The abominable crime of onan: Catholic pastoral practice and family limitation in the United States, 1875-1919

Church History

Volumn 71, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 308-340

  Tentler, Leslie Woodcock ^a  

^a CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA   (United States)

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EID: 67649311977     PISSN: 00096407     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. Rev. William Stang, Pastoral Theology, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1897), 171. Father Stang is quoting approvingly from the Jesuit moralist Alphonsus Sabetti. Trans. from the original Latin
2. John R. Gillis, Louise A. Tilly, and David Levine, eds., The European Experience of Declining Fertility, 1850-1970, (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwells, 1992), 1-2
3. See Michael S. Teitelbaum and Jay M. Winter, The Fear of Population Decline (Orlando, Ha.: Academic, 1985), 18-19
4. Wilson H. Grabill, Clyde V. Kiser, and Pascal W. Whelpton, The Fertility of American Women (New York: Wiley, 1958), 107-8
5. Tamara K. Harven and Maris A. Vinovskis, "Marital Fertility, Ethnicity, and Occupation in Urban Families: An Analysis of South Boston and the South End in 1880," Journal of Social History 8 (spring 1975): 69-93
6. Avery Guest, "Fertility Variation among the U.S. Foreign Stock Population in 1900," International Migration Review 16 (fall 1982): 577-96
7. John A. Ryan, "Family Limitation," The Ecclesiastical Review 54 (June 1916): 684-85
8. William Schaefers, "Our Catholic Population," The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 29 (Nov. 1928): 150-51
9. Hornell Hart, "Differential Fertility in Iowa," University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare 2 (1922): 37-39
10. Orville Griese, The "Rhythm" in Marriage and Christian Morality (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1948), 3-4
11. John C. Ford, S.J. and Gerald Kelly, S.J., Contemporary Moral Theology, vol. 2: Marriage Questions (Westminster Md. Newman, 1963), 384-85
12. See Janet Farrell Brodie, Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), 204-41
13. Stang, Pastoral Theology, 171. Trans, from the original Latin
14. James C. Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 46-85
15. Simon Szreter, Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 389-424
16. Richard A. Soloway, Birth Control and the Population Question in England, 1877-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 98-102, quotes from 99, 100
17. See also Kathleen Tobin-Schlesinger, "Population and Power: The Religious Debate Over Contraception, 1916-1936," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1994), 49, 53-54
18. Soloway, Birth Control and the Population Question, 241
19. Joseph Frassinetti, The New Parish Priests' Practical Manual, 2d ed., trans. William Hutch (London: Burns and Oates, 1885), 220. The book enjoyed a wide circulation in its English translation in both the United States and the British Isles
20. Alan Graebner, "Birth Control and the Lutherans: The Missouri Synod as a Case Study," in Janet Wilson James, ed., Women in American Religion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980), 230-31, 234, 237
21. On the French case, see Noonan, Contraception, 397-405
22. Ryan, "Family Limitation," 685
23. Frassinnetti, Parish Priest's Practical Manual, 355
24. Wissel, The Redemptorist on the American Missions, makes the same point, 91
25. Fr. Xavier Sutton, C.P., MS record of missions and retreats, 1882-1925. Archives of the Passionist Fathers, Chicago. Papers of Fr. Xavier Sutton. The mission in question was preached at St. Anthony's parish, 1-16 April, 1884
26. Schieler, Theory and Practice of the Confessional, 387
27. See also Rev. Frederick Schulze, Manual of Pastoral Theology: A Practical Guide for Ecclesiastical Students and Newly Ordained Priests (Milwaukee: Diederich-Schaefer, 1906), 151
28. Joseph McSorley, C.S.P., Italian Confessions and How to Hear Them: An Easy Method for Busy Priests (New York: Paulist, 1916). The Society of Missionary Priests of St. Paul was founded in 1858 by the American priest-convert Isaac Hecker. The order specialized in the preaching of missions from its inception; by the late nineteenth century it had embarked on mission preaching to non-Catholics as an innovative means of reducing ignorance of and hostility to Catholicism in the United States
29. Ryan, "Family Limitation," 4
30. Wissel, The Redemptorist on the American Missions, 1:474. Trans. from the original Latin
31. Frassinetti, Parish Priest's Practical Manual, 361
32. See also a remarkable anonymous text, "Conditions Necessary for a Happy Marriage," Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 13 (Jul. 1913): 1035
33. Michael I. Stritch, S.J., "What Menaces the Family," The Catholic Mind 15 (8 Nov. 1917): 502. This is the text of an address delivered to the National Convention of Catholic Societies in Kansas City, August 1917
34. See, for example, a Lenten sermon appearing in the Michigan Catholic, 27 Feb. 1913, 5:1-2
35. Francis C. Kelley, "About Preaching," The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 30 (Oct. 1929), 9
36. John A. Ryan argued in 1904 for seven or eight children per family: "The Small Family and National Decadence," Ecclesiastical Review 30 (Feb. 1904): 140-55
37. Rev. J. W. Sullivan, "Christian Marriage," Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 8 (May 1908): 618
38. Elliott, Manual of Missions, 1-2
39. Rossi, "Some Instructions/' unpaginated
40. For a slightly later but comparably explicit Redemptorist instruction, see John G. Schneider, C.SS.R., "Duties of Married Men" and "Duties of Married Women" in volume of MS sermons titled "State Instructions (Mission)," undated. Schneider was ordained in 1888 and died in 1914. Archives of the Redemptorist Fathers, Baltimore Province, uncatalogued
41. W. M. Brick, C.SS.R., MS sermon on "The General Judgment," 27 Jul. 1887. Archives of the Redemptorist Fathers, Baltimore Province, uncatalogued. This sermon and others are found in a bound volume which bears the above date on its first page. Fr. Brick presumably preached these sermons many times over
42. Lummer, "Marriage - Its End."
43. VVissel, The Redemptorist on the American Missions, 1:95-96
44. McClory, Brazen Serpent, 12
45. Kuehnel, "Conferences for the Holy Name Society," 1055-58
46. Donohoe, "Marriage Instructions."
47. Ryan, "Family Limitation," 690
48. As examples, see Paul L. Blakely, S.J., "Conscious Birth Restriction," Catholic Mind (22 June 1915)
49. repr. in Benjamin L. Masse, ed., The Catholic Mind Through Fifty Years (New York: America, 1952)
50. Stritch, "What Menaces the Family."
51. Ryan, "The Small Family and National Decadence," 142
52. John A. Ryan, "Birth Control: An Open Letter," America 13:8 (5 June 1915): 200
53. Ryan, "Family Limitation," 684