Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Pioneer of Natural Family Planning is Dead

Despite his spectacular success he was held in scorn and discounted his entire life because of his Catholic Faith.

(kreuz.net) The Austrian Doctor, Professor Dr. Josef Rötzer, died yesterday at 91 years of age.

This was according to the old liberal website, 'kathweb.at'.

Rötzer was born in Vienna on the 21st of March 1920.

After grammar school and Gymnasium, he began his education in Medicine in his home town in 1941.

In the year 1945 he married Margareta Kramann (2006). the pair had four children.

In the year 1947 he received his doctorate at the Pathological Anatomical Institute at the University of Vienna. There he was active till 1949.

From the 1st of January 1951, he was the official doctor in the State of Upper Austria in a town with a population of 12,000.

In this period he observed the fertile and infertile times in the woman's reproductive cycle. Upon coming to this conclusion, he evaluated the cycles of 300,000 women.

This helped him to develop a natural and inexpensive method, to prevent pregnancies about as proficiently as the physically toxic operative anti-child pill.

The cash bloated chemical industry understandably took no joy in Rötzer's findings.

On the basis of his research findings the Austrian Bishops financed him from the 1st of September 1966 till the 31st of December 1974 to give him a leave of absence from his official doctor's service.

So that Rötzer could conduct further scientific research in his special area.

In the year 1986 he founded the "Institute for Natural Family Planning".

In December 1992 the Austrian President conferred upon the doctor the title, "Professor".

Now his daughter Elisabeth works in the 'Institute for Natural Family Planning". She also publishes the corresponding publication.

Bishop Klaus Küng of Saint Pölten recalled for news agency 'Kathpress' that Rötzer because of his Catholic stand, "suffered many a setback in his work".

Read original in German, here...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

God bless the legacy of this dear doctor who devoted his medical career in order to protect life and help married couples through his Natural Family Planning method and also his daughter for continuing the wonderful work her father began. His recognition in the face of adversity will surely be his heavenly reward.

Dan said...

Speaking ill of the dead is an exercise that no one wishes to engage in, for the deceased, no matter what they were in life, deserve at least some respect. And in that sense, and that sense only, will I express my sorrow for Professor Rotzer's death.

But I cannot congratulate him on his life's work, a life's work that, let us be ruthlessly honest, revolved around "preventing pregnancy". And just as surely as today's marriage annulments have simply become "Catholic divorce", so NFP has simply become "Catholic contraception." A harsh judgment? No, it is not.

When discussing the matter of married couples avoiding conception, two questions are at stake: the motive and the method. Let us speak first of the motive.

If the motive for avoiding children is to wait for hubby to get a better job at a higher wage, or to purchase that nice home in a nice neighborhood, or to enjoy a few young years childless so that husbands and wives can take interesting vacations, or in buying that second car, or in keeping the wife employed in a lucrative position so that the couple can enjoy a double-income, etc., then a motive such as that would, I dare say, be considered insufficient and would constitute sin. And it wouldn't matter what method was used, either NFP or the pill, because it is the MOTIVE that is gravely wrong. Anyone who says that these types of motives are not the most common and usual reasons for using NFP are kidding themselves.

The point being that you can sin just as easily using the NFP method as the pill.

Many NFP-promoters teach that it is lawful to use NFP for "grave reasons".

Fine. Name one.

Name me one "grave" reason that doesn't really boil down to convenience, either personal or financial. In my experience most Catholic NFPers live in comfortable homes enjoying comfortable lifestyles. And the Church has not the backbone to confront these terrible things, which has resulted in a Catholic "birth dearth" unprecedented in Church history. No, they foolishly promote NFP. Even Pius XII, as good a man as he was, made some incredibly stupid pronouncements on these matters, even saying at one point in his pontificate that the "ideal" Catholic family would be four children. Four, Your Holiness? Only four? And what was the result of this asinine comment on the Catholic Church? "Well, the Pope says we should only have four so I guess that's what it'll have to be." My own parents "obeyed" him in this matter.

So much for motives. How about methods? Using the pill is sinful primarily because it destroys life already created. Ergo, using it, no matter what the motive, is sinful. In cases of the pill use we actually have two sins, one of motive and one of method. In NFP, we have just the one sin.

I do not buy the propaganda that NFP has "helped" or "saved" many Catholic marriages. But if anyone would care to give me an example of how NFP was able to do such a thing I will tell you forthwith that the first thing I will look at in the case presented to me is the motive for using NFP.

I have said enough but I hope what I've said is clear. Yes, we can lament the death of a fellow Catholic with the hopes that he made his peace with God before he died, but we cannot ever praise him for the curse he brought to the Catholic world.

Dan said...

Speaking ill of the dead is an exercise that no one wishes to engage in, for the deceased, no matter what they were in life, deserve at least some respect. And in that sense, and that sense only, will I express my sorrow for Professor Rotzer's death.

But I cannot congratulate him on his life's work, a life's work that, let us be ruthlessly honest, revolved around "preventing pregnancy". And just as surely as today's marriage annulments have simply become "Catholic divorce", so NFP has simply become "Catholic contraception." A harsh judgment? No, it is not.

When discussing the matter of married couples avoiding conception, two questions are at stake: the motive and the method. Let us speak first of the motive.

If the motive for avoiding children is to wait for hubby to get a better job at a higher wage, or to purchase that nice home in a nice neighborhood, or to enjoy a few young years childless so that husbands and wives can take interesting vacations, or in buying that second car, or in keeping the wife employed in a lucrative position so that the couple can enjoy a double-income, etc., then a motive such as that would, I dare say, be considered insufficient and would constitute sin. And it wouldn't matter what method was used, either NFP or the pill, because it is the MOTIVE that is gravely wrong. Anyone who says that these types of motives are not the most common and usual reasons for using NFP are kidding themselves.

The point being that you can sin just as easily using the NFP method as the pill.

Many NFP-promoters teach that it is lawful to use NFP for "grave reasons".

Fine. Name one.

Name me one "grave" reason that doesn't really boil down to convenience, either personal or financial. In my experience most Catholic NFPers live in comfortable homes enjoying comfortable lifestyles. And the Church has not the backbone to confront these terrible things, which has resulted in a Catholic "birth dearth" unprecedented in Church history. No, they foolishly promote NFP. Even Pius XII, as good a man as he was, made some incredibly stupid pronouncements on these matters, even saying at one point in his pontificate that the "ideal" Catholic family would be four children. Four, Your Holiness? Only four? And what was the result of this asinine comment on the Catholic Church? "Well, the Pope says we should only have four so I guess that's what it'll have to be." My own parents "obeyed" him in this matter.

So much for motives. How about methods? Using the pill is sinful primarily because it destroys life already created. Ergo, using it, no matter what the motive, is sinful. In cases of the pill use we actually have two sins, one of motive and one of method. In NFP, we have just the one sin.

I do not buy the propaganda that NFP has "helped" or "saved" many Catholic marriages. But if anyone would care to give me an example of how NFP was able to do such a thing I will tell you forthwith that the first thing I will look at in the case presented to me is the motive for using NFP.

I have said enough but I hope what I've said is clear. Yes, we can lament the death of a fellow Catholic with the hopes that he made his peace with God before he died, but we cannot ever praise him for the curse he brought to the Catholic world.