“Good Catholics do not need to be like rabbits,” Pope Francis said last week. Ironically, this sound bite concluded a tour wherein he adamantly defended Pope Paul VI’s stance against use of artificial contraception, and was referring to judicious use of NFP. True to form, the international media replaced “be” with “breed” and plastered it across headlines worldwide, just a few days before the annual March for Life in Washington, DC.
It does not need to be said that his joke, taken out of context and made crueler in the retelling, will be hurtful to mothers of big Catholic families everywhere, and its misinterpretation by the faithful may hurt the cause of the Pro-Life movement. In the wake of his beautiful statement last week that motherhood is martyrdom, it is especially unfortunate that the sound clip comparing mothers to rodents is what leads headlines today.
Motherhood is martyrdom, and the sacrifice grows with each additional child. A mother of two children who desires to stay home during critical pre-school developmental periods may take five or six years off of work; a mother of eight dedicates two decades to the pre-kindergarten years alone. Given the recent national attention to the need for state-funded preschools (and, jointly, of proper early childhood care as the key to socio-economic mobility), one would think that someone who dedicates her life to this mission, without pay, should be given an appropriate level of societal approval or value.
Alas, the gleeful repetition of “Good Catholics do not need to breed like rabbits” perpetuates a culture that scorns a work of love that produces neither a bottom line nor a taxable income.
A glance at the comments’ sections under numerous articles covering the Pope’s statement is enough to worry any ethicist – rife with Neo-Malthusianism, commenters suggest that someone should tell the Latinos, the poor, the Indians. The latter is particularly disturbing, since the government of India is in fact spearheading a campaign to sterilize poor women, even offering women a small compensation to do so; about 37% of Indian women have been sterilized thus far, according to the UN’s 2006 report. There is no shortage of people who believe that certain populations are less worthy of reproduction than others, and the Pope’s words can be twisted to eugenicist or anti-life ends.
I understand what Pope Francis was trying to do. He is not calling for sterilization of the poor or criticizing those who have freely chosen to have many children. He simply does not want Catholic women to interpret “a martyrdom of motherhood” to mean that they are necessarily morally called to risk their lives by attempting to conceive an eighth child regardless of their health. He wants Catholics immersed in the contraception debate to understand that the discipline of NFP can provide a third way to navigate health, childbearing and providing for family.
In the West, his words seem to communicate that Catholic women should not feel obligated to decades of early childcare if they feel called to serve God through a balance of parenting and career. Presently, there is a false dichotomy between the pro-life stay-at-home mother of seven who sacrifices her career, and the vision of the career-oriented, “liberated” woman who embraces the contraceptive culture. A woman can be pro-life, have fewer children through the discipline of NFP, and be present to them during critical early childhood years while contributing through the workplace to broader society; in fact, we need more pro-life women who do.
In addition to the obvious benefits of higher visibility of pro-life women in media and culture, it is important to acknowledge the detriment to both society and the individual woman if the vocation to motherhood is perceived as mutually exclusive of contributions to public life through paid work. And it is important to acknowledge that, if a mother has eight children and believes the developmental detriments of early childhood day care outweigh the benefits, she is necessarily choosing motherhood at the expense of a career in public life. I know many mothers who feel frustrated and homebound, whose inner conflicts are explained away as temptations to selfishness rather than examined as possible vocational calls to serve God and the Church outside the home as well as in the family.
John Paul II wrote in his Letter to Women, “Thank you, women who work! … You make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of “mystery”, to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity.” It is important to acknowledge the gifts that women can bring to culture, economics, and the business world, as well as the gifts they can bring to the family; creative contributions to culture can go hand in hand with maternal care in the home.
For some, a moral obligation to have a rapid and numerous succession of children precludes the ability to contribute concurrently to public life. Our resistance to “volitional parenthood” within marriage is rooted in our total rejection of the abortion industry and the contraceptive culture usually associated with that end. However, granted that one is open to life within her marriage, a woman may feel called to live her femininity in the “growth of culture” in addition to motherhood, and through the discipline of NFP may feel free to achieve balance between family and public life without fear of stigma or condemnation.
Though I am inclined to sigh at Pope Francis’ choice of words, I hope that those who wrestle with it understand that he was directing his statement to those who risk their health or sacrifice their public lives for a moral tenet that they could, within the wisdom and realm of Church doctrine, resolve a different way. I hope that those who read his words remember that Pope Francis praises motherhood and supports the moral ban on contraception, and that he certainly opposes the evil of abortion. I hope that we are charitable to our earthly shepherd as we interpret his ethical exhortation within the liberating interior freedom of virtue and grace. And I hope we remember that we are all called to be martyrs for God, and have confidence that our works of love, wherever they may be, are seen by the One who sees all things.
Meghan Topp Goodwin graduated with a Master’s of Theology, Ethics, and Culture from the University of Virginia. She writes on pro-life issues, just war practices, economic empowerment, and education. She currently teaches Theology and Peace Studies at a Catholic preparatory school for immigrant, refugee, and low-income students outside of Washington, DC.
