I'm going to be on a panel discussion next Wednesday about decision-making for Catholics. I have 7 minutes to present on "pro-creation issues" -- most especially contraception -- and then I will take questions. 7 minutes. What to say in 7 minutes.
The tricky part of this discussion is that on most pro-creation issues (sex before marriage, contraception, abortion, IVF), Catholic teaching is quite clear. It's not hard to find the teaching, it's not hard to understand what the Church is saying, and it's not hard to tell whether it applies to your situation. The tricky parts come in once you've accepted the basic teaching and are trying to live it out -- how to date in a secular world with Catholic ideas about these things, how to decide if now is a good time or not to have a baby, etc. However, I think that most people are still at the phase wherein they're trying to decide about whether to follow Church teaching on these issues -- or trying to talk to others about them -- so that's what I'd like to primarily address. And 7 minutes isn't going to be long enough to cover much more.
The beauty of the teaching is what I'd like to get across. I could open up with saying that it's not a terribly moral dilemma because Church teaching is clear, so let's move on to more exciting moral dilemmae, such as how to decide if you should have another baby at this point. But I don't think that will win friends, and I also don't think that it will get at what most people need to hear.
So I'm going to try to come up with a 7-minute talk that doesn't make me sound like too much of a cheerleader but in which Church teaching comes across as the sane and beautiful message that it is. Please pray for me.
