The People Speak Out

Local voices connecting globally

This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.  (Pope Francis)

Canon Law 212 calls upon the laity to speak up:

2 - The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.

§3. - According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.

We are married for 15 years. personally I became a catholic in high school and got interested in understanding the faith. I embraced the faith fully and got fully involved in church activities in my parish as a youth to the university and even after university. by the time I married we were both aware of what the church expected of us on birth control. we hoped to be free of contraceptives but didn’t find teachers to guide us on NFP immediately. We began on trial and error and after our 1st born my dear wife got scared to continue that way and without my consent she went into artificial methods. This hurt me spiritually and in a way affected our relationship but we continued talking about it. Due to the effects of the Norplant she was using she began body complications and having sexual intimacy was next to impossible. after soul searching we decided to look for NFP teachers which we did, got taught and how to use and when we reached autonomy our teachers sent us to be trained as teachers. It took some time for my wife’s body to get back to normal but today we thank God for our decision. My take is that the church should not change her teaching on birth control simply because we human beings do not want to sacrifice for good things in our marriage. I am happy to report that since 2009 we have also taught many couples whose marriages have come back to life through the use of NFP and especially because in NFP I and my dear wife we talk to each other every day. I can share more and more about this and the joy it has brought our marriage but let me stop there. We are happily married with 3 children.
Thank you for this opportunity. God bless your work
Patrick Kinyua{jcomments on}