Contraception and vocations

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TheLittleLady said:
Religious life is a vocation, not a place for those who don’t wanna get married.
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Religious life should be a vocation, but it has historically often been a place for those who don’t want to , or cannot, get married. That is not a good thing, but it is a thing. (BTW, I am not agreeing that a wider adoption of the belief that contraception is immoral would lead to more vocations, just pointing out that vocations don’t always work the way we might hope they would.)
 
When a person does not wish to get married, they often look around and think about what else they might do in order to give meaning to their life. At that point, some might truly feel called to religious life.

I suspect that those in the past who entered religious life because they didn’t want to marry but without a “call” are the ones responsible for a good many past abuses and lax disciplines and/or the ones who ended up leaving later.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
I think the simple reason is that people don’t think anymore that it is possible for them to commit sins so serious that they cannot be forgiven outside the confessional. They think “I’m a pretty good person” and that’s where their thinking stops.
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I think it may also be that people who have stopped going may not easily be able to come back. Complaceny and procrastination are reasons here. Maybe the Church needs to do some outreach and help lapsed people back into the routine.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
You do not have to have a certain level of “grave reason” to make a mutual decision to not have sex with your spouse if both parties are okay with that.
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True, a married couple does not have to have relations, but if they do, they cannot limit it to only the foreseen infecund times without a grave or serious reason.
 
Again, the Church does not compel married couples to have sex X times a month or during certain times. The Church also does not require you to have a “grave reason” for using NFP.
Where are you getting the idea that it does?
 
HomeschoolDad said:
It is possible to use NFP sinfully, to avoid conception when there is no grave or serious reason to avoid it.
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There is nothing in the Church teaching that NFP may only be used for grave and serious reasons.

CCC 2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil.
 
TMC said:
Religious life should be a vocation, but it has historically often been a place for those who don’t want to , or cannot, get married.
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I think a vocation can sometimes be a “shades of gray” scenario that eventually coalesces into something entirely clear. Not wanting to get married, or even not being able to, can be a sign from God that one has a religious vocation — “I really don’t wish to take on the burdens that married life brings”, or “realistically, marriage doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me”, and so on, can then lead to the question “all right, then, what does God have in store for me”? I don’t think that has to be a bad thing at all, nor a bad motivation.
 
Thistle has posted the correct catechism reference.
I’m afraid your opinions on this matter are just that, your opinions.
Leaving this thread now due to the amount of faulty premise in it.
 
TheLittleLady said:
The Church says “just reason”. It does not have to reach the level of “grave”.
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Humanae vitae:

With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.

“Grave” and “serious” reasons are not quite the same as “just” reasons.

NFP can be used for sinful purposes.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
NFP can be used for sinful purposes.
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Have you used NFP? It is difficult to not have relations with your spouse, you love them, you desire them. Having used NFP for many years (used it before my conversion even), I cannot think of one single “sinful reason” to use NFP.
 
“not being willing to accept children for many years” = sinful?. I was not able to accept children for many years, as are other couples.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
It is possible to use NFP sinfully, to avoid conception when there is no grave or serious reason to avoid it.
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The Church has no business telling a family what is “grave” or not in their circumstances. Fortunately, she does not do so. She does not define “grave”. Similarly we have no business speculating on the sinfulness, or not, of a couple’s use of NFP.

The number of children to have, and when to have them, is an intimate decision left up to the couple, who are the ministers of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, not the Church. It’s a prudential decision, and a priest has no business interfering with the couple’s ministry of their sacrament.

The Church in Quebec tried that prior to the Council, and it nearly destroyed her here.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
NFP can be used for sinful purposes.
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When used permanently without a good reason? Sure.

But the idea that couples need a serious reason is silly imo.

The Church won’t tell a woman not to study about her fertility and pay attention to her symptoms. The Church will also not tell her to have/avoid sex in a specific time frame. That’s ultimately what NFP is.
 
LumineDiei said:
Not all of what one considers “serious” are apparent or visible to those outside of the husband and wife. None of us have any business judging other’s reasons for using NFP and making ourselves the determining factor of what is serious outside of our own marriage.
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I couldn’t agree more. The couple must ultimately decide, and it is better if they seek the advice of a confessor, to ensure that their motives are not sinful. It is often very easy to deceive oneself in such matters. This self-deception can gradually unfold over time.
 
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OraLabora said:
The number of children to have, and when to have them, is an intimate decision left up to the couple, who are the ministers of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, not the Church. It’s a prudential decision, and a priest has no business interfering with the couple’s ministry of their sacrament.

The Church in Quebec tried that prior to the Council, and it nearly destroyed her here.
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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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