My mother had polio as a young child which left her with scoliocis of the spine and one leg that was a little shorter than the other. When she got married and had her first child she was told not to have another child for some time. She did however have a perfectly healthy pregnancy and gave birth to a second child 18 months later. Some time after this however, the doctors again warned her not to have more children. Unsure of what to do my Mother went to see her Parish Priest. He innocently advised her to go to see the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council (CMAC) for advice and so she did.
The ladies at CMAC presented her with the cap and told her to use this to prevent the conception of further children. Believing that the agency she was at was following the Church's teaching, my Mother had every reason to go ahead and use the cap. However, she found the whole idea of it repulsive and threw it in the bin. Soon afterwards Pope Paul VI brought the issue of contraception firmly back into the public eye and re-stated the Church's age-old prohibition against contraception, which my parents were very happy to accept and embrace. Thankfully, - due to my Mother's instinctive wisdom - very shortly afterwards they were also very happy to accept and embrace me!
Clare McCullough
What a wonderful story!
ReplyDeleteOver 16 years ago, whilst still a journalist, I had the fortune to be tipped-off that CMAC was "re-branding" itself and dropping the word "Catholic" from its new name "Marriage Care". I published a story in a Catholic newspaper that told how CMAC would finally be overtly ignoring Catholic teaching. They threatened to sue, thinking I'd be terrified. I said "go on, then".
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting to hear back.