Family Foundations Plus
Issue No. 3, October 2011
Hello!
Many of you are most aware of CCL each time an issue of Family Foundations hits your mailbox. But there is a lot of work that gets done every day in our humble little office in Cincinnati -- training new couples to be NFP teachers, equipping our volunteers to spread the word about NFP, responding to hundreds of calls and emails on everything from charting help to sensitive marital issues, processing much-needed gifts from our supporters, and fulfilling orders for our materials.
Even further removed from the public awareness is the work of our Business Manager, who recently retired after an amazing 29-year run with the League. This has taken the rest of us some time to get used to, as Jack has been a faithful, dependable, wise, and dedicated anchor on the staff for much longer than most of us can remember.
Jack counts many blessings associated with his work at the League, especially:
- The thousands of volunteers, many of whom he knows personally (“Without these dedicated souls, CCL would not exist.”)
- Each colleague he worked with (“These men and women truly witnessed Christ to me.”)
- The gift of dedicating his efforts to a cause he totally embraces
- Being given skill sets to support the advancement of CCL’s work.
CCL’s new Senior Financial Manager, Don Regan, comes to the League from Magdelen College in New Hampshire. Hired by the school upon graduation in 1992, Don held various positions of increasing responsibility before becoming the Vice President of Finance & Operations in 1998.
Don and his wife, Alison, have been married for six years, have a son, age 4, and a daughter, age 2, and have been CCL members since their marriage.
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We have a wonderful group of Teaching Couples all across the country willing to bring NFP to more and more couples. This is the time of year when class attendance is a little low. Please consider introducing someone you know to NFP...share your experience with it, and then direct them to our website - www.ccli.org - to learn more and search for classes.
May God bless you and your families,
Ann Gundlach
Editor
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In the mail SOON!
The November-December 2011 issue of Family Foundations shines a spotlight on what is probably the most common time to have NFP questions and frustrations. In the features of Postpartum up close you will:
- Hear advice from couples who’ve been there
- Meet a couple whose original plans for child spacing didn’t pan out
- Be encouraged by one mom's quest to breastfeed her twins
- Get advice to ensure your marital relationship grows right along with your baby
- Read some of our best method-related advice to navigate the return of fertility
... and enjoy one mom's encouragement to “grin and bare it” in this SNEAK PEEK!
Our award-winning Family Foundations is sent to all CCL members. If you don't already receive it, we ask you to consider Becoming a member.
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Salt & Light
Self-giving love is transforming
By Fr. Erik Pohlmeier, member of the CCL Board of Directors
For our October reflection on marriage I would like to offer the experience of the saints. St. Bernadette has long been a favorite saint as someone so closely connected with Mary. Millions have been drawn to the holy place of Lourdes seeking healing and comfort and our Blessed Mother has received them all.
St. Bernadette had a great privilege in what she saw, but what was even greater was the transformation in her soul.
During the last visit of the Blessed Mother the crowds had gathered around and Bernadette reported, “Never did I see her look so beautiful.” The words of Bernadette are simple but they reveal a profound truth. As one commentator pointed out, “The beauty of Mary had not changed, but the soul of the child had been refined and purified during those months.” The encounter with Mary had shaped Bernadette and now her eyes were opened not only to see what others did not see, but to experience the kind of love that sees true beauty.
This experience of Bernadette has much to say for the married couple. Often a relationship begins with the perception of beauty on the surface, an appearance that is attractive. As you get to know the person and discover the beauty below the surface, it is then that love starts to grow. If that love is genuine the true beauty of the other is captivating. When that love leads to marriage, and you give yourself to them fully, it becomes transforming.
With the passing of years the surface beauty changes, and yet you are likely to speak the words of Bernadette, “Never did I see her look so beautiful.” And like Bernadette it will be because your soul has been refined and purified and you now see with a more genuine love.
Unfortunately many in our world don’t experience a deeper love as marriages goes on. Many are frustrated as the surface beauty fades and discover their love is not so deep. Without the refining and purifying of self-giving love, true beauty is never seen because the soul is not changed. Selfishness dulls the ability to see beyond our own desires, while self-giving sees the other more fully as God sees.
St. Bernadette began to see Mary as God sees her, and it is this transformation of her soul that makes her a saint. Self-giving love is always transforming and then the eye begins to see beauty as God sees it.
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CCL News
15 New Teaching Couples coming soon to LA!
CCL participates in NFP conference in Colombia!
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It’s still a man’s world
Once again the month of October is upon us with the full press of breast cancer awareness coming from nearly every angle one can imagine. Personally, NFL players wearing pink shoes and gloves is a bit much for me. And again, the contribution oral contraceptives make to increase breast cancer among younger women goes unstated, unspoken, and unnoticed.
The widespread cultural refusal to recognize this inconvenient truth about hormonal contraceptives was underscored once again for me as I opened the latest issue of JAMA online. In the October 12 issue a new large study indicates men who took large doses of vitamin E during a 3-year randomized trial had a 17% increased risk of developing prostate cancer compared to men who took a placebo. The authors conclude that “[men who took 400IU/day] have a significantly increased risk of prostate cancer.” The study also concluded the use of vitamin D would add 16 more cases of prostate cancer for every 10,000 men.
What I find interesting is that this single study made national TV news, and will be picked up on many websites, blogs, etc. No doubt lots of men are conversing about this today. Remember that “16 per 10,000”... and read on about how breast cancer risk is presented.
First, the data. Kahlenborn and others published a large meta-analysis in 2005 and found that among premenopausal women who took oral contraceptives the overall risk of breast cancer increased 19%, basically the same as our men consuming vitamin E. (Meta-analysis is a technique that pools several clinical studies focused on a common outcome to reach a more accurate estimate of risk or benefit.) Among women who started using oral contraceptives before their first full-term pregnancy (a very common habit in today’s world) Kahlenborn’s study found premenopausal breast cancer risk is increased to 44%. In the same year the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded from a review of over 70 studies on 60,000 women with breast cancer, that the combined oral contraceptive is a human carcinogen.
So what does a resource on contraceptives referenced by FDA and other government agencies with links to Planned Parenthood say about this?
Quoting from page 224 of Contraceptive Technology (19th edition):
Subsequent meta-analyses and subgroup analyses (reference: Kahlenborn’s work) have caught media attention but add little to change our counseling of women using modern low dose combined oral contraceptives (COC). Even if there were a slight increase in risk of women under age 35, breast cancer is so rare in women in that age group that these are very reassuring findings about the safety of low dose COC’s.
To put the statement “so rare” in perspective, data from the National Cancer Institute’s SEER database show the incidence of breast cancer in American women aged 20-49 is 7 cases per 10,000 women.
So for men, 16 cases of prostate cancer for every 10,000 is a “significant increase in risk,” but for women, some fraction of 7 breast cancer cases per 10,000 is called “reassuring about the safety” of oral contraceptives.
I guess we should conclude that a few more women with breast cancer under the age of 35 are less important in the grand scheme of things than a few more men with prostate cancer over the age of 60.
Sadly, it still really is a man’s world.
- Mike Manhart
