Birth Control

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Jennifer_J said:
I’m sure there are probably people out there like that…there always are. I think the difference is that Catholics (should) have a deep understanding that sex is a holy activity. It’s a restatement of those marriage vows and therefore sacramental in nature. Is it for pleasure and for babies, yes! But it is deeper than that. Two are becoming one–it’s a total self giving, or it should be. Abusing this sacramental is a serious thing. Celibacy in marriage, of course isn’t easy. But neither is celibacy easy for priests, nuns, and single people. It’s a challenge to control oneself. But isn’t that true about many things? I’d rather eat the whole bag of m&m’s than just a few. I’d rather sleep all day rather than do the dishes and clean the house. I’d rather do the things I want than serve my family sometimes. Doing the right thing isn’t always easy and doing the easy thing isn’t always right.
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I don’t disagree with that. It IS a challenge. For some people, it’s a much harder challenge. I’m very blessed-It’s just not an issue for me.

I view it like an addict staying sober-which, sadly, is something I’m familiar with firsthand. (Two years sober in Feb) When an addict falls, virtually everyone prays for them and offers them help. When someone is who sexually troubled (I think a sex “addiction” is an overrated term) when they fall-instead of judging them, we need to love them more and treat them differently. That means people are using a form of birth control, living together outside of marriage, etc. There are better ways to help people than just yelling at them.
 
Rascalking, totally OT, but what is a Catholic Mormon? A Mormon turned Catholic, or vice versa, or something else entirely?
 
Rascalking said:
That means people are using a form of birth control, living together outside of marriage, etc. There are better ways to help people than just yelling at them.
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Exactly.

But you are talking to Catholics, they only yell, judge, or damn people to Hell. Helping people? What is that? It’s not as fun as yelling at someone.

I’m so thankful that my fiance is not like 95% of Catholics I have had the (dis)pleasure of meeting in real life. He knows I struggle with learning NFP, and he isn’t all like “you are bad, you are disturbed, you shouldn’t get married, you are going to Hell, blah blah, blah”.

And yes, I am about the leave the Church over this issue if NFP doesn’t work.
 
CountrySinger said:
Exactly.

But you are talking to Catholics, they only yell, judge, or damn people to Hell. Helping people? What is that? It’s not as fun as yelling at someone.

I’m so thankful that my fiance is not like 95% of Catholics I have had the (dis)pleasure of meeting in real life. He knows I struggle with learning NFP, and he isn’t all like “you are bad, you are disturbed, you shouldn’t get married, you are going to Hell, blah blah, blah”.
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Wow speaking of judgmental…
 
I think it’s sad to leave the Church just because of this issue. I would not allow people on CAF to determine how you feel about this and go about this either. CAF is just a small portion of Catholics who at times, can have very strong opinions and be quite rude, but the best people to talk to are medical professionals trained in NFP.

I struggle with this issue too, but I can’t look at this as “NFP will or won’t work” as if it was black and white. Obviously I still have a lot of questions, and personally they’re going to be answered by a medical professional once I get the chance.
 
Unfortunately, there are no affordable NFP experts in my area, so I’m stuck with my horrible NFP teachers. I mean, they are SO bad, it is almost funny, until you realize that this is serious. And the sad thing is that one of them is studying to be a teacher! :eek: Teaching is not equal to reading out of the book and ignoring student’s questions. Yeah, way to have a positive experience of NFP. I’m going to the class pretty much against my will, and the teachers are not making it any better.
 
So I pretty much feel back into a corner with this whole birth control issue. And there is no way out of it. I have to compromise my beliefs to fit in, or else go out on my own and follow what I believe.
 
kdragonfly said:
Couples who have small families or no children due to infertility issues are to be expected, and my heart goes out to them. However, large Catholic families were definitely much more common in the past than they are now, which leads me to believe that many are practicing some form of birth control.
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This stands out to me, because I’ve noticed a comeback in large families in my parish…but it’s the younger couples that are having consecutive children. It seems that the families from my parents’ generation had fewer children (though some of them actually do have 8-12 children). My sponsor is a Cradle Catholic and her parents just had the two girls, but I don’t know for sure if it was medical reasons or not. She has a 5 month old baby and is now pregnant with their second. Another young couple (19 and 20) have done the same thing. They were dating in high school, married just after graduation, and have two children now and are expecting their third soon (that particular young family inherited a farm and business, so they’re very capeable of supporting their children). 🤷
 
CountrySinger said:
Unfortunately, there are no affordable NFP experts in my area, so I’m stuck with my horrible NFP teachers. I mean, they are SO bad, it is almost funny, until you realize that this is serious. And the sad thing is that one of them is studying to be a teacher! :eek: Teaching is not equal to reading out of the book and ignoring student’s questions. Yeah, way to have a positive experience of NFP. I’m going to the class pretty much against my will, and the teachers are not making it any better.
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There are absolutely ZERO NFP teachers in my area. I’d have to drive 2 hours to get to classes in the city, and they were entirely too expensive. I found a book at Amazon.com that was only about 6$ called “Honoring Our Cycles: A Natural Family Planning Workbook” and also bought a basal thermometer for about the same price from Amazon.

My husband isn’t Catholic but when I explained how important it was to me and let him read statistics of well practiced NFP he agreed to try it. The workbook explains everything (what causes fertility/infertility during cycle, the body process, how to chart, what to chart, when to chart, including pictures) and provides worksheets that make it really easy to track your cycle effectively. For my cycle we only had to obstain for about a week at a time. The “time off” made for great date nights for lazer-tag, movies, etc…fun things that weren’t necessarily romantic, but it made our relationship stronger because we still had a great time together.

We used it effectively until we decided to try for a baby and to put it bluntly, we got pregnant in one shot. Aparently the plumbing works, so I attribute our being able to hold off on having kids to the effectiveness of NFP. I wish there would have been a teacher to explain it, but the book was a great resource.
 
CountrySinger said:
My fiance tells me to not be afraid of having children. But I am. So it is better to have them not exist at all, than risk having me as a mother.
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If you do have kids I’ll bet you’d be a great mother. I don’t know your situation, but to be honest I don’t think anyone is ever truely ready to be a parent. Financially, emotionally, spiritually, it puts you in a whole different place that there aren’t enough books or mentors in the world to completely prepare us for. My mom was definitely not ready at 19, unmarried, and living far from family. When she became a mother she started going to church, quit smoking, met and married a good man, and she’s one of the strongest women I know. I think you might surprise yourself. 🤷
 
heart4home said:
Condoms would be putting an artificial barrier between the husband and wife’s union. NFP would still require the couples cooperation of when exactly they could come together to strengthen their bond. They may have the same end result as you say, but one is a natural ordered solution, the other is unnatural.

Just because something has the same end result, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are equally good.
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NFP ALSO puts a barrier between husband and wife - but the barrier is in TIME (by controlling the timing of the act) rather than in SPACE (like a condom).

The argument that one is any more artificial than the other is a misnomer.

My preference is to follow what Christ said about NFP, or any other type of family planning.
 
kbachler said:
NFP ALSO puts a barrier between husband and wife - but the barrier is in TIME (by controlling the timing of the act) rather than in SPACE (like a condom).

The argument that one is any more artificial than the other is a misnomer.

My preference is to follow what Christ said about NFP, or any other type of family planning.
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You logic doesn’t make sense. The couple ALWAYS controls the timing of the act. The Church doesn’t teach WHEN any couple MUST have sex. There is no rule that on cycle day 15 or 20 all couples much engage in the act. Couples have the right to decide when to have sex–it makes no difference if the woman or man is naturally fertile or naturally infertile at the time. The choice to engage in sex is theirs AND knowledge of the fertility of the act doesn’t render the act infertile or change the fact that the couple has a choice to have sex or not. All forms of contraception seek to render the act infertile–that’s it’s goal. NFP does nothing to the act of sex. Each and every act is whole and intact–irregardless of the natural fertility/infertilty of the couple
 
kbachler said:
NFP ALSO puts a barrier between husband and wife - but the barrier is in TIME (by controlling the timing of the act) rather than in SPACE (like a condom).

The argument that one is any more artificial than the other is a misnomer.

My preference is to follow what Christ said about NFP, or any other type of family planning.
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I really don’t understand - the two are not equivalent. If NFP puts a barrier between husband and wife, then so does the flu, your son’s basketball game, the family dinner hour… and none of these is considered “intrinsically evil”…
 
kbachler said:
NFP ALSO puts a barrier between husband and wife - but the barrier is in TIME (by controlling the timing of the act) rather than in SPACE (like a condom).

The argument that one is any more artificial than the other is a misnomer.

My preference is to follow what Christ said about NFP, or any other type of family planning.
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Your logic is not like our earth logic. I have seen some pretty bad criticisms of NFP, but this is by far the worst.
 
kbachler said:
NFP ALSO puts a barrier between husband and wife - but the barrier is in TIME (by controlling the timing of the act) rather than in SPACE (like a condom).

The argument that one is any more artificial than the other is a misnomer.

My preference is to follow what Christ said about NFP, or any other type of family planning.
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Dude, this was covered SO FAR back…
Em_in_FL said:
The “barrier in time” was *created *by God. This method does not disassociate the unitive and procreative aspects of marital sexuality.
Other methods do and are contrary to moral teachings.
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kbachler said:
NFP ALSO puts a barrier between husband and wife - but the barrier is in TIME (by controlling the timing of the act) rather than in SPACE (like a condom).

The argument that one is any more artificial than the other is a misnomer.
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Others have already pointed out the flaws in this statement…
kbachler said:
My preference is to follow what Christ said about NFP, or any other type of family planning.
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What did He say about NFP? Unless you mean you follow what Christ says about marital union through His Church…?
 
Consecrated said:
Others have already pointed out the flaws in this statement…

What did He say about NFP? Unless you mean you follow what Christ says about marital union through His Church…?
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My guess is the poster meant Jesus didn’t say anything about NFP or family planning or contraception, therefore they are all okay (faulty logic, again). I’m sure the poster will correct me if I’m wrong.
 
Em_in_FL said:
Dude, this was covered SO FAR back…
Originally Posted by kbachler
NFP ALSO puts a barrier between husband and wife - but the barrier is in TIME (by controlling the timing of the act) rather than in SPACE (like a condom).
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And the knowledge that man has to use the barrier in time, was also created by God. Just as the knowledge to apply a barrier in space was created by God. IT WAS ALL created by God.

Sorry, that argument doesn’t fly. The whole “natural/unnatural” argument just doesn’t make sense.
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