I find it troubling to see having 2 or 3 children as inherently selfish. That kind of reasoning is why Catholics are branded as judgmental. Not to mention the fact that family size changing is NOT a bad thing. If we think small family = bad, big family = good - there becomes a dichotomy in our churches and an unspoken sense of being judged for Catholics who - for whatever reason - have smaller families (and not always via contraception!)

If you don’t have much money, it is prudent to not have a dozen children, I’d say! Or should we choose careers we don’t love in order to fund a big family, since that is the holy thing to do?

There seems to be an underlying assumption here that I find extremely troubling.

Money is the not the problem.  We live in a society that has the highest standard of living in human history, in a country where even the poor have air conditioning and cell phones and yet we still have people who believe that one needs a six-figure income in order to raise a large family.  One does not.  One needs a six-figure income in order to raise a large family, AND live in the McMansion, AND have two (or more) cars AND take annual vacations to Florida….  You get the idea. Its all about priorities.  What we have more often than not is an unwillingness to believe that the Lord will provide, and an inability to distinguish between needs and wants.

The reduced birth rate is a contributing factor, but—as Troubled cautions-you can’t just a family by its size, especially when you consider that some 25% of Americans couple are infertile.  I’m confident I’ve baptized many new Catholics conceived in vitro, which raises all sorts of ethical issues.  That said, young men have many more career choices nowadays.  And combined with the secularization of our society and the recent pedophile scandals, there now exist a less clear and compelling path to the priesthood.  (Let alone to Catholicism for Catholics who’ve left the Church!) I’m a dual Irish and American citizen.  A hundred years ago it wasn’t unusual for a non-farm Irish family to see their only son off to the seminary. It was considered a great honor, but was also—in most cases—a step up on the socio-economic ladder.  (Nigeria today offers a similar situation.)
I have served on the board of a major American seminary and that seminary today is overflowing with candidates.  The problem is the replacement rate is far below that necessary to fill the many parishes within our cities.  (I believe Cleveland just shut down 37+ parishes.) So if we want more vocations we’re going to have to make the priesthood more spiritually appealing and restore a sense of community (lost during the 60-70s) so that priests can co-exist in community.  More parishes will surely close.  But it will fall to the Catholic laity and existing clergy to recognize and encourage these vocations by the way they live their faith and by “asking for the order.”

Brian is right.  This isn’t about money, when you get down to it.  Yes, you do meet a lot of families where one or two is really all they were able to have, or the wife would desperately love more and the husband won’t hear of it.  My heart goes out to them.  But there are plenty more who really want to be past the diapers and the midnight feedings, and are horrified at the prospect of having even two teenagers in the house in a few years’ time.

We’re raising eight (nine due in a couple of months) in a very high-cost part of the country.  Thanks be to God, my husband’s salary allows me to stay home.  But we don’t have a mansion, we drive our cars until the wheels are falling off (my van is at over 120k miles) and most of time our family vacation consists of traveling back east to my mom’s house and staying there.  We don’t have cable, and when we eat out as a family, it’s at Denny’s or the local Chinese place, and the kids understand that it’s a treat, not a twice-weekly thing.

I’m a little terrified at the thought that a few years from now, we’ll have five teens in the house, up from the three we’re at currently.  But I know God will give us the grace to see us through, and I really do hope and pray that he’ll also give my kids the grace to correspond to a whole range of vocations—priesthood, religious life, marriage, apostolic celibacy, etc…

The point of the article isn’t to judge families by their size. Gosh, according to Catholic teaching and tradition, Jesus was an only child. The point of the article is to highlight that we have an entire culture that embraces a “contraceptive mentality” that has shifted how we see child-bearing and child-rearing. If we see children as ways to fulfill our personal dreams or as goods to acquire (and yes, I have seen both of these mentalities quite prevalently), then we are failing to embrace the self-giving nature of both Catholic vocations.

Admit it: it is much more common in modern, American culture to limit family size for a few extra comforts than to sacrifice a little more and break the 2-child average. It is not “judgmental” to take note of that cultural phenomenon and how it has changed the demographics of Catholic faith.

Also, it is Catholic teaching that artificial contraception is wrong for specific reasons (family planning, however, is not wrong). What do you expect of a Catholic publication? I would expect - and hope - a Catholic publication would stay true to those teachings.

One more thought… I think it’s logical to point out that a couple with less sons would perhaps be more hesitant to encourage the priesthood, but I don’t think family size should ever deter encouraging religious vocations in children. I’ve known only children who endured terrible emotional hardships because their parents wanted grandchildren, and that is totally unfair to the child. But that’s another article!

I don’t think we can or should place the blame only or squarely upon the use of contraception as the fault of the vocations shortage.  Maybe using contraception is a sign of the hedonism that our society is trending more deeply into, but I can’t say it’s the only thing.  This article troubles me, which I suppose was the point.

I’m an ex-seminarian. I’ve an only son and while I’ll be happy if in the future he chooses to become a priest, I’m really wishing I’d have another son. I’ll be praying for more vocations and for another son or sons - if they’d all become priests I’ll praise God to the high heavens.

Great post. Hits the right spot. Thanks.

This article appears to be an attempt to deflect our collective attentions from the REAL issues surrounding the priesthood. Simply put; if we all had bigger families everything would NOT be fixed.

Dear Danielle,
Thank you very much for your post! You couldn’t have said Truths any clearer: We are all called to live lives of self-sacrifice. And as Father Longenecker puts it: “Once young people who are searching for their vocation come to realize that they must decide to either die to self through marriage or die to self through a religious vocation, they will not only become far more realistic about marriage, but they will also view the religious life in a more attractive light.”
There are no more true words that are more powerful than these.
Truly,
Catherine Nagle

Danielle,

I think Fr. Longenecker’s observations regarding the impact of contraception are spot on. The use of artificial contraception and a “contraceptive mentality” have largely destroyed the sense of generosity that is systemic to a healthy family life. If families are the first seminaries, is it not surprising that such a pattern of paternal selfishness results in a lack of a willingness of those raised in that milieu to serve as spiritual fathers…as well as a general lack of available men to serve?

That said, I would not be too quick to dismiss outright the “solutions” offered by the young priest you heard speak. While the Latin Church embraced its own restrictive discipline for its own internal reasons, the other 21 Catholic Churches that make up the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church in communion with Rome practice precisely what he is suggesting, and yes, we are still fully Catholic and have the backing of the conciliar and papal magisteria (so long as one believes that Vatican II was an ecumenical council and that Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II were legitimate Successors of St. Peter, which of course they were!).

In general, the diaconate has principally been a younger man’s calling with the role of elder or presbyter being that of the man who is older, although this has not always been the case in every situation. Ironically, in the interest of preserving the discipline of a celibate-only presbyterate, the Latin Church has developed a model where the diaconate has essentially become the domain of the retiree and the call to priesthood has become that of the younger man. St. Paul tells St. Timothy to use the witness of a man’s fatherhood in his household to discern his worthiness for serving in the spiritual household of the Church for diaconal and sacerdotal ministry. Could this not be at least part of the solution to the vocational crisis by returning to what was the shared practice of the whole Catholic Church and is still practiced by the majority of Catholic Churches? Older married deacons who have served worthily for a number of years in their respective parishes could be ordained as non-stipendary priests who even serve under a celibate pastor for larger parishes or as pastors for smaller congregations. 

I certainly do not intend to paint this as the “silver bullet” to the problem of a priestly shortage, especially since it would bring about its own complications, none of which are even remotely insurmountable. The alternatives, though, of a single priest serving alone as pastor of a congregation of thousands or of a parish with a lay person or nun serving as administrator, visited by a rotation of clergy who are forced into the undesirable role of being treated more like “sacramental dispensaries” than pastors of congregations, are far more abhorrent and, unfortunately, far more common today. Additionally the loss of priestly vocations has had the consequence of isolating a priest from his brother priests as well, making the priesthood more of a “solo” ministry than the fraternal ministry it is intended to be.  Let us not forget the teaching of St. Ignatius of Antioch who referred to the Catholic Church as the bishop with his deacons and council of presbyters and the laity gathered together in the Eucharistic assembly. Also, one should recall the sending out by Christ of the 70 in pairs among other New Testament examples (12 apostles, 7 deacons, Paul and Barnabas, etc etc). Apostolic ministry should never be done in isolation, as we see more commonly today. It would be far better to close and consolidate parishes and have priests live in fraternity, IMHO, if they are going to be celibate only.

In the end, the Church must feed, nourish and grow her flock, as this is her divine commission from Christ Himself. The Eastern Catholic Churches that have not been Latinized or have not had Western disciplines unjustly imposed upon them offer the witness of a praxis that allows for both a celibate and a married presbyterate to function together. (I say this as a deacon who serves with two priests with large families.)  Why not consider a multi-faceted solution that involves both the pastoral elimination of contraceptive practices and a contraceptive mentality among the faithful as well as the generous call of family men to serve in apostolic ministry as deacons and priests?

This article really made a lot of sense. I am so glad to see there are still couples who make the sacrifice and assent to the churches teachings on marriage and contraception. I say that because we have moved to the southeastern part of the country where the protestant culture has a larger impact on the Catholics than vice versa. I became a “revert” to the Church and my wife a convert a few years already into our marriage but we have since been committed to being totally open to life. We don’t judge with our abundantly oversized family of 6 kids while we squeeze into a pew amongst the smiling families of average 2 children. But it does get a lttile lonely at times. Not that we are the only ones, there are a very few others but the pressure is there. We even get subtle comments from the priest occasionaly along with the total lack of any catechesis or preaching on the subject. Some who have larger families have caved on the issue by “fixing’ themselves. My wife can tell of regular conversations with young couples who admit they are “done” after having 2 kids. So its not judging it is a reality. So if this article or my or any comments posted here trouble anyone, please don’t take it personal. Take it to God in prayer.

Thanks Danielle for helping to get the message out.

I discuss topics such as abortion, homosexual acts, stem cell research, etc. with people, and by FAR the most controversial is artifical contraception.

Some who can see the evil of abortion and homosexual acts don’t want anyone taking those pills away!

We need to support and encourage our priests to bring this up from the pulpit. It’s difficult to hold Catholics’ feet to the fire on this one when they haven’t been catechized correctly.

It’s time for we the laity to step up.

One young priest’s viewpoint-

My cousin’s son became a priest, and I asked him what he believed was the largest obstacle to young men answering the call to the priesthood today, and he said, “Parents discouraging their sons from a priestly vocation.”

I think the contraceptive mentality contributes heavily to the parents’ reluctance.

The thing is that having children is very holy, God’s commandment is to multiplicate as said in the genesis. God calls us to give ourselves and we need to be open to life always.

I think those of you troubled by Danielle’s comments regarding small families need to reread the article.  She said “Couples who use contraception to limit their family size to “small” or “manageable” are more likely to feel that having a priest for a son costs them something. However silly or selfish that kind of thinking might be, it is real.”  She didn’t say that couples who have less than 8 kids are selfish, or anything else of the sort.

Well, I think it is a bit more complex than that. I am not sure that we can agree that we are called to a life of self-sacrifice as Ms. Bean contends. Life brings its own sacrifices without us looking for them. The life of a priest or religious is not more difficult that tht of a married person. I can agree that if there is a smaller pool of young Catholic men, there will be fewer priests. Conditions are different today than they were fifty years ago. There are more opportunities for education and for service in other professions. Young Catholic men today can become lawyers, doctors, architects, engineers and politicians more easily than before. If they have a missionary bent, they can temporarily join the peace core or Habitat for Humanity. There are also less priestly role models for young men because parochial schools have closed and parishes may be staffed with foreign clergy. Husbands and wives both work today because that is what it take to support a modest household not because they want to have everything.  In my estimation marriage is more heroic and demands more comittment of a person than the celibate life of a priest or religious.

Peter B. says, “Husbands and wives both work today because that is what it take to support a modest household not because they want to have everything.”

As a mom who used to work outside the home, I see things differently, Peter.  We now have a “modest” household, now that our income is cut in half. Before we had plenty mula, plenty of everything, EXCEPT time for the family. 

What good is all the dough when you’re too tired when you come home to interact with your children?

Not working outside the home has allowed us to focus on higher priorities other than the material. Our children are taught religion at home, do volunteer work, have time for bi-weekly confession, devotions, and spending time with mom and dad instead of having gadgets baby sit them.

I realize every family is different, but I think women have been lied to when we were told, “You can have it all.”

I had a full time job, 2 kids in public school, and two others in different day cares. It was no way to live. I will counsel my children differently…..  I might have had it all- but it included tension, anxiety, and left me spiritually crippled.

Working a 40-hr. week and being expected to keep up with children, husband, and household leaves you as a two-full time job woman. Forget about time for prayer, exercise, or liesure time.

After five years of being at home, I have to say it is better for my family as a whole. It is a less stressful lifestyle, and very often, when Momma is happy, the rest of the household follows suit.

As a church we seem to be stuck.  We look inward for more priests, to the parents, and place blame on them for their lack for formation in their sons- or worse yet, practicing birth control.  Or we look outward to married or women priests, and all that does is perpetuate the tired liberal v. conservative arguments I’m so sick of.  What we need is genuine holiness in families, at work, in marriage, in our kids. Numbers of children isn’t the issue - it’s how they are raised. Then, the so called priest shortage (which is partly myth, anyway) will take care of itself.

Hello Liseux, I guess it depends in which part of the country you live.  On Long Island NY, a modest house is over $350,000.  And here it usually does take two salaries to support the family and pay the mortgage.  So it is rarely a choice that a mother can stay home full time.  And I do agree with you that it often means she really has two full time jobs and the kids do get less time with the parents.  It may not be recommended but it is what is very common.

Peter, if it takes two salaries to support the family and pay the mortgage, then there sure are problems. I look around and see people, and the more money they make, the more they spend, and the more they think they have to have.

This is not a blanket statement, but I see so many trying to provide their families with “necesities” such as a cell phone for every individual, cable tv, etc. I guess one man’s necesities are another man’s luxuries.

With the $350,000 modest house, I would consider going less than modest until I could afford it or relocating if possible.

We are teaching our children to save their money, not only for college, but for their futures- be it as priests, husbands, wives, or singles. When my husband and I married, he and I had enough money saved to pay for 1/2 of the $350,000.00 house (though ours was built for less than 1/2 of that where we live).

It’s not impossible to avoid the mortgage trap.

Dave Ramsey has some great ideas on avoiding the credit cycle, and driving old cars at least temporarily.

Cocon, I agree with much of your statement. I don’t think “numbers” of children is the entire reason we have a priest shortage. I believe it’s our consumerist culture, combined with the contraceptive mentality.

Holiness is a huge part of the factor, but if a Catholic married couple is striving for holiness, then eventually artificial birth control would be completely out of the picture. With that, we would have larger families out of a love for life, IMHO.

Having spoken out for stay-at-home moms, I do know that there is another side to the coin.

Mothers have free will and different natures.  One friend of mine with four children told me she couldn’t stand to be at home with her children. She needed to get out and work. It’s her choice to make what fits her life.

Also, I know that some are single mothers who need to work.

Sometimes a husband’s salary or wages are not enough to provide the bare minimum. If education to get a better job or promotions in the future aren’t forthcoming, then I can see how a woman would have no choice but to work.

Could be even some women want to work while the men stay home…. My husband has jokingly mentioned that.

All in all, one hopes that the parents are doing in the short term and the long term what is best for their family, which includes sacrificing.

A solution that worked for me to stay at home with my children and finally ended the separation gap in my heart and family:
When I stopped working outside the home and was dependent on my husband’s salary, I realized that I needed to do things differently now.  I was given no more than enough money to take care of those needs in my own family.  But to do more for others outside my immediate family, as to meet their wants that were truly in need, would mean to share in a way that didn’t take away from us, but share what we had.  And coming from such an unusually large family, there was always someone in need of something, which I continued to pray and find a way to share.  I respected the single income was coming only from my husband. I was grateful and very familiar with being the sole provider in taking care of a family, as not to take advantage of him.  I found ways to give while we continued to have nice things for ourselves.  And by this time, I was in the position to afford an expensive outfit for myself, but instead, (as I learned the true meaning of giving many years ago from a lecture I heard on a Christian radio station in, “how to truly share?”) that was similar to my story here: 

          Instead of buying the expensive outfit for myself, I used my time and money to buy a couple of outfits for those in my family less fortunate, rather than focusing on what I wanted for myself.  And the miracle was, I ended up with the expensive outfit that I wanted in the first place that was on sale for more than half off!  My husband would say to me, “How is that a bargain when you ended up paying the same amount for it, as if it weren’t on sale!”  But his kind heart knew these things of sharing were of greater importance to me.  The same with elaborate vacations, I declined some, so as to help a family member who was without any way or means of vacationing, by sharing vacation time with them at our home that had an in-ground swimming pool.  My time was now available to do these things and take care of my own responsibilities.

I continued to help my husband in our home office by doing the clerical work for the growing company he worked for, or cook some wonderful dinners, or give my cosmetology services, or was able to give home furnishings at a lesser cost to those who couldn’t afford them, due to my husband and the courtesy of the company – without taking away from my husband or anyone, but adding to his life and those that I possibly could.  I started to see that besides feeling the richness that life is good in sharing, the simple abundance increased even more.  I was no longer working outside the home, and I used every talent I had in the service that God would have me, by extending myself to bring those who were without, some joy in one way or another.  I was aware of everything going on around me now.  And I found this is the way that makes a family; the love and service that holds the family and the world together, to grow in joy while working at home and raising children. It was the best thing in the world that I did for my family. Even while society pointed out other ways that I could have advanced more - God paved the way.  I have never regretted or feel today that I missed out on anything that was more important.
 

...we know from daily life that we exist for other people first of all for whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.

—Albert Einstein

I agree that God paves the way for His will in your life. I look back and see how God was guiding things. Praise you, Lord Jesus.

Yes, liseux. Thank You.
Thank God.
Praise Jesus.

I agree with the fundamental premise that societal attitudes toward contraception (seeing life as disposable) are bad, but I’ve got to say that this article gets the math wrong in a very obvious way. 

According to Bean’s logic, the priests should rise in proportion to the general population as the population rises.  Human population in 1650 was 500 million. Today it is right at 7 billion: a 14-fold increase.  By Bean’s logic, then, we should have 14 times more priests per parish than we did in 1650.  Why don’t we?  Well, of course the answer is that supply and demand *both* increase when the population grows.  In a simple equation, consider the supply of priests as the numerator and the demand for priests as a denominator. 

As the population rises, you get more priests, yes (that’s the numerator). The author here forgets that you also get more parishioners (which is the denominator). So, in order for the argument to make any sense, he’d have to prove that erstwhile contracepted babies would have grown up to be priests at a higher proportion than parishioners.

In point of fact, as our population rises, the opposite has been happening.  We have more and Catholics, but they aren’t choosing to become priests.

We might numerically have more Catholics than in the 1600s, but widespread contraceptive use didn’t come into play until the 1960s with the advent of the Pill.  The contraceptive mentality was not around in the 1600s, and people were more open to having children and to offering their lives as priests.

I think that what Danielle speaks about-contraception causing a shortage of priests, did catch up to us in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. 

Europe, Japan, Russia are all experiencing a dearth of births because they contracept, sterilize, and abort themselves into a negative birth rate. Italy’s per-woman birth rate is about 1.3 children per woman, which is not replacement level.

I do believe that because of JPII The Great’s New Evangelization and his Theology of the Body, along with younger priests PREACHING about contraception from the pulpit, we will see more success in the future.

Those Catholics who contracept will be replaced in numbers by those practicing Catholics follow Church teaching. Their descendents will be like the stars in the sky…. someone said.

Our society is also plagued with the easy-out (no-fault) divorce for people who do not feel like being married anymore.  The level of trust in our society is horribly broken when the core institutions of a society no longer carry with them a responsibility on the part of society as a whole to actually support them.  How did the contraceptive mentality find itself as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” in regards to Catholic teaching from the pulpits and in our schools?  Why do children come out of our schools more confused than confident about basic Catholic Doctrine?  How many seminarians were told to leave because their views were too orthodox?  Someone please tell me, if I give you a glass of water with a drop of wine, will I put you in danger of being a drunkard?

Troubled’s comments highlight exactly what the real problem is: reducing human beings to a price tag.  You insinuate that Catholics who see something wrong in willfully limiting parental generosity as being judgmental, yet you judge all human life by the dictates of money and a cost/benefit analysis??  Don’t you think you are being just a bit of a hypocrite?

What are you saying?  That a poor life is a life not worth living?  We live in the wealthiest country the world has ever known, yet we use lack of wealth as an excuse to reduce family size?  It’s insane!

Not so long ago, some bright men became priests simply because a seminary offered a good education and a path from a life of labor.  Also, many parents wanted a priest and forced one of the boys to go to seminary, like it or not.  I don’t doubt that more self-sacrifice is needed, even with families that only have two children (some only have that amount even if they follow Church teachings.)  Still, it’s also important to recognize that parents today often (and should) allow their children to select their own career and life paths.  Should parents encourage their children to investigate the clergy and consecrated life?  By all means.  Should parents expect or force a child into a religious vocation? I think not.  Forced vocations do not yield healthy clergymen or religious.  Also, I don’t think devout parents should feel that they have failed if none of their children choose a religious vocation.

Jordan, vocations cannot be forced.  A good spiritual and vocational director would be able to help the seminarian determine the difference.

I believe that we are missing the point about the connection between contraception and the shortage of priests. Young men from large, or small, families answer the call to the priesthood when they also hear positive comments about the Church and the priesthood from their family. Most Caatholid families are contraceptin. Only 10% of Catholics use NFP. When young men hear from their family that the Church is wrong on this one,it does not encorage them to answer the call. Also, as a society becomes more wealthy, it loses its reliance on god and develops an attitude that it can do it alone (see weekly mass atendance of 30%). Getting a good paying job and a wife becomes more important,especially in a culture that encourages sex to the max and minimizes abstinence and chastity.

This has been quite a debate!  Your experiences have really shed a lot of light on the issue.  Thanks Danielle and everyone!
Certainly, the contraception mentality does have its influence, but it is often on more than the parents’ discouraging (certainly not in every case, don’t get me wrong) a possible vocation.  Young people in general want to be generous, self-giving, and ultimately happy - that’s why hero stories appeal easily to the young.  That’s what we have to go out and encourage with our example, with our words, work - and prayer.

This article certainly struck a chord with me. As a young woman in her twenties and not unattractive I will honestly state, contraception has not only caused the priest shortage it has had a direct result on robbing men of their manhood.  Contraception is inherently a selfish act and, as the second generation of contraception users, young people have a hard time saying, “my parents blew it”. Marriage today is viewed at best even by “good” Catholic men as a kosher social norm.  But make sure you get everything you are “entitled” to: (i.e. educated wife, double income, “reasonable” size family)
If you don’t believe me then try this experiment. Next time you are introducing yourself to a colleague or stranger and they ask if you have kids tell them you are the happy parent of ten and see if you do not cringe with their response.  What should make us cringe is not the world’s response but the hardness of our hearts that makes us want to conform to it.

Marriage as a form of hedonism.  Wow.

I think that this article was stupid. The priest shortage is due to many complex variables that have been revealed by a lot of sociological studies by the US Catholic Bishops and other groups. Contraception MIGHT be one causal factor, but it certainly is NOT a major one.