Butting Heads Over NFP

The butting of heads in the NFP battle goes on...and on…and on. It goes like this: I write unfavorably about NFP; I get criticism from NFP proponents who ask for justification of my views; I repeat the same line of thinking I’ve laid out here on the blog and in my book, Natural Family Planning: Trojan Horse in the Catholic Bedroom? 

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Sometimes – often, actually – it seems to me that the two sides are talking past each other. “They” don’t seem to get what I’m saying, and I’m sure it appears to “them” that I don’t get what they’re saying.

That begs the question: why?

I think Fr. Chad Ripperger supplies at least a partial answer in his 2001 article in Christian Order entitled “Operative Points of View”.  Fr. Ripperger discusses the “bigger picture” of disagreements between “traditionalists” and “neo-conservatives” (see footnotes 1 and 2  in the article for his definitions of those labels), which he attributes to “the relationship each position holds with respect to ecclesiastical tradition”. He develops this argument quite convincingly, I think, and I encourage you to read the entire article (there’s quite an education to be had in the footnotes!). He summarizes the difference between the two positions this way (my emphases):

…[T]he fundamental difference between neo-conservatives and traditionalists is that the neo-conservative looks at the past through the eyes of the present while the traditionalist looks at the present through the eyes of the past.

In thinking about the arguments NFP-promoters have used against me, I believe that is exactly what I am seeing, time and time again. I see NFP and TOB supporters leaning heavily on post-Vatican II documents while sometimes seeming to casually dismiss Fathers and Doctors of the Church like Aquinas and Augustine. Referring to popes as recent as Pius XI and XII even meets with resistance, on occasion. Fr. Ripperger’s article shed some light on that for me. He wrote (emphasis in original):

Neo-conservatives have fallen into this way of thinking, i.e., the only standard by which they judge orthodoxy is whether or not one follows the current magisterium. Traditionalists, as a general rule, tend to be orthodox in the sense that they are obedient to the current magisterium, even though they disagree about matters of discipline and have some reservations about some aspects of current magisterial teachings which seem to contradict the previous magisterium (e.g. the role of the ecumenical movement). Traditionalists tend to take not just the current magisterium as their norm but Scripture(41), intrinsic tradition, extrinsic tradition and the current magisterium as the principles of judgment of correct Catholic thinking. This is what distinguishes traditionalists and neo-conservatives i.e. their perspectives regarding the role of ecclesiastical tradition and how the current magisterium relates to it.

It seems to me that these different “operative points of view” are very evident in just about every “discussion” that has taken place in the comment sections of any of my posts on the topic of NFP.

A supportive commenter on this blog, who has also published important articles on Humanae Vitae and other topics, used an analogy that I think illustrates Fr. Ripperger’s analysis quite well.  He was addressing in particular the question raised by another commenter: "Why alienate that 2% of people [that is, those using NFP instead of artificial contraception]who are striving to follow Church teaching albeit in a different way than might be preferred?" His answer was:

What we are told

…We all know and we all agree that the Church has lost the 98%.

Imagine that there is a great ocean liner like the Titanic. It is sinking and all the people try to get off. Unfortunately, 98% of the passengers drown, but 2% are able to get onto lifeboats. Now a generation has passed, and the passengers on the lifeboat think that being on a lifeboat is normal, and they do not remember that there ever was an ocean liner, or if they do recall the days of the liner, they are told about how horrible it was back then, and how much better off they are on the lifeboat. The fact that 98% of the passengers were lost and eaten by sharks does not dismay them as long as they are part of the 2% on the lifeboats. 

Which highlights two problems with the lifeboat approach: 1. Only a small handful are saved and the vast majority are consigned to perdition. 2. Even for the small handful, life is not normal. The passengers were never intended to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a lifeboat. But they do not realize the incongruity of their position since it seems normal to them.

To make the allegory more pertinent, we need to remember that "periodic continence" was always permitted at best as a lifeboat. It was always supposed to be an emergency escape hatch. It was never intended to constitute normal everyday practice.

To understand the view of Dr. Boyd and Fr. Gardner, one has to imagine that the ocean liner never actually sunk at all. Despite the panic of the passengers and crew which led them to abandon ship, the ocean liner is still there. The true boat, the original boat, the boat that can hold all the passengers in the world, the boat that will be able to get you across the ocean instead of wandering aimlessly, the boat that has everything that is necessary for an ocean voyage and not just a bare minimum for survival, that boat is still available for anyone who wants to avail themselves of it. 

Reality

The crew of the lifeboat will try to scare any passengers who try to return: "No, don't go back," they will say, "The ocean liner was a terrible place. There were 1st-class and 2nd-class passengers back then, but today we are all equal on the lifeboat. The captain ordered 'Abandon ship,' and you will be disobedient if you go back."

In order to leave the lifeboat and return to where he belongs, a passenger first has to overcome his shock at realizing that the ocean liner didn't sink despite everything that he has been taught his whole life. He has to trust his eyes and say, "Look, I see it right over there." Then he has to overcome the fear-mongering that will try to keep him from returning. But when he finally arrives at the ship, imagine his astonishment to see that the band is still playing, faithful passengers and crew have kept everything operational. The ship will still take him across the ocean to the other side. And it will do so with beauty and decorum and generosity in place of the ugliness, wretchedness, and deprivation that characterized life wandering aimlessly in a lifeboat.

This little allegory rings true for me! How many times have we all heard that “Latin was abolished” or that “using Latin in the Mass is taking a step backwards”! Those who “discover” the extraordinary form of the Mass discover that the ocean liner is still there. And once they discover that, they seem to open up to other “discoveries” about authentic Catholic teaching in a number of areas, such as ecumenism, the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation…even the desirability of a large family! They discover that hell is real and Heaven is a much better place than anyone ever told them before.

Yes, turning to the EF Mass and embracing tradition opens up a whole new world: a supernatural world that has been lost to many in today’s Church with its dreadful catechesis and protestantized world view.

Maybe we will never get the two “operative points of view” to see eye-to-eye. Maybe these operative points of view were the cause of the problems with Vatican II in the first place – rather than a consequence. I’m not sure about that, but I am sure that Fr. Ripperger was on to something in that article 12 years ago, and those operative points of view continue diverging today.

Something has to change, or we’re never going to get our little lifeboats back to that ocean liner.