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1.         You have lived in the United States, the UK, Italy, Spain and Kenya over the last three decades. In which country do people have the most positive attitude towards the family?

            Kenya, without a doubt; despite polygamy which has never affected more than a small proportion of marriages and is on its way out.  Children in Africa are regarded as values; the Africans in fact do not understand contraception; it seems contrary to them to the natural desire for children.  Apart from that, one would have to mention the idea of the "extended family".  In Africa the grandparents are never left out of the family scene, and other relatives for that matter also enter in.  There is a great sense of family.

2.         Australia's birthrate is about 1.7. How do Africans look upon a country like Italy, which has a birth rate of about 1.1?

            They don't understand it.  I remember the telling comment of an African when he learned that the birthrate in Europe is less than two per couple.  He said to me: "Europeans must be very poor if they can't afford to have more than two children".  He saw it in terms of standard of living.  For Africans a marriage with few children shows an impoverishment of human and natural richness and experience.

3.         Is there any connection between our high rate of divorce and our low birth rate?

            Yes.  It seems obvious that each child is a bond of union created by the parents' love for one another, and subsisting even when the initial romantic attraction between them seems to have faded for ever.  So often the children are the factor that keeps parents united, despite the tugs and pulls of softness or selfishness.  It is lack of children - or, more concretely, the refusal of children - that can pull spouses apart.  "We don't want another child", is the same as saying, "we don't want another bond of union.  We have two already".  Two may be too few to keep a couple united.

4.         In your experience, which puts more strain on a marriage: the expense and effort of having several children or a childless relationship?

            It depends, since a childless marriage may of course be God's will for a particular couple.  But if a couple deliberately avoid having children, just to avoid expense and effort, they are putting their married love and unity under great strain, for they are leaving it without the natural support that it requires.

5.         Are children "optional extras" in a marriage?

            If you mean, like motor-car accessories - "optionals" which perhaps make the car more comfortable but without which the car has the basics with which to function normally and well, the answer is No.  Children are not "accessories" to a marriage; they normally are basic and essential to married happiness and fulfilment.

6.         Hasn't the Pope criticised what he calls "the contraceptive mentality" as well as contraception itself? Can this exist without "the Pill"?

            Yes.  I would say that the contraceptive or "anti-life" mentality is there when children are avoided gladly and not reluctantly or, even with natural methods, when there are no truly serious reasons for avoiding having another child.

7.         In this case, what about "Natural Family Planning"?

            Natural Family Planning is meant for exceptional cases when, due to some serious reasons, a couple find that they must deprive themselves of the natural joy and fulfilment of a child.

8.         Are there reasons other than fidelity to Catholic dogma that the Pope is so intransigent on the topic of contraception?

            Of course.  He sees that the anti-life mentality is threatening the stability and happiness of married life, and the very fabric of society.  One could well argue that there is a real connection between the rejection of life at its start, through contraception or abortion, and its rejection at the end, through euthanasia.  All are signs of a loss of the sense of the uniqueness, the privilege and the meaning and dignity of human life.

9.         Is "Humanae Vitae" infallible?

            Humanae Vitae said nothing new; it simply confirmed former teaching.  So, the question becomes: is the Church's teaching on contraception infallible?  Yes it is, for it is part of the ordinary magisterium, taught over centuries.  Before 1960 you will not find one single Catholic theologian or moral theology text defending the licitness of contraception.  All unanimously teach (as did the Anglican Church up to the Lambeth conference in 1929) that it is gravely wrong.  If the Church had been wrong in this teaching and had thus falsely lead many people into a sense of serious sin, that would be a sign that Christ had proved unable to fulfil his promise to be with his Church and to protect her teaching.

10.       Many people find it almost impossible to explain why contraception is wrong. They can appeal to "naturalness" or the authority of the Pope, but these reasons are often unconvincing. How can you explain it succinctly and clearly for the man in the street?

            It is wrong not only because it nullifies the natural orientation of the conjugal act towards procreation, but also especially because, in and by doing so, it destroys the essential power of the act to give unique physical expression to the union proper to marriage.

            What makes marital intercourse express a unique relationship and union is not the sharing of a sensation but the sharing of a power: of an extraordinary life-related, creative physical sexual power.  In a true conjugal relationship, each spouse says to the other: "I accept you as somebody like no one  else in my life.  You will be unique to me and I to you.  You and you alone will be my husband; you alone will be my wife.  And the proof of your uniqueness to me is the fact that with you - and with you alone - am I prepared to share this God-given life-oriented sexual power".  Now, contraception empties the marital act of all real meaning.  It turns it into self-deception and into a lie: "I love you so much that with you, and with you alone, I am ready to share this most unique power..."  But - what unique power?  In contraceptive sex, no unique power is being shared, except a power to produce pleasure.  But then the uniqueness of the marital act is reduced to pleasure.  Its significance is gone.

            Contraceptive spouses are constantly haunted by the suspicion that the act in which they share could indeed be, for each one of them, a privileged giving of pleasure, but could also be a mere selfish taking of pleasure.  It is logical that their love-making be troubled by a sense of falseness or hollowness, for they are attempting to found the uniqueness of the spousal relationship on an act of pleasure that tends ultimately to close each one of them sterilely in on himself or herself, and they are refusing to found that relationship on the truly unique conjugal dimension of loving co-creativity capable, in its vitality, of opening each of them out in a true and unconditioned surrender to one another.

11.       Most young couples are afraid of the work and expense of having a large family. They are afraid that they couldn't cope, apart from anything else. What would you say to them?

            People work hard in order to have plenty of things, gadgets, valuables...  Are children not better valuables, worth working for?  In what sense are the couples you mention afraid that they cannot "cope"?  If they can love their children, they are coping marvelously.  The parents who give their children life and love, have given the main things - of colossal value.  Other things - a good education, clothes, housing, etc. - although important, cannot compare with the two gifts of life and love.  Very few children, after all, even if they are hungry or homeless or naked, commit suicide.  They are happy to be alive.

12.       Many people feel that there is definitely a common prejudice against having more than four children in Australia. How can we change this attitude and give a more positive view of family life?

            You are probably better off here, in that respect, than in many parts of the developed world.  There are countries in Europe where the prejudice is against having more than one or two children.  My own feeling is that, while some people tend to sneer at couples with large families, in their hearts they are jealous of them.  There is a natural human awareness of the unique value of children; and even when a person surrenders this value to material concerns, he or she realises in the end that they have made an impoverished choice.

13.       Abortion became widespread in Western society after use of "the Pill" became firmly entrenched. Is there a link between the two?

            Yes, of course.  Apart from the fact that many contraceptive pills are abortifacient, contraception shows such a loss of the sense of the unique value of life, that it reduces the difficulty of taking the much more awful step towards acceptance of abortion.  Abortion - the killing of an innocent life - is such an obvious crime that many contraceptive couples of course still hold back form it.  But they are developing in themselves a mentality that may end up by accepting it.

14.       You have lived in Italy for several years now, the country with one of the world's lowest birthrates. What do you see as the long-term social consequences of this?

            A population that is not only constantly aging, but that will have lost its vitality, optimism and joy.  And a society that can easily end in economic and social collapse.  Manpower will be wanting; people will less and less ready to get on together.

15.       Your "personalist" arguments in support of Humanae Vitae are intriguing - they don't fall within a conventional natural law framework. Who has influenced your ideas on these issues?

            I think they are a simple development of natural common sense, or if you wish, of natural law.  They just seemed to develop in my thinking over twenty years of reflection and writing, especially after Humanae Vitae.  And of course the writings of the present Pope, with his personalist philosophy, have inspired me very much.

16.       Have you published you arguments at greater length elsewhere?

            Yes, you will find them set forth in some detail in my book Covenanted Happiness (Ignatius Press, San Francisco; Four Courts Press, Dublin).

17.       At the moment in Australia, the tax system and the financial pressure to have both spouses working militate against large families. It seems to be much the same in Europe. Are there any Western countries which give strong support to those parents who want large families?

            France and Canada do, as probably some others.  The Western countries are now realising the grave social and economic dangers arising out of the limited-family trend.  And, for purely material reasons, they are trying to reverse it.  That in many parts favours couples who of themselves wish to have larger families.  But the heart of the matter lies not just the with christian outlook but with the human maturity of couples themselves.