Are priests able to advise using contraception under any circumstances?

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Apart from medical reasons which are not intended to prevent pregnancy, do Catholic priests have the authority to advise Married couples to use contraception under any circumstances?

Have you ever been advised to use a contraception by clergy?
 
It is a matter of some controversy, so you will find some persons on each side of the question. My understanding is that contraception is intrinsically evil and intrinsically evil acts are always immoral. This is particularly important for abortifacient contraception, which causes the deaths of the couple’s own unborn children. And therefore the clergy ought not to recommend contraception. The document that gives instructions to confessors says this:
  1. The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life.
  2. A specific and more seroius moral evil is present in the use of means which have an abortive effect, impeding the implantation of the embryo which has just been fertilized or even causing its expulsion in an early stage of pregnancy.
    http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...s/rc_pc_family_doc_12021997_vademecum_en.html
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No, they do not have the authority to advise their use to intentionally prevent pregnancy.

Any clergy who does advise it has gone outside their own authority to do so. I’ve personally not been advised because I never asked. I understood Church teaching already so getting the ok from an individual priest wouldn’t change that.
 
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I can think of a situation where a priest might tell a couple to use contraception, though it would not take away from the immorality of it. If a couple were married and one of the 2 cheated on the other spouse and contracted HIV and they decided to stay together. The church would say that they cannot use contraception even though having sex without it could mean a death sentence for the other spouse. Heroic chastity would be needed to abstain from intercourse, even though this would mean that they could no longer give themselves to one another like most married couples can. A real tough situation that I could see some clergy leaning one way or another.
 
Thats for medical reasons, and not to avoid pregnancy, right?
 
Are “able to”, sure. What I mean is God is not going to suddenly strike a priest mute if he begins to offer advice that is contrary to Church teaching.

Perhaps you meant to ask “Are priests permitted to advise a couple to use contraception under certain circumstances?” The answer to that is a resounding no.
 
I was told by @BlackFriar, that priests, under difficult situations, can be justified in suggesting the use of condoms to a couple, if it is intended to help the couple through trouble in their relationship. Using Vademecum for Confessors as support.

Correct me, if I phrased that wrongly, BF.
 
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rcwitness said:
Using Vademecum for Confessors as support.
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That isn’t what Vademecum for Confessors says AT ALL. That document gives guidance to confessors on helping an innocent party who is not contracepting but who has a spouse who is. This is guidance that can be given in confession to the innocent party regarding cooperation with evil.

It does NOT give priests “permission” to encourage a couple to start contracepting or to use condoms.
 
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