Please Procreate Responsibly

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Were they responsible?

In Chicago, as Frank Sinatra pointed out, men dance with their wives.

Sometimes that leads to other things.

In the great movie Rob Roy, one of the Catholic Highlanders tells this joke at a celebration:

Q: Why are Calvinists against making love standing up? 

A: It might lead to dancing.

Last night I danced with my wife.

Is it always "procreation" or is it only procreation if you find out later that it was?

In any case, I didn't think about it. Even once. I don't think she did either.

I went to work without feeling guilty. As I remember, I bought a cup of coffee and a donut.

Do not misunderstand. In other contexts, we often consider the general issue quite thoughtfully. In last night's context, we didn't.

Is that responsible procreation?

Of course, I'm thinking about this against the background of the recently released Instrumentum Laboris of the Synod (on the Family). One of the Agenda Items is "responsible procreation."

I've read that in the early Medieval Church, sometimes it was thought necessary to confess if you had romantic feelings for, and acted on them with, your spouse. Unless of course you had no romantic feelings and were just doing your duty to populate the earth or whatever.

Now (it seems) you have to confess if you only had romantic feelings and were not dutifully thinking of the effects of acting on those feelings on, say, future carbon emissions.

We've come full circle, sort of.

Okay, so I've always wanted to say this:

Hands off my body.

Hands off my wife's body.

And hands off, well, you know.

We'll procreate however we damn well want.

Another item on the Synod agenda is "birth reduction."

I know. I did a double-take on that one too. No doubt there will be more to say about it later. But for now, this will merely have to do:

Hands off my (future) ten-seat van with the Pro-Life stickers...

...you nasty heretical freaks.

By the way, I just learned that the label, "responsible procreation" has occasionally been used by defenders of "traditional marriage" against proponents of "gay marriage." With respect to my Christian brothers and sisters, I think that's bizarre.

Within a Catholic context, that's like using the slogan, "responsible drinking" to defend bars.

I know it depends on how you define the terms, but to me, life itself isn't even "responsible" per se. It isn't controllable. It isn't even manageable.

It's beautiful. It's unpredictable. It's joyful. It's, yes, anarchic. And it's infinitely valuable, whatever some sour post-modernist bishop might say.

And as I recall, some One once "saw that it was very good."