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Sex Is Life-Giving, Not A Right, Says Priest

In an August 4 talk at St. Joseph’s Church, Cockeysville, Fr. Leo Patalinghug bravely tackled a subject rarely addressed in Catholic churches today: contraception versus Natural Family Planning.

“Don’t think I’m judging anyone who is in a contraceptive mentality,” the associate pastor of St. John’s Church, Westminster, told an audience of about 60; “I’m just showing the other side of it.”

We live in a fast-paced society, said Father Patalinghug; we always want to speed things up — to use a microwave, so to speak, when God’s plan calls for a crock pot.

Father contrasted contemporary society’s view of sexuality as a right to be indulged in for pleasure, with the Church’s view of sexuality as a life-giving gift from God.

“My priestly vocation is a gift from God, your marriage is a gift from God; sex is a gift, not a right,” he asserted.

We also need to overcome the prevalent view that children are a curse; children are a blessing, he said.  “The procreative mentality is such that when you give yourself completely to each other, life results.”

Modern society, in which sex is no longer generally restricted to marriage and many children grow up in single-parent families, offers a poor preparation for marriage, so the Church needs to prepare couples for marriage, Father said.

He noted that his parish, St. John’s, is one of the few parishes that require instruction in Natural Family Planning as part of the required marriage preparation.

“It’s almost injustice that the Church doesn’t emphatically demand that we teach this,” said Michael Wallace who, with his wife Christine and Joanne and Patrick Cusiak, assisted Father Patalinghug in his talk.

The Wallaces, from Sacred Heart Church in Reisterstown, and the Cusiaks, from St. Agnes Church, Catonsville, are NFP instructors.

“Half of all marriages end in divorce, but less than 5 percent of couples using NFP end up in divorce,” said Michael.

“The world wants to tell us that NFP is not effective, but the sympto-thermal method is 99 percent effective”—more effective than the IUD, condoms or the diaphragm, according to a study by the Department of Health and Human Services, said Christine; “all you do is chart your body’s changes.”

Mr. Cuziak noted that practicing NFP generates “a lot of conversations” between husband and wife.

Father Patalinghug agreed, adding, “My dad is a doctor.  Women always ask him to be put on The Pill.  He tells them, ‘That’s a quick fix.  Why don’t you take some time to learn about your body?’

“NFP forces us to learn about our bodies and master them.”

Father Patalinghug’s talk, titled, “The Logic of Sex:  God’s or Society’s,” was sponsored by St. Joseph’s Pro-Life Committee.