gospel’s substance, the Church needs to present it in such a way that peoples will be able to appreciate its true meaning …. Inculturation requires evangelizers to immerse themselves in the cultural milieu of those to whom they are sent.”
I am not suggesting consecrated celibates engage in participatory research of the sort that ended high school for three of my classmates. But they can immerse themselves in the culture of those who have sex by helping to promote the one birth regulation method the Church allows: Natural Family Planning (NFP).
NFP is not a poor alternative to contraception. Practiced well, it is as effective as the condom; even Planned Parenthood says so. It is cheap and safe. It teaches discipline, delayed gratification, bodily awareness, communication and consideration between spouses—all good lessons for adults to learn.
The teachers might learn some good adult lessons too. Our Institute conducts NFP seminars in two low-income areas in Quezon City. Our priests do not teach NFP technique, but their association with the endeavor helps them appreciate the constraints the poor face in keeping faith with Catholic reproductive ethics. This is one reason we stress dialogue with reproductive health (RH) advocates, when other Catholics—many of whom have never taught NFP—are at war with them.
As prelate of Ipil and later of Cagayan de Oro, Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, SJ started “All-NFP Programs” in those sees. These efforts reach small numbers, but do them more good than mere opposition to contraception. In Impact Magazine in 2006, the Archbishop wrote: “Our biggest challenge then may not be to confront government or an international conspiracy but rather to address the felt needs of thousands of married couples in our rural and urban poor neighborhoods.” His focus on those needs makes him one bishop unlikely to slam the door on RH proponents.
Such immersion demands that evangelizers cultivate openness toward those they evangelize. The missionary, says PCP II, “will have to be a learner, willing to be taught by the people he [or she] has come to teach.” But learning can be upsetting: “Changes are necessary and these place the evangelizer in a less dominant position. They can make him feel insecure.” Absolute moral positions are more comfortable to hold in their righteous purity than moral positions tempered by pastoral engagement with the faithful and not-so-faithful.
But such unsettling immersion is vital in preaching the Church’s reproductive ethics. “Inculturation,” says PCP-II, “is necessary for the sake of the [C]hurch itself …. Unless the Church participates in this process … it will not be able to respectfully draw the good elements within the culture, renew them from within and assimilate them to form part of its Catholic unity.”
In a 2010 interview with the Union of Catholic Asian News, Fr. Robert Reyes imagined “armies of educators” spreading NFP across the country. If the Church redeployed her pro-life armies thus, their learnings could flow back into her teaching on reproductive ethics. How much more credible, then, might that teaching be.
Those who can’t, can teach Natural Family Planning
To put me off a teaching career, Mom would say: “Those who can’t, teach.” The adage took on new meaning when Sister Gloria taught us sex education in high school.
I salute her for grace under fire. We greeted with mocking incredulity her lessons on the mysteries of reproduction. By then we had gained much knowledge of these mysteries through independent study, without guidance, encouragement, or permission from teachers or parents. Some of the research was participatory: before we graduated, three classmates had graduated into maternity.
Participatory or not, independent research was more fun than lectures on reproductive organs, delivered valiantly by a soft-spoken celibate who hadn’t had to use them.
I have no quarrel with consecrated celibacy. The choice to stay single and chaste for the service of God and humanity makes perfect sense to me. The Church tells us matrimony is also a holy vocation, but it is easier to serve God and humanity unencumbered by the care and feeding of a spouse and children. And some people are so large of heart God must have meant their love to be a shared planet, big enough for the rest of us.
Yet however large of heart, consecrated celibates are apt to be greeted with some incredulity when they tell the rest of us how to manage the care and feeding of spouses and children—especially that form of care for spouses that may produce children. Here they may invoke the authority of divine revelation and of moral reasoning; but if they are faithful to their vows, they cannot invoke the authority of experience.
Not to say they can’t talk credibly about sex. Outsiders to a relationship may be quicker to see something troubling about it than those actually in it. So, too, consecrated celibates can look at how we have sex and see something troubling about it. Their outsider status may give them a clarity about sex that we, submerged in its compulsions, have not. So when the bishops say contraceptives devalue sex and life, we may want to think about it.
But celibates are still aliens to the world of those who have sex and children. One process that may help them understand that world is inculturation, discussed in the Conciliar Document of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II).
“In the process of inculturation,” says PCP II, “the Church and the culture of a people interact …. Without in any way changing the Gospel’s substance, the Church needs to present it in such a way that peoples will be able to appreciate its true meaning …. Inculturation requires evangelizers to immerse themselves in the cultural milieu of those to whom they are sent.”
I am not suggesting consecrated celibates engage in participatory research of the sort that ended high school for three of my classmates. But they can immerse themselves in the culture of those who have sex by helping to promote the one birth regulation method the Church allows: Natural Family Planning (NFP).
NFP is not a poor alternative to contraception. Practiced well, it is as effective as the condom; even Planned Parenthood says so. It is cheap and safe. It teaches discipline, delayed gratification, bodily awareness, communication and consideration between spouses—all good lessons for adults to learn.
The teachers might learn some good adult lessons too. Our Institute conducts NFP seminars in two low-income areas in Quezon City. Our priests do not teach NFP technique, but their association with the endeavor helps them appreciate the constraints the poor face in keeping faith with Catholic reproductive ethics. This is one reason we stress dialogue with reproductive health (RH) advocates, when other Catholics—many of whom have never taught NFP—are at war with them.
As prelate of Ipil and later of Cagayan de Oro, Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, SJ started “All-NFP Programs” in those sees. These efforts reach small numbers, but do them more good than mere opposition to contraception. In Impact Magazine in 2006, the Archbishop wrote: “Our biggest challenge then may not be to confront government or an international conspiracy but rather to address the felt needs of thousands of married couples in our rural and urban poor neighborhoods.” His focus on those needs makes him one bishop unlikely to slam the door on RH proponents.
Such immersion demands that evangelizers cultivate openness toward those they evangelize. The missionary, says PCP II, “will have to be a learner, willing to be taught by the people he [or she] has come to teach.” But learning can be upsetting: “Changes are necessary and these place the evangelizer in a less dominant position. They can make him feel insecure.” Absolute moral positions are more comfortable to hold in their righteous purity than moral positions tempered by pastoral engagement with the faithful and not-so-faithful.
But such unsettling immersion is vital in preaching the Church’s reproductive ethics. “Inculturation,” says PCP-II, “is necessary for the sake of the [C]hurch itself …. Unless the Church participates in this process … it will not be able to respectfully draw the good elements within the culture, renew them from within and assimilate them to form part of its Catholic unity.”
In a 2010 interview with the Union of Catholic Asian News, Fr. Robert Reyes imagined “armies of educators” spreading NFP across the country. If the Church redeployed her pro-life armies thus, their learnings could flow back into her teaching on reproductive ethics. How much more credible, then, might that teaching be.
Published in Commentary