LIMITATION OF FAMILIES

New Zealand Tablet, 21 November 1912, Page 27

LIMITATION OF FAMILIES

DENUNCIATION OF BIRTH RESTRICTION The crowded congregation that attended the mission service at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland, on Tuesday night (says the Auckland correspondent of the Otatjo Daily Times) was treated to some very plain speaking from the Very Rev. Father O'Conneil concerning the subject of the violation of the sanctity of marriage in a sermon which was at once a denunciation of birth restriction, with its attendant evils and practices, and an- appeal to the manhood and womanhood of the Catholic life of the city to preserve the virtues of the home and the vigor of the race. ' I have come prepared to speak plainly,' said Father O'Conneil, and I am speaking with the full authority of my priesthood.' He prefaced his words on the subject with remarks on the tendency of the age to turn from the Christian life towards paganism, and stated that there were evils in the world to-day which were tolerated by so-called respectable' men of the world, and not condemned because the spirit of the world was selfishness, self-gratification, and the enjoyment of sensual pleasures. He recalled encyclical letters of Pope Leo XIII., who traced the evils to three causes: hatred of a humble and industrious life, horror of suffering, and forgetfulness of future glory. The spirit of selfishness made a man detest the responsibilities of life, have a hatred of the simple life that was enjoyed in the home and took him away from home ties to seek self-gratification and enjoyment in the world. It fostered a hatred of humility and industry, and raised a desire for independence and for equality, and begot rebellion against rightly-constituted authority, and contempt of the responsibilities of life. Because of a dreadful sin which is so prevalent in our country and other lands, men in every land are raising their voices against that terrible crime known as the decline of the birthrate. There are many whitened sepulchres parading the streets adorning their bodies with all that money can buy, despising the

authority of God, and refusing to do what God has decreed. They are bringing down the curse of God upon their home and on ail those connected with them.’ The horror of suffering was advanced, he continued, as a reason for violating the Divine decree. They., found round about them tne great cry, ‘ There must be no more children, so there were empty cradles, an absence of little ones from the schoolrooms built at great cost to the country, and the outcry that the land would never be peopled because of the abominations that were practised in the homes of New Zealand. He held in bis hand a pamphlet entitled ‘lnfanticide. That word meant the murder, the slaughter. of children. It was a strong expression, but it came from Archbishop Carr, one of the champions of the Catholic Church, and one of the most prudent men in Australasia. Father O'Connell quoted the pamphlet relating to the restriction of birth in Australasia and America. They knew, he continued, that the evil existed in New Zealand, that legislators raised their voice against it.;.' They knew that in Australia, to their shame, they were offering a bonus for motherhood. He feared very much that men and women entered the state of marriage through unworthy motives, rather than for the sacramental help offered in the Divine decree. He knew excuses were made by married people that it was their own business whether they had children or not, but he told them plainly it was not their own affair, and there was a responsibility on them for the manner in which they discharged their duties in the marriage state.

Touching another phase of the question, the preacher quoted Father Coppeu’s opinion, as given in the pamphlet referred to.- ‘No censure can be too strong for those physicians who suggest to, a young mother that because of some more than usual suffering in her first child-bearing she must avoid having any more children. Probably enough, if the imprudent suggestion about the-dangers of a second child-bearing had not been made by the doctor, the young wife might have become the happy mother of a numerous family of healthy children.' Again, Archbishop Carr was quoted as saying that any unnatural interference with the primary, end of marriage was not only in open opposition to its Divine institution, but was, also a practical denial of God’s supreme dominion, and a grave outrage against his extrinsic glory. Suppose according to God’s will and the order of Nature five or six children would be born of the union of a married couple, but they previously limited the number to one or two, or, worse still, determined that no children should gladden their married life, did they not usurp the prerogative of the Almighty, violate the order of Nature, and deprive marriage of the first and greatest of its blessings and prerogatives? The words were very strong, stated Father O’Connell, but he was there to sound a note of warning against the abominations that -were so prevalent in the world to-day. There was a great amount of child prevention, a great deal of child murder, and Catholic men and women had to be warned against those terrible evils. They must be put on their guard against the medical man or the nurse or the chemist who would encourage the vile practices that must of necessity bring punishment upon the heads of those who indulge in them. If they knew of any medical man who so far degraded his profession as to encourage or mislead any Catholic woman to what was contrary to God’s decree he warned them to keep that man outside their homes. He exhorted them not to go to the shop of a man who sold preventatives, no matter how respectable his name might be, and instructed them to keep from their homes the nurse or the neighbor who advised them in evil practices.

In conclusion, the preacher quoted Archbishop Carr’s prayer, ‘ God grant that our country may never become the victim of such unnatural and unholy practices as are here condemned. May she retain the vigor of youth and the love of what is chaste into distant generations. May she never know that decrepitude of ago and curse of decay which come not from the natural deterioration of the stock, but from ■ artificial interference with the laws which the Almighty has established for the propagation and perpetuation of the human family.’