1. Joseph, Reiner S.J. to Wilfrid, Parsons, S.J. 2 Mar. 1933Google Scholar. Georgetown University Library Special Collections, Wilfrid Parsons papers, box 8, folder 12.

2. Rev. William, Stang, Pastoral Theology, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1897), 171Google Scholar. Father Stang is quoting approvingly from the Jesuit moralist Alphonsus Sabetti. Trans, from the original Latin.

3. Gillis, John R., Tilly, Louise A., and David, Levine, eds., The European Experience of Declining Fertility, 1850–1970, (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwells, 1992), 1–2.Google Scholar

4. By 1872—when hardly any religious leaders were willing to speak publicly about such matters—a celebrated French Dominican was preaching against “sinfully restricted families” at his annual Lenten conferences at Notre Dame in Paris. See Very. Rev. Monsabré, Rev. Père O.P., Marriage Conferences Delivered at Notre Dante, Paris(New York:Benziger Brothers, Eng. Trans., 1890), 115–23.Google Scholar The mode of address employed in these sermons suggests that they were preached only to men. Pierre Toulement, a French Jesuit, argued in 1873 that France's recent defeat by Germany and the terrors of the Paris Commune were divine punishment for the nation's sins of contraception. See Teitelbaum, Michael S. and Winter, Jay M., The Fear of Population Decline (Orlando, Fla.: Academic, 1985), 18–19Google Scholar. Most of the questions addressed to the Sacred Penitentiary in Rome in the nineteenth century with regard to the treatment of “onanists” in the confessional came from French clergy and bishops. See Noonan, John T., Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 397–405.Google Scholar

5. See, for example, the Michigan Catholic, 23 Nov. 1893, 4:1.Google Scholar

6. Grabill, Wilson H., Kiser, Clyde V., and Whelpton, Pascal W., The Fertility of American Women (New York: Wiley, 1958), 107–8Google Scholar; Harven, Tamara K. and Vinovskis, Maris A., “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): 69–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hareven, and Vinovskis, , “Patterns of Childbearing in Nineteenth-Century America,” in Family and Population in Nineteenth-Century America, ed. Hareven, Tamara K. and Vinovskis, Maris A. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 85–125Google Scholar; Avery, Guest, “Fertility Variation among the U.S. Foreign Stock Population in 1900,” International Migration Review 16 (fall 1982): 577–96.Google Scholar

7. Ryan, John A., “Family Limitation,” The Ecclesiastical Review 54 (06 1916: 684–85.Google Scholar

8. William, Schaefers, “Our Catholic Population,” The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 29 (11 1928): 150–51.Google Scholar

9. Stouffer, Samuel A., “Trends in the Fertility of Catholics and Non-Catholics,” American Journal of Sociology 41 (09 1935): 143–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Stouffer's data showed this to be true of Catholics in Wisconsin between 1919 and 1935, with marked declines in fertility occurring in every Catholic ethnic group. More tentative data suggest that this pattern prevailed generally in cities outside the South.

10. Hart, Hornell, “Differential Fertility in Iowa,” University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare 2 (1922): 37–39.Google Scholar

11. Griese, Orville, The “Rhythm” in Marriage and Christian Morality (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1948), 3–4Google Scholar; Latz, Leo J., The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility in Women (Chicago: Dr.Leo J. Latz, 1932), 9Google Scholar; Ford, John C. S.J., and Kelly, Gerald S.J., Contemporary Moral Theology, vol. 2: Marriage Questions (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1963), 384–85.Google Scholar

12. See Brodie, Janet Farrell, Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), 204–41.Google Scholar

13. Stang, , Pastoral Theology, 171Google Scholar. Trans, from the original Latin.

14. Mohr, James C., Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 46–85.Google Scholar

15. See Wissel, Joseph, C.SS.R., The Redemptorist on the American Missions, 3d rev. ed. (Norwood, Mass.: Plimpton, 1920) 1:473Google Scholar. The 1920 edition contains nearly all of the 1885 text, save for changes required by the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer was founded by St. Alphonsus Liguori in 1732 and eventually expanded into most parts of Europe. The American Redemptorists in the nineteenth century included many of German origin, but the order worked among a number of different ethnic groups. Like their European confreres, the American Redemptorists specialized in the preaching of missions. They also staffed parishes in major American cities.

16. Rev. Louis Cook, C.SS.R. to Bishop Caspar Borgess, 20 Nov. 1885. Archives of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Borgess papers, box 2, folder 4.

17. “Race Suiciders,” typescript mission sermon, no author given. Undated, but probably—based on its content—ca. 1915. Quote from page 9. Archives of the Passionist Fathers, Chicago. Sermons by unknown authors, file 2-A, box 252. For a later period, see McBriarty, A., C.SS.R., “Parish Missions,” The Ecclesiastical Review 102 (03 1940: 201–2Google Scholar. The Congregation of the Passion was founded by St. Paul of the Cross in 1721. Its American members specialized in the preaching of missions and retreats, though some also served in the order's foreign missions, especially after about 1920.

18. Szreter, Simon, Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 389–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Rev. Donohoe, Richard T., C.SS.R., “Marriage Instructions,” MS notes, evidently intended as instructions for fellow Redemptorists in hearing premarital confessions and giving pre-marriage conferences. Undated but probably early twentieth century. Redemptorist Archives, Baltimore Province, Brooklyn, N.Y. Uncatalogued notebook.Google Scholar

20. Rev. Gerrard, Thomas J., Marriage and Parenthood: The Catholic Ideal (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, 1911), 82Google Scholar. When Gerrard's book was re-issued in a revised edition in 1937, editor Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., made no changes in the chapter on “Conjugal Restraint.”

21. Soloway, Richard A., Birth Control and the Population Question in England, 1877–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 98–102Google Scholar, quotes from 99, 100. See also Tobin-Schlesinger, Kathleen, “Population and Power: The Religious Debate Over Contraception, 1916–1936,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1994), 49, 53–54.Google Scholar

22. Soloway, , Birth Control and the Population Question, 241.Google Scholar

23. Frassinetti, Joseph, The New Parish Priests' Practical Manual, 2d ed., trans. William, Hutch (London: Burns and Oates, 1885), 220Google Scholar. The book enjoyed a wide circulation in its English translation in both the United States and the British Isles.

24. Graebner, Alan, “Birth Control and the Lutherans: The Missouri Synod as a Case Study,” in James, Janet Wilson, ed., Women in American Religion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980), 230–31, 234, 237.Google Scholar

25. Fleming, J. M., O.S.A., “What To Preach,” Ecclesiastical Review 59 (08 1918): 166Google Scholar. The Augustinians, a men's order dating from the thirteenth century, was primarily a teaching order in the United States.

26. Isadore Dwyer, C.P., MS sermon on “The General Judgment,” undated but ca. 1900. Archives of the Passionist Fathers, Chicago, sermons of Fr. Isadore Dwyer, box 241.

27. “Race Suiciders,” typescript sermon, no author given, undated but ca. 1915, page 7. Archives of the Passionist Fathers, Chicago, sermons by unknown authors, file 2-A, box 252.

28. On the French case, see Noonan, , Contraception, 397–405Google Scholar; see also Vermeersch, A., S.J. and Bouscaren, T. Lincoln, What Is Marriage? A Catechism Arranged According to the Encyclical “Casti Connubii” of Pope Pius XI (New York: America, 1932), 36–38.Google Scholar

29. Ryan, , “Family Limitation,” 685.Google Scholar

30. The standard work on parish missions in the United States is Dolan, Jay P., Catholic Revivalism: The American Experience, 1830–1900 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978). Frequency of missions is addressed on pages 55–62.Google Scholar

31. Guerra, Canon A., The Confessor After the Heart of Jesus (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1901), 55.Google Scholar

32. Detroit's Bishop Caspar Borgess simply followed a ruling of the Sacred Penitentiary in Rome when he warned his clergy in 1882 against close questioning in the confessional about contraception. Borgess circular letter to the clergy, 4 Aug. 1882. Archives of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Borgess papers, box 5, folder 20. The Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, a Roman tribunal of antique origin, deals with cases of conscience raised most typically by bishops and canonists.

33. This is a concern of long standing for nearly all manualists. As a typical example, see Schieler, Caspar E., Theory and Practice of the Confessional: A Guide in the Administration of the Sacrament of Penance, 2d ed., trans, and ed. Rev. Heuser, H. J. (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1906), 384, 609.Google Scholar

34. Frassinnetti, , Parish Priest's Practical Manual, 355.Google Scholar

35. Father Stang's influential manual urges monthly confession as a norm for all Catholics; Stang, , Pastoral Theology, 177.Google Scholar

36. Gaudentius Rossi, C.P., “Some Instructions about the Sermons, Meditations, and Catechism Delivered by Our Fathers, in Our Missions,” unpaginated MS, Apr. 1875. Archives of the Passionist Fathers, Chicago, sermons of Fr. Gaudentius Rossi, Box 250; Wissel, , The Redemptorist on the American Missions, makes the same point, 91.Google Scholar

37. 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.

38. Author interview with Fr. Ferdinand De Cneudt, 19 Oct. 1998, Roseville, Mich. De Cneudt was born in Belgium; his family emigrated to Detroit in 1920.

39. This did not keep contemporary anti-Catholic propagandists from asserting that priests routinely and in salacious detail questioned female penitents about sexual sin. For a particularly vivid example by a former Catholic priest see, Rev. Charles, Chiniquy, The Priest, the Woman, and the Confessional (Chicago: A. Craig & Co., 1880).Google Scholar

40. Stang, , Pastoral Theology, 171Google Scholar. Trans, from the original Latin.

41. The American translator of Caspar Schieler's Theory and Practice of the Confessional (1906) apologized for rendering in English passages on certain “most delicate subjects”—the volume, after all, might fall into non-clerical hands. He intimated that many priests' Latin was insufficient for post-seminary refreshment in moral theology. See 5.

42. Rt. Rev. Aloysius, Roeggl, The Confessional: or, Admonitions for the Confessional and Penance, according to the gospels for the Sunday and Holydays of the Ecclesiastical Year, trans. and enl. Rev. Augustine, Wirth, O.S.B. (Baltimore: John Murphy & Company, 1877), 385–87.Google Scholar

43. Schieler, , Theory and Practice of the Confessional, 387.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., 599, n. 553. The latter portion of the sentence is translated from the Latin. See also Rev. Frederick, Schulze, Manual of Pastoral Theology: A Practical Guide for Ecclesiastical Students and Newly Ordained Priests (Milwaukee: Diederich-Schaefer, 1906), 151.Google Scholar

45. Joseph, McSorley, C.S.P., Italian Confessions and How to Hear Them: An Easy Method for Busy Priests (New York: Paulist, 1916)Google Scholar. 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.

46. Ryan, , “Family Limitation,” 4.Google Scholar

47. Rev. Antony, Koch, A Handbook of Moral Theology, adapt. and ed. Arthur, Preuss, vol. 2: Sin and the Means of Grace, 2d rev. ed. (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1919), 163.Google Scholar

48. Wissel, , The Redemptorist on the American Missions, 1:474Google Scholar. Trans, from the original Latin.

49. Ibid., 102–3.

50. The Key of Heaven; or, The Devout Christian's Daily Companion (New York: Christian Press Association, n.d.), 584, 601–4, 613Google Scholar. The imprimatur is that of Cardinal John McCloskey, who received his red hat in 1875 and died in 1885.

51. Rev. Konings, A., C.SS.R., General Confession Made Easy (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1879)Google Scholar asks directly about abortion but only obliquely about birth control. Helpful on this subject is O'Connor, Joseph Xavier, O.S.A., “A Survey of the Examination of Conscience as Found in Some Popular Prayerbooks” (M.A. thesis, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The Catholic University of America, 1954).Google Scholar

52. Elliott, Walter, C.S.P., A Manual of Missions (Washington, D.C.: The Apostolic Mission House, 1922), 34–35.Google Scholar

53. Frassinetti, , Parish Priest's Practical Manual, 361.Google Scholar

54. Stang, , Pastoral Theology, 177Google Scholar. He echoes Frassinetti in this regard. Schieler, Theory and Practice of the Confessional, agrees with Stang, though not in regard to separate confessionals for men, which would in most instances have been impractical.

55. Ibid., 387, 612–13, 616–18.

56. The letter's full text appears in the Michigan Catholic, 27 Feb. 1890, 1:4–5.Google Scholar

57. The interview was reprinted in the Michigan Catholic, 6 Feb. 1908, 1:6–7.Google Scholar

58. “Race Suiciders,” 5. See also a remarkable anonymous text, “Conditions Necessary for a Happy Marriage,” Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 13 (June 1913): 1035.Google Scholar

59. Stritch, Michael I., S.J., “What Menaces the Family,” The Catholic Mind 15 (8 11 1917): 502Google Scholar. This is the text of an address delivered to the National Convention of Catholic Societies in Kansas City, August 1917.

60. An Ursuline Religious, “‘Movies’ and the Young,” The Catholic Mind 18 (22 04 1918): 197Google Scholar. This, like the following article, was distributed by the Catholic Press Association and may have appeared widely in the diocesan press. Like many of her clerical brethren, this anonymous author believed that contraceptive practice among Catholics was largely the fault of the woman: “By her teaching and example she fatally lowers her children's feeling of responsibility towards the duties of the married state.” An Ursuline Religious, “Modern American Mothers,” The Catholic Mind 18 (22 04 1918), 200.Google Scholar

61. See, for example, a Lenten sermon appearing in the Michigan Catholic, 27 Feb. 1913, 5:1–2.Google Scholar

62. Michigan Catholic, 11 Jul. 1907, 1:2Google Scholar. The priest was Fr. Michael Esper, pastor of St. Joseph's church in St. Joseph, Michigan. His sermon made the national press wire.

63. McClory, John A., S.J., The Brazen Serpent, 2d ed. (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1922), 12Google Scholar. The book is a compilation of Lenten sermons preached by Father McClory at SS. Peter and Paul's church in Detroit in 1919.

64. See, for example, “Race Suiciders,” 3.

65. Rev. Smith, John Talbot, The Chaplain's Sermons (New York: William H. Young & Company, 1896), 239–43Google Scholar. Rev. Lambing, A. A., Plain Sermons on Mixed Marriages, 3d ed. (Newark, N.J.: Rev. Augustine Wirth, O.S.B., 1882)Google Scholar speaks briefly to family limitation on pages 49–50, but only in the context of mixed marriage, with the non-Catholic partner the principal sinner. Wirth translated these sermons from the original German.

66. See, for example, the advice dispensed in Schulze, , Manual of Pastoral Theology, 323Google Scholar and Stang, , Pastoral Theology, 36.Google Scholar

67. The Archdiocese of Chicago instituted the first diocesan sermon outlines in 1918, which also required that priests give doctrinal instructions at all low Masses. Other dioceses, principally in the Midwest, eventually followed suit, though not until the 1930s or even the 1940s. Detroit's Bishop John Foley (1888–1918) prescribed an annual Sunday sermon on marriage, mainly—it seems—for purposes of inveighing against marriage to non-Catholics. But he seemed unsure of how many priests actually complied. A question in this regard appears on the form which Detroit's priests submitted annually on the state of their parishes. Copies are found in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Detroit in any of the parish files from 1889 to 1918.

68. Kelley, Francis C., “About Preaching,” The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 30 (10 1929), 9.Google Scholar

69. For an example from early in the period under study, see Cardinal James Gibbons, MS sermon on “Marriage,” delivered in Wilmington, Del., 14 Jan. 1872 and again in Richmond Va., Lent 1875. Archives, Archdiocese of Baltimore, Gibbons papers, sermon 16. For a later example, see Rt. Rev. Hogan, Thaddeus, R.M., “The Sanctity of Christian Marriage,” in Sermons Doctrinal and Moral (New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1915): 159–60.Google Scholar

70. Ryan, John A. argued in 1904 for seven or eight children per family: “The Small Family and National Decadence,” Ecclesiastical Review 30 (02 1904: 140–55Google Scholar. Rev. Gerrard, Thomas, writing in 1911, thought that fourteen would be better still. Marriage and Parenthood, 112Google Scholar. Rev. Callan, Charles J., O.P. reprinted Gerrard's counsel in his Illustrations for Sermons and Instructions (New York: Joseph A. Wagner, 1916), 237Google Scholar. A Passionist preacher in 1909 was representative of his generation: “Woe to the parents that have only two or three children when they should have eight or ten!” Reginald Lummer, C.P., MS sermon on “Marriage—Its End,” Archives of the Passionist Fathers, sermons of Father Reginald Lummers, box 247.

71. Rev. Sullivan, J. W., “Christian Marriage,” Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 8 (05 1908): 618.Google Scholar

72. “The Sanctity and Utility of Marriage,” no author given, Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 13 (07 1913): 954.Google Scholar

73. The Homiletic Monthly and Catechist—subsequently the Homiletic and Pastoral Review— began publication in 1900. The 1924 reference to “birth control” occurs in an article on mixed marriage.

74. Cooper, John M., MS notes for a sermon on “Race-Suicide,” 4 Feb. 1916. Archives of the Catholic University of America, John Montgomery Cooper papers, box 1, folder 1916–17. “Not preached” is in Cooper's hand.Google Scholar

75. Elliott, , Manual of Missions, 1–2.Google Scholar

76. Healy, J. H., O.P., “The Need of Missions to Parishes,” The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 21 (12 1920): 178.Google Scholar

77. Rossi, “Some Instructions,” unpaginated.

78. This assertion is based on my research in the Paulist Fathers' archives at St. Paul's College, Washington, D.C.

79. Gillis, James M., C.S.P., MS sermon on “Scandal,” undated but ca. 1907. Archives of the Paulist Fathers, PPGILLJMO88.Google Scholar

80. Wissel, , The Redemptorist on the American Missions, 1:73–74Google Scholar. Quote from 74.

81. This assertion is based on my reading of the sermon manuscripts housed at the Archives of the Redemptorist Fathers of the Baltimore Province, located in Brooklyn.

82. Wissel, , The Redemptorist on the American Missions, 1:73–4.Google Scholar

83. Ibid., 75–76.

84. Ibid., 474.

85. Ibid., 76.

86. Ibid., 473.

87. Ibid., 474–75.

88. Michael, Burke, C.SS.R., “For Married Men,” undated. (Burke was ordained in 1860 and died in 1891.)Google Scholar Archives of the Redemptorist Fathers, Baltimore Province, uncatalogued. For a slightly later but comparably explicit Redemptorist instruction, see Schneider, John G., 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.Google Scholar

89. Brick, W. M., C.SS.R., MS sermon on “The General Judgment,” 27 Jul. 1887Google Scholar. 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.

90. Dwyer, MS sermon on “The General Judgment.”

91. Gillis, James M., C.S.P., MS sermon on “Judgment,” preached at several locations in 1903–1904Google Scholar. Archives of the Paulist Fathers, PPGILLMOO8.

92. Typescript sermon on “Death,” no author given, undated but probably mid-to-late teens. Archives of the Redemptorist Fathers, Baltimore Province, uncatalogued.

93. Lummer, , “Marriage—Its End.”Google Scholar

94. Wissel, , The Redemptorist on the American Missions, 1:95–96.Google Scholar

95. “Race Suiciders,” 29.

96. The quote is from Rev. Reynold, Kuehnel, “Conferences for the Holy Name Society,” Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 16:11 (08 1916): 1055.Google Scholar

97. McClory, , Brazen Serpent, 12.Google Scholar

98. Kuehnel, , “Conferences for the Holy Name Society,” 1055–58.Google Scholar

99. Noonan, , Contraception, 91–94, 98–101, 144, 146, 155, 178, 215–16, 232–37, 360–65.Google Scholar

100. Ibid., 364–65.

101. Schulze, , Manual of Pastoral Theology, 280Google Scholar. Rev. J. T. Durward, A Short Course in Catholic Doctrine for Non-Catholics Intending Marriage with Catholics (n.p., 1909) warns against sinful “prevention” on 3. Durward was a priest of the Diocese of LaCross (Wis.); he described his book as a help to priests under increased episcopal pressure to instruct the non-Catholic marriage partner.

102. Donohoe, “Marriage Instructions.”

103. Kirsch, Felix M., O.M. Cap., Sex Education and Training in Chastity (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1930), 442Google Scholar. Kirsch is quoting from one of the respondents to a questionnaire sent to some five hundred priests engaged in pastoral work.

104. Ryan, , “Family Limitation,” 690.Google Scholar

105. As examples, see Blakely, Paul L., S.J., “Conscious Birth Restriction,” Catholic Mind (22 06 1915)Google Scholar, repr. in Masse, Benjamin L., ed., The Catholic Mind Through Fifty Years (New York: America, 1952)Google Scholar; Dowling, M. P., S.J., “Race Suicide,” The Catholic Mind 14 (22 10 1916): 519–39Google Scholar; Stritch, , “What Menaces the Family.”Google Scholar

106. Ryan, , “The Small Family and National Decadence,” 142.Google Scholar

107. Ryan, John A., “Birth Control: An Open Letter,” America 13:8 (5 06 1915): 200.Google Scholar

108. Ryan, , “Family Limitation,” 684.Google Scholar

109. Francis P. Sloan to Rev. John Burke, 11 Dec. 1918. CUAA, National Catholic War Council papers, 10/11/19.