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.

I married when my husband was still studying at university, and since we could not afford a family, we decided on the pill as the best form of birth control then available. I did not go to communion. My husband was born in Italy, baptised Catholic, but is not in the least religious. After 4 years when we were more settled financially, we decided to have a child, but nothing happened, and we spent the next 3 years at gynaecologists, urologists, and infertility clinics. The church was dumb – I received no help other than to be told that I could not undergo artificial insemination by donor. No-one was interested in what I was going through – when sex is so controlled so that one can fall pregnant, a lot of the fun and the love goes out the door. I was lucky enough to fall pregnant after 7 years of marriage after my husband had a small operation, and lucky that ever since then I have not had to worry about contraception. So we had only one child. However in discussion with others and observing families in church, it is obvious that most Catholics practise some form of contraception and generally restrict their families to 2 children. Priests acknowledge this and it is only the very few who have a different mindset. I would just like to say that I felt very alone for a very long time and never felt that the church was interested in my pain. My daughter was raised as a Catholic and went to Catholic school, but apart from asking me why she had no siblings, the church has been quiet.{jcomments on}