Singles and the Contraceptive Mentality

Moral theologians and philosophers call an intention that is inherently part-and-parcel with an action its proximal intention. Proximal intentions are inseparable from their acts. It is possible deliberately to flip a light switch so that you can read, so that you can hide in the dark, so that you can cross through a room, and so on. Those reasons are ulterior, or distant. It is not possible deliberately to flip a light switch without intending to alter the state of the switch. Altering the switch's state is the proximal intention for turning it up or down. Proximal intention is always important in discerning the moral goodness or wickedness of an action, because it is always part of the action.

What's wrong with contraception, at its heart, is not necessarily the distant motivation for not begetting more children at present. The Church recognizes any number of reasons for wanting to delay having more children just right now. What's wrong with contraception is the mentality that necessarily goes with it. Whereas natural family planning works with the natural plan that God has crafted in order to influence the size of one's family, artificial contraception in effect says, "God's plan isn't fool-proof enough for me; He isn't to be trusted; I have a more secure way." It would be nonsensical to use artificial means rather than the natural means without presupposing that the artificial means are better than the ones God has provided. The more distant reason for regulating the size of one's family will almost certainly be corrupted by the motivation for preferring artificial to natural means. If one does not trust God with the means of family planning, how can one expect to trust God with the size of one's family, or for that matter, the purpose for having a family? The heart of "the contraceptive mentality" can be summarized, "God, your idea for us to have five children might be quite nice, but really, we'd rather not, because we'd like to have such-and-such instead, and to make sure you don't accidentally get your way, we are going to take cautionary measures."

Single people can fall into this mindset in analogous ways. I am not planning the number of children I will have, nor how to get them through college. I am not even married. But God does ask things of me, and sometimes I'd rather not give them, because, really I'd rather do such-and-such instead. "Spend time with this lonely person," God might whisper into my heart. "Right," I might respond in a cold, callous monotone, "but I'd rather go with my friends because they're much more interesting to me." I might hear a homily about tithing, especially relevant to those of us who have no children to demand sacrifice of us. I might respond, "Yes, but I have so little extra money, especially after buying my gadgets, coffee, eating out, movies, blue jeans, books, and all those other things I really, really need. I mean, it's not like they're starving people in the world, are there? I help out here or there. I've done my part. You've no right to expect more from me, God." Or I might not bother responding at all.

What's at the heart of what God wants for us is for us to be open to His will. That's because He is smarter than us, and knows us better than we know ourselves, and He wants to make us happier than we can imagine. But when we are faced with two options: self-sacrifice and immediate gratification, it is very, very hard to select self-sacrifice in faith that God will provide all that we could ever need or want. The path of self-sacrifice - the long, rocky, narrow ascent to Calvary - is the path of Christ. The other path isn't necessarily evil, it's just broader and easier. But then we must remind ourselves about what our Blessed Lord said about the path to hell (Mt 7:13).

It's not that the path to holiness is long and miserable. It can be, at times, but most of the time isn't. In fact, the communion of a deep and heartfelt community of love is made possible by the willingness to give of ourselves to others, and to receive what they want to give us, rather than trying to take things for ourselves. The less we hold back, the more deep and intimate the communion will be among neighbors, friends, and brothers. Especially when the giving gets deep, we will need to dig deeper than we go, and so we will have to rely on God to provide what we need so that we can keep giving. That means that we will need to develop our communion with Him. So our communion with others becomes an occasion for growth in holiness.

As single people we must always be on the lookout for chances to give, to sacrifice, to love. Without being surrounded by nagging spouses and children, without braces and ballet lessons to pay for, we might find ourselves becoming more and more selfish. We might slip into a contraceptive mentality without ever even noticing. Where a married couple might use a barrier method to keep themselves safe from the risk of expanding their heart to make room for one more, we singles might accidentally build barriers because of the risk and so never expand our heart to make room for more than one.