Once again, thank you for the civil tone of this exchange, though I am going to depart at this point, before the discussion morphs into a rabbit hole.
You say, if I’m understanding correctly, that NFP can never be used selfishly because NFP is intrinsically unselfish (which it is), I say, along with the others cited in the articles, that it can be,
regardless of its intrinsic unselfishness.
(Or, to be fair, you may be acknowledging that NFP can be used selfishly at the outset for some Selfish Reason X, but as the sacrifice and generosity intrinsic to NFP unfold over time, any selfishness will disappear — the law of gradualness — which is all well and good, but Selfish Reason X remains Selfish Reason X. Or does the couple who is moving to selflessness gradually — again, the law of gradualness — get to a point and say “you know, Selfish Reason X isn’t a good reason to use NFP, maybe we’d better reconsider Selfish Reason X, and use NFP for some other unselfish reason, or try for a child and quit using NFP at this time”? And NFP can be used both to
try to avoid conception, or to
try to conceive. It serves both purposes. Even non-religiously-minded people, or at least non-religious where this matter is concerned, use fertility awareness to TTC.)
I do have to wonder, when Pope Francis made his good remarks about people being selfish by not having children, whether he was talking only about using artificial contraceptives. I don’t think he made that distinction, and he did not say “…but if you’re using NFP, my comments don’t apply to you, NFP is unselfish by its very nature, so you’re good, carry on”.
I’m surprised you don’t know that Janet Smith PhD is Dr Smith rather than Ms Smith even though the article introduces her as Dr Smith.
Duly noted, I didn’t catch that.
Likewise I’ve never met a couple that used NFP to avoid children permanently. When you do the course, all those implications are covered. No one honestly goes into NFP believing it’s license for childlessness.
For a space of about a decade, my wife and I did. There may be others. It’s not the kind of thing people would publicize, that would surely get you the stink-eye at many a Catholic parish. We left people with the impression that we were infertile, without ever coming right out and saying it. Nobody ever questioned it. I wish someone had. (Yes, on this count, I plead guilty as charged to duplicitousness. We were just having too much fun with our big bank accounts, our nice little trips out West every year, our snug, cozy, uncluttered home, and conjugality half the month, better than no conjugality at all.)
Having a large family is ‘a gift from God’ as Pope Francis has said, but it’s a calling. A vocation. It’s not for everyone and people are free in this regard to discern their family size.
No argument there, and some may discern a calling to have a large family, and even to disregard fertility signs altogether, and just have whatever children happen to be conceived. As long as they can support these children without asking for help (other than the tax deductions that go with each child and similar benefits, e.g., family size as a determinant of ACA insurance subsidy in the US, etc.), I’m good with that.
That scenario is irrelevant to the discussion having nothing to do with NFP.
Tell that to my grandparents.
My point here, was that even if, hypothetically, a couple had such a strong sense of their own excellence and worthiness, a sense of entitlement, as to prompt them to have a large family for reasons of pride, vanity, and/or narcissism —
“we’re such great people that there need to be as many more people just like us as possible” (or whatever their thought process would be) — all of that is going to get “burnt up” in the day-to-day rigors, and massive expense, of actually raising and caring for that family.
I really have to doubt whether such a family has ever existed, and whether the “selfish parents of a large family” is a straw man fallacy. Catholics who have large numbers of children, especially when NFP is always there to allow them
not to have children (or at least to make it highly unlikely, NFP is always open to the possibility), do so
because they discern a calling to have a large family. They do not do it for reasons of arrogance, vainglory, or seeking to have a “quiverfull” as a “force multiplier” for their own perceived self-importance and excellence, or to gain “cred” among the far-right-wing of Catholics both of the TLM and “conservative Novus Ordo” tendencies. In short, they are the very antithesis of “selfish”.
