Contraception and vocations

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If a couple decides, with ill-will, to pursue sexual relations for it’s own sake and not have children, why would they choose a method of good will and virtue to achieve their end?

Could it happen that couple use NFP as birth control for it’s own sake? I suppose. I don’t know anyone who does this.

It’s a little like establishing a life of prayer to avoid the fruits of the Holy Spirit. A person so disposed isn’t going to take a working path of virtue to do it.
 
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goout said:
If a couple decides, with ill-will, to pursue sexual relations for it’s own sake and not have children, why would they choose a method of good will and virtue to achieve their end?
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I have a friend, who is pagan, who uses the Marquette method to avoid having children with her boyfriend because she is opposed to chemical birth control and petroleum products. She’s not doing it because it is virtuous.
 
goout said:
If a couple decides, with ill-will, to pursue sexual relations for it’s own sake and not have children, why would they choose a method of good will and virtue to achieve their end?

Could it happen that couple use NFP as birth control for it’s own sake? I suppose. I don’t know anyone who does this.
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They could assure themselves that it is OK because they are not using an intrinsically sinful means to the end. As noted earlier in this thread, this is what I did. (I will not attempt to speak for my “ex-” wife’s conscience.) Maybe I was the only person in the history of the Church to do this. I don’t know.
 
thistle said:
You would be entirely within your rights to approach the Church (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, perhaps), state your reasons for disagreeing with this teaching or that, offer your own knowledge and expertise, and ask that the matter be reconsidered based on this. I am not being sarcastic — I don’t do sarcasm. I am dead serious. Galileo did this . You might get a better hearing than he did
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Is that so? What, then, was the problem? He was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” and forced to recant against his will (“e pur si muove!”). He may not have been judged a formal heretic, but it was pretty darn close.

Let me be clear that I do not view Galileo as a heretic.
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Jen95 said:
Aren’t Catholics supposed to be happy to live in Holy Poverty? I’m asking this seriously. The prevailing culture lives very well these days. Aren’t Catholics supposed to live differently and according to their (well-formed) consciences? Also, isn’t it likely that the working dad would have health insurance, rather than charity?
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For what it’s worth, I have no problem with living humbly, but no, the Church doesn’t say we’re to live in poverty (by societal definition). And my example is my lived experience, not a made up instance. We do have health insurance; it’s not sufficient, because the healthcare industry still requires copays and deductibles that are rather arbitrarily established for us and have no connection to our circumstances, and medical procedures or prescriptions may be necessary, but insurance is not obligated to pay for them. 15% of my last paycheck went to the pharmacy.
 
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goout said:
NFP is frequently equated with contraception by the (ignorant) public.
Contraception is by definition ill-disposed to the goods of marriage.
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The judgment that NFP is materially different than other ways of having sex without procreating is a theological judgment of the Church. I would not call people that don’t see it that way as “ignorant.” They may disagree with the Church’s conclusion that NFP is theologically distinct from other methods, but that does not make them “ignorant.”
 
HomeschoolDad said:
I would say no such thing. I would say, when I see 95% of a congregation going up to receive communion, that “they can’t all be accepting the teachings of the Church and living in accord with them”. Maybe they are. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
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But why are you even having such thoughts about something that is absolutely none of your business? And during communion? Better check yourself, HSD.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
I don’t normally think of someone following a religious vocation as having “failed at ‘regular’ life”. That said, it is entirely possible that someone might pursue a secular career, see that they are a bad fit for it, and determine that they had a religious vocation all along, they just didn’t make the right choice the first time around, “missed their calling”, so to speak…
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I have a major problem with this. For people who are called to a vocation there is an obvious calling, but there also has to be a choice…a real choice. There should be alternative paths where somebody would be successful and end up following God’s will even if they didn’t become a priest, brother or nun.
 
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goout said:
Yes, but not merely for the pursuit of sexual pleasure “without the consequences”.
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What? Of course that is the purpose. To have sex while hoping to not get pregnant.

Please stop that double talk.
 
JMMJ said:
But why are you even having such thoughts about something that is absolutely none of your business? And during communion?
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Well, for one thing, it saddens me to see people possibly receiving communion sacrilegiously, not only profaning the Sacred Species, but eating and drinking their own damnation. Prior to all of the changes after Vatican II, many people abstained from communion, some because they hadn’t kept the longer communion fast, and some, I would guess, because they were in mortal sin and couldn’t quite find their way out of it yet. I do also note that at Hispanic masses, fewer people receive — perhaps they are more conscious of their sin, honest with themselves, and do not wish to commit sacrilege?
 
But why are you considering the sins of others during communion. That seems very odd to me.

Maybe close your eyes and just say your prayers.
 
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jack63 said:
I don’t normally think of someone following a religious vocation as having “failed at ‘regular’ life”. That said, it is entirely possible that someone might pursue a secular career, see that they are a bad fit for it, and determine that they had a religious vocation all along, they just didn’t make the right choice the first time around, “missed their calling”, so to speak…
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Almighty God can surely make His calling clearer and easier to discern through circumstances. I don’t think it’s at all beyond the pale for someone to have a go at secular life, perhaps suffer setbacks, and conclude that they may have made the wrong choice and discern another calling. Neither is there anything wrong with someone going to the seminary, monastery, or convent for a while, seeing that it’s just not for them, and returning to the world, either to marry or to remain in the single life. Happens all the time.
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HomeschoolDad said:
I have heard of that scenario, and it is quite rigorist. If I were a priest, and if the subject came up in the confessional, I would counsel along the lines of “you have reasons and they may be serious ones, however, I do invite you to lay your soul bare before Almighty God and ask Him if you could possibly be less than open, for reasons that may not be as good as you think they are, to new life that He might be calling you to accept in spite of appearances to the contrary”. Then I would leave it at that.
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I guess its good then that you are not a priest!
 
thistle said:
I have heard of that scenario, and it is quite rigorist. If I were a priest, and if the subject came up in the confessional, I would counsel along the lines of “you have reasons and they may be serious ones, however, I do invite you to lay your soul bare before Almighty God and ask Him if you could possibly be less than open, for reasons that may not be as good as you think they are, to new life that He might be calling you to accept in spite of appearances to the contrary”. Then I would leave it at that.
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I don’t think the scenario I painted would be bad advice at all. I wish a priest had said something like this to me. In fact, as I noted above, I did receive similar advice shortly before I was married, and I didn’t find it offensive at all. I didn’t follow it, but perhaps I should have.
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HomeschoolDad said:
I don’t think the scenario I painted would be bad advice at all. I wish a priest had said something like this to me. In fact, as I noted above, I did receive similar advice shortly before I was married, and I didn’t find it offensive at all. I didn’t follow it, but perhaps I should have.
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You have spent the whole thread judging people and now you are instructing them what they should do!! Give us a break!
 
thistle said:
I guess its good then that you are not a priest!
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I found his advice helpful though maybe not in that area since I don’t have a problem with that. It does need a few tweaks, but that’s alright.
 
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VanitasVanitatum said:
I guess its good then that you are not a priest!
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I’m not dead yet, and one day my son will be grown and out on his own. I may yet discern a priestly vocation. I haven’t ruled it out. I’d be awfully darn old, but stranger things have happened. Nil sine numine, or as we said back in the day, “it’s not what you want, it’s what God wants”. Probably not, but we shall see. You never know.
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HomeschoolDad said:
Well, for one thing, it saddens me to see people possibly receiving communion sacrilegiously, not only profaning the Sacred Species, but eating and drinking their own damnation.
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Some no doubt are. But many are not, and it is often difficult to see the difference; what may be mortal culpability for one, may not be for someone committing the same sin. The sin of drunkenness for example, will have different culpability for an addict, and someone in full possession of his or her faculties.

It makes no matter. God can “take it”; He’s endured far worse. And it is up to Him to be the judge, not us. He may see nuances in the person’s heart that are invisible to us. He can read hearts. We cannot. We often have a hard time reading our own hearts, let alone others’.
 
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