Why do Catholics have big families?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 01, 2011

Yes, there is such a thing as a stupid question.

If you have more than two or three children, I’m sure you’ve heard it—often posed by a complete stranger:

Oh, you have such a big family! Are you Catholics?

Although I am delighted that our faith is commonly associated with the love for human life, I still recoil at the notion that there is something odd, something sectarian, something strange—something that requires a special explanation--about the willingness to welcome a large number of children.

On her own blog this week, my lovely wife Leila responded to a question from a young woman who is not Catholic, and who wondered how she and her husband should tell friends and acquaintances that they are expecting their fourth (!) child. I won’t summarize her reply, nor do I think that I can improve on it; I encourage visitors to read it for themselves. But as I mulled over her response, I couldn’t resist adding my own perspective.

Catholicism doesn’t cause childbirth. I don’t propose to devote this short essay to a discussion of the birds and the bees, but suffice it to say that no woman ever became pregnant as the result of a papal decree.

Years ago, Leila and I watched helplessly as a couple told a stranger that they had many children because “the Pope encourages us to have large families.” We gulped. That couple—friends of ours, deeply in love with each other, wonderful parents of a happy family—had stepped directly into a trap. They had conveyed the impression that they had many children only because they were Catholics—as if they reproduced robotically, under orders from Rome.

Nonsense! Our friends had many children for the same reason that Leila and I have many children. They love one another, and the human body is designed so that when a man loves a woman, the birth of children will ordinarily ensue—unless the couple takes steps to prevent that natural result.

Yes, it’s true that the Catholic Church encourages parents to welcome children. But in giving that encouragement, the Church is only recommending that we do what nature intended. In much the same way, the Church might encourage Catholics to eat healthy foods; there is nothing sectarian about the call for a healthy diet.

And yes, it is true that the last several popes have written at length about the beauties of married life and of large families. But these pontiffs were responding to a sadly widespread lack of appreciation for what should be intuitively obvious to anyone, regardless of religious faith. This week Pope Benedict offered some moving reflections on the power of art and of sacred music. But if I listen to Bach tonight, it will not be because the Pope told me to do so, nor will anyone ask me whether I am listening to Bach because I am a Catholic. No, I will listen to Bach because I find his music beautiful; is any further explanation required?

So if I find my wife beautiful, and one thing leads to another… Why should I be required to explain? If you have an elementary understanding of biology, you know what happened; no recondite theological explanations are necessary. Shouldn’t the shoe be on the other foot? Shouldn’t the people who find it necessary to seek an explanation for a large family be expected to come up with some reason for their befuddlement?

We aren’t the people who should be required to explain ourselves. It is the people who deliberately frustrate the natural process who should be asked to give a good reason for their strange behavior. I suggest that Catholics—and all others who welcome God’s design for human reproduction—stop making explanations, and instead ask the nosy questioners to explain their apparent ignorance. Do they really not know why we have children?

If there’s anything ruder than inquiries into why one has so many children, it’s the insufferable question: “Are you going to stop now?” If the sort of people who ask that question were capable of feeling embarrassment, they should be brought up short by a quick reply:

“Stop what?”