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anp1215
Guest
I love this phrase. Great way to put it.
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domestichippie
Guest
So ngp is ok because evrnthough the couple is actively deciding not to have have sec while she is fertile its ok because they are still in mound of what marital relations are for.?
Would it then be wrong for a couple to use nfp to not have s family simply because they don’t want more or any children?
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Corki
Guest
“still in mound”?“Any” would be problematic but not because of the NFP. If a couple intends to permanently exclude children from the marriage, the marriage **may **not even be valid.
There is nothing inherently wrong with not wanting to have “more” children if there is a good reason. Again, this has to be prayerfully considered and decided, there isn’t a rule. You would be more justified, for example, in deciding not to have more children if the wife is approaching advanced maternal age than if you just decided you like having an even number.
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manualman
Guest
The nice thing about NFP is that you rarely need to obsess over the “seriousness” of your reason to avoid. Those difficult times of abstinance when you don’t want to have a way of stripping away phony rationalizations and exposing the truth of the situation.
An awful lot of NFP couples have “Oh what the heck” babies. Most ABC using couples don’t even comprehend the phrase, much less have any. It’s a physical manifestation of the inner difference between the two sexual worldviews.
An awful lot of NFP couples have “Oh what the heck” babies. Most ABC using couples don’t even comprehend the phrase, much less have any. It’s a physical manifestation of the inner difference between the two sexual worldviews.
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domestichippie
Guest
Mind…stupid auto correct
“Any” would be problematic but not because of the NFP. If a couple intends to permanently exclude children from the marriage, the marriage **may **not even be valid.
There is nothing inherently wrong with not wanting to have “more” children if there is a good reason. Again, this has to be prayerfully considered and decided, there isn’t a rule. You would be more justified, for example, in deciding not to have more children if the wife is approaching advanced maternal age than if you just decided you like having an even number.
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manualman
Guest
LOL, my iphone oftens surprises me with creative autocorrects too!
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Uzziah1
Guest
Sex is God’s natural pleasure reward for the assumption of whatever risk of pregnancy is innate to any given sex act.
The purpose of contraceptives is to steal the pleasure reward while committing homicide by “killing” whatever risk of pregnancy is innate to the particular sex act – thus “killing” a sacred life function.
NFP does not steal a pleasure reward while “killing” risk of pregnancy innate to a sex act. It accepts the innate risk of pregnancy innate to the sex act.
Becuse NFP can be completely successful in “killing” the fruitfulness of a relatioiship, even NFP can be sinful unles the couple accepts some reproductive capacity – unless they have some children.
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sw85
Guest
What the Church means when it talks about “openness to life” isn’t just a vague disposition of personality. I hear this a lot, especially from people who use it to justify contraception. “I’m open to life. I want to have kids some day. Just not right now.”
That’s not what is meant by the phrase. “Openness to life” is a property of the act itself. It’s simply shorthand (the typical kind of ugly, confusing, awkward language of most modern postconciliar documents) for “consistent with the natural end of the sexual act,” which in turn means “noncontraceptive, intravaginal ejaculation” (also, “in the context of marriage”). Of course, NFP is no less “noncontraceptive, intravaginal ejaculation in the context of marriage.”
Of course the disposition of the mind is not irrelevant. It’s not enough for the act not to offend against its procreative nature; the intention or will must be properly ordered as well.
There’s some confusion, uncertainty, and dispute over what constitutes sufficient grounds for using NFP. The Church doesn’t help matters by the way it talks about it. It does say explicitly in Catechism that spacing children is legitimate (within reason, presumably). Otherwise, it’s pretty silent on the matter.
I’m given to understand that the Church in the preconciliar age outlined pretty specific guidelines about when it’s permissible. In fact they limit its use to ‘grave matter.’ There must be grave matter present before using NFP: serious health problems or financial problems (not mere inconvenience), ongoing persecution, natural disasters, etc. I don’t know if those were doctrinal or not, or if the modern Church has repudiated them.
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Abu
Guest
**Answer by Fr.Stephen F. Torraco on June 19, 2006 (EWTN): **
“If you want an objective reason as to why contraception is a serious evil and NFP is not only morally justifiable but also praiseworthy, that objective reason is this: with contraception, there is the deliberate rupture of the intimate link between the unitive and procreative meanings of the marital act. With NFP, there is no such rupture. Even in the case in which a couple, using NFP, resorts to the infertile period for marital relations so as to avoid pregnancy (assuming for the sake of argument, for serious reasons) there is no such objective rupture of that link precisely because there is nothing there to contracept. You need to understand that morality is not simply about results. It is also about our actions in and of themselves. The argument to which you refer (the results are the same with NFP and contraception) is purely utilitarian and does not take into consideration the entire human act. Furthermore, as I have pointed out several times, the condoning of contraception quite logically is also the condoning of genital activity with anyone or anything, as well as of in vitro fertilization and cloning. The Church’s teaching on contraception does not at all depend on faith. It is a clear and rational defense of the very essence of civilization.”
[The late Fr Torraco was the Executive Director of the Society for the Study of the Magisterial Teaching of the Church (SSMTC), and answered questions for Mother Angelica’s Eternal Word Television Network].
Humanae Vitae 10 states: “seriis causis” (serious reasons); HV 16 states: “iustae…causae” (just reasons) and “argumenta…honesta et gravia (worthy and weighty justifications), as well as “probabiles rationes” (defensible reasons) and “iustas rationes” (just reasons).
The real issue in this thread is the reality that contraception is gravely evil and that NBR is a worthy endeavour for serious, just, reasons. The individual couple has to prayerfully and with counseling, if needed, decide what for them constitute just, serious reasons.
Natural Family Planning - Serious Motives
Answered by Fr. Richard Hogan, NFP Outreach
‘Serious reasons mean important, or non-trivial, reasons, deriving “from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions” (HV 16). Just reasons are, likewise, reasons which correspond to the truth of marriage and the situation of the couple. It is the nature of justice to correspond to the truth. Both terms, serious and just, presumes there can be selfish, trivial or unjust reasons for using NFP, reasons not in keeping with the nature of marriage as a community of life and love.’
ewtn.com/expert/answers/nfp_serious_motives.htm
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twoangels
Guest
They are immoral for all the same reasons. It is understood that sexuality is oriented to intercourse which is oriented to procreation. Acts which turn the act itself away from procreation (masturbation, condoms, hormones to surpress ovulation) change the purpose of sexuality for us for the sake of satisfying our lusts.
NFP relies on self control and self denial. It is still immoral to substitute other behaviors in place of natural intercourse whether we are fertile or infertile. Abstainence in NFP must be abstainence.
Ultimately it is about honoring and respecting the procreative nature of sexuality.
The abortificiant properties of the birth control pill were not known at the time it was condemned by the Church. As such, such properties are simply an added fact. Even if ovulation were completely surpressed, it would be immoral.
NFP relies on self control and self denial. It is still immoral to substitute other behaviors in place of natural intercourse whether we are fertile or infertile. Abstainence in NFP must be abstainence.
Ultimately it is about honoring and respecting the procreative nature of sexuality.
The abortificiant properties of the birth control pill were not known at the time it was condemned by the Church. As such, such properties are simply an added fact. Even if ovulation were completely surpressed, it would be immoral.
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twoangels
Guest
I don’t see how using contraceptives renders the act no longer unitive, but I suppose this gets into the older debate we’ve had on this forum as to what the unitive aspect refers to.
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twoangels
Guest
The intent of NFP is to determine when you ought to abstain from sex in order to avoid getting pregnant. Charting does not prevent babies. Having sex on your infertile days does not prevent babies. Only abstaining from sex on your fertile days prevents babies.
So think of it this way. If you used a condom every time you had sex, you are only gaining the contraceptive effectiveness on your fertile days. With NFP, you are simply aware that your fertility as a woman is not constant and instead of contracepting, you abstain.
It is perfectly ok to have sex without intending to have babies. It is not ok to thwart the reproductive functions of sexuality. As such, the only moral alternative is to abstain. NFPjust tells you when to abstain.
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etmom
Guest
I was wondering the other day that if a medication was invented that didn’t supress ovulation, but simply regulated the cycle. Let’s say when you took it, it ensured you ovulated on CD15, each and every month, always got your period on CD28. It did not interfere with ovulation or implantation. It would simplify NFP, take the uncertainty away and long periods of abstainance because you could easily determine which exact days to abstain.
I’m wondering if that would be immoral?
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Brendan
Guest
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9219957&postcount=8
Angels, when you are actively recjecting as aspect of your partner, in this case, their fertitily as God has given that to them, then it is not a unitive act
Rejection is not Unitive, it is devisive.
If your spouse said that they loved you, but didn’t like your face. Suppose they said that they didn’t like your face as God gave it to you and wanted you to wear a bag over your face during the marital act, would you feel united with them?, that they are accepting of you, the whole you?
The exact same holds true in regards to fertitilty, it is a Gift from God to be accepted as part of the whole person, exactly as God gave the Gift.
Contraception is the bag of the face of fertility. NFP is the acceptance of each spouses fertitilty exactly as God gave it, with no changes, just fully and loving acceptance.
Does that make sense?
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SusanneT
Guest
That perfectly illustrates my problem with NFP. it always seems to me that a contraceptive mindset is excused by the fact that the procreative nature of the actual act is not interfered with its all just down to timing. But the more scientific it all becomes the closer to contraception it gets and we are endless lead that way by claims of it effectiveness.
What if a method of NFP that was 100% effective and only needed say 5 days abstinance were invented. Would it be okay to have sex every other day ? The fact is that in many cases (including my own) when we use NFP - we just don’t want to get pregnant but we do want to have sex and NFP is the only alternative to the full time abstinance. White although many managed before marriage is understandably difficult within it.
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sw85
Guest
The answer is the same as it is now. NFP cannot be disordered in and of itself because there is nothing ethically offensive in the act. NFP can offensive when the intention itself is disordered, i.e., when one is using it without a good reason.
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SusanneT
Guest
That perfectly illustrates my problem with NFP. it always seems to me that a contraceptive mindset is excused by the fact that the procreative nature of the actual act is not interfered with its all just down to timing. But the more scientific it all becomes the closer to contraception it gets and we are endless lead that way by claims of it effectiveness.
What if a method of NFP that was 100% effective and only needed say 5 days abstinance were invented. Would it be okay to have sex every other day ? The fact is that in many cases (including my own) when we use NFP - we just don’t want to get pregnant but we do want to have sex and NFP is the only alternative to the full time abstinance. White although many managed before marriage is understandably difficult within it.
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searching04
Guest
Mary_Gail_36
New member
I always appreciate your explanations of NFP vs ABC.
Funny, in high school when we learned about NFP, the objections were “The Church can’t tell us when to have or not have relations, NO FAIR”
On CAF, the objection I see often, that I never saw before is “Hey, with NFP the couple can still have sex! NO FAIR! NFP is exactly like ABC because the couple is still being intimate.” I don’t get it.
With NFP you work with the body’s natural rhythms. Some days we are fertile, some days we aren’t. To avoid pregnancy, the couple avoids intimacy on days they could conceive.
With ABC, they remove the days they can conceive. Sex becomes only about self satisfaction.
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domestichippie
Guest
Please don’t thinkbim trying yo debate the issue. This is something that has bothered me even as a Protestant. Ive been taught all my lifethe Abc is the responsible thing to do and I’m trying to understandI always appreciate your explanations of NFP vs ABC.
Funny, in high school when we learned about NFP, the objections were “The Church can’t tell us when to have or not have relations, NO FAIR”
On CAF, the objection I see often, that I never saw before is “Hey, with NFP the couple can still have sex! NO FAIR! NFP is exactly like ABC because the couple is still being intimate.” I don’t get it.
With NFP you work with the body’s natural rhythms. Some days we are fertile, some days we aren’t. To avoid pregnancy, the couple avoids intimacy on days they could conceive.
With ABC, they remove the days they can conceive. Sex becomes only about self satisfaction.
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