Looking for Miss Right

Fr. Bloom, A friend passed along a pointer to your website, it's terrific. I have a question that's weighed on my mind for a while. I'm a single Catholic man and I'm still looking for Miss Right. I'm concerned though that I might meet a girl who's perfect in every way except that she might be unwilling to be open to life and use NFP. Could I in good conscience marry a woman who wanted to contracept? What are my obligations in this regard? Obviously this is not the kind of thing you can ask a woman on a first date! :-) Thanks, and keep up the good work. Gordon **********

Dear Gordon,

Let me assure you there are many girls who will be thrilled to find a man who does not want to contracept. Women are so obviously the ones who bear the burdens of contraception. Germaine Greer, hardly a fan of the Catholic Church, summed it up:

"If we ask ourselves whether we would have any hope of imposing upon men the duty to protect women's fertility and their health, and avoid the abortions that occur in their uncounted millions every day, we will see in a blinding light how unfree women are. Women, from the youngest to the oldest, are aware that to impose conditions on intimacy would be to be accorded even less of it than they get already."

Have you read Crossing the Threshhold of Hope? The pope has a beautiful section on a young man who recognized his vocation to marriage. "He sought a companion for his life and sought her on his knees, in prayer." That of course is what you need to do. And if you ever came to Holy Family in Seattle, I could have a line of lovely Catholic girls anxious to meet you. :)

Prayers, Gordon. Please remember me.

God bless,

Fr. Phil Bloom