A real Catholic family.

Although we are a minority, many Catholic couples rive to live in obedience to Humanae vitae. Some of s have a dozen children; some have none. When you have a big family, it's nice to find safe haven in the sub-culture of the traditional Catholic world (places like homeschooling events, chastity rallies, pro-life conferences, etc.). Families who are somewhere in the middle (say, three or four children), sometimes feel at home nowhere. In secular society, they feel obliged to apologize for having so many children. In some Catholic circles, they feel they must apologize for having so few.

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"Humanae vitae Catholics" should not hastily judge others based merely on family size, but sometimes we do. Not only are we possessed of sinful human nature, but having endured scorn for our beliefs ("You don't use birth control! Are you insane?"), we can fall almost imperceptibly into feeling justified in judging others. I once knew of a Catholic mother of a large (and, may I add, horribly behaved) bunch of children. She frequently boasted, "Now this is what a REAL Catholic family looks like!" No, madam, this is partly what prompted people to embrace contraception in the first place.

I know that faithful Catholics with small families feel judged, because they have told me so. I cannot tell you how often I have been talking with someone (or a couple) and--quite unexpectedly--they launch into an explanation of why they have fewer children than I do. This information is unwanted, unsolicited, and frankly, embarrassing. Church teaching states that couples must have "grave reasons" for limiting of postponing births. I am not on the Grave Reasons Committee; there is no Grave Reasons Committee (though I know a few people who wish there was one, and would like to be president). It is up to the couple to discern, with God's grace, when and how many children to have.

What matters is not the size of the house, but that it is built on the solid foundation of faith in Christ. The total number of rooms matters less than whether of not the front door is always left open for the Lord. I once read a heart-wrenching testimony by a Catholic couple who had no living children, but had endured the physical and spiritual pain of eleven miscarriages. To the world, they were "childless," but in reality, they were far more 'open to life' than most people I know (including myself). It takes special courage (and deep faith) to embrace that kind of suffering. This is what a real Catholic family looks like. One wonders if they ever had to endure the judgement of fellow "faithful" Catholics who saw only their externally childless state, and leapt to the conclusion that they selfishly chose to suppress their fertility.

It is wonderful and admirable to desire a large family, but ultimately, it ought to be the Lord who decides on the final number. It's an insult to your existing children to say, "Our family isn't yet complete," and an insult to the Author of Life to claim that it is. We ought to desire every blessing that the Lord has in store for us. Every child ought to be welcomed for his/her own sake, and cherished as if he or she is the last child God will ever give us, for sooner or later, this will prove to be the case. When people (rudely) ask us how many children we are going to have, our answer ought to be (charitably): "All of them."

I know beautiful, faith-filled Humanae vitae families who have only one, two or three children. They were open to more, but God had other plans for them--sometimes plans that involved terrible crosses: miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, the death of a newborn, sudden infertility, cancer or other serious health problems. I also know people with numerous children who have said, "If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have had so many." My heart weeps. Which one(s) would you have chosen to eliminate? Could you face that child and tell him so?

Please do not judge others based on the size of their families. The pursuit of sanctity is not a numbers game. A certain Mrs. Wojtyla had only two children who survived childhood, and only one lived beyond his young adult years. Judging from the way her only surviving son Karol turned out, we can assume they led a very holy family life, despite having had so few children.

What matters is obedience to Christ and his Church, and yes, that includes Humanae vitae. What matters most are faith, hope and love, lived out in our homes and in the world. That is what a real Catholic family looks like.

Mariette and Dan Ulrich live in Scott, SK. They are the parents of eight children: seven on earth and on in heaven.