‘Intelligent Couple Chooses Faith Over Contraception and Welcomes 10 Children: 9 Boys and 1 Girl’
For all of them, the path we want to lead them on is the one of virtue: this is where joy lies for all of us.
Twenty-three years ago, a young couple grounded in faith chose natural family planning over contraception, welcoming nine sons and one daughter—and a huge, happy household where God and virtue are honored.
Ryan Topping, 46, and his wife, Anna Topping, 45, live in Edmonton, Canada, with their 10 children—their “10 little universes in the house.”
Mr. Topping is a published author, professor of theology, and director of the Benedict XVI Institute at Newman Theological College in Edmonton, Alberta. Mrs. Topping, a former English and Math teacher, is a homemaker and homeschooler. The couple met at a small Christian college on the Canadian prairies and lived in a “close-knit campus community” for two years before they started courting.
“Living in such a community, where most people were genuinely striving to grow in virtue, gave us plenty of time to get to know each other in the context of other friendships,” Mr. Topping told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Topping said: “We were married at 22. We began our marriage, as I think all of our friends did, by using artificial contraceptives. I stumbled across an argument against contraception, oddly enough, in a philosophy class on St. Augustine—the towering fourth-century philosopher and theologian. The argument went something like this: Nature gives us clues for how to live well; if that is so, we should pay attention to the goodness of the body and its powers; technology is helpful, but when it starts getting used to exalt our freedom to war against our biological nature, against our natural faculties, something is amiss.”
People these days are all excited about being ‘trans’ everything, including being transhumanists: how about getting excited about being human first.”
