Contraception...Why is it considered sinful?

[goout]

AlmaRedemptorisMater:

Obviously 70 year old people have no need of contraception. . . .

I gave a hypothetical scenario of an elderly couple expressly using contraception to avoid a miraculous conception. Age isn’t the important factor, but the intention. . . .

Exactly. But an eighty year old couple haven’t got the intention or the desire to have children. It’s nonsensical to tell them that they have to be ‘open to conception (or procreation)’. It’s not conceivable for the woman to say to the man: ‘OK, you want to have sex? But I won’t do it unless you accept that I could get pregnant’. But that’s the requirement.

The Church does not say that.

She just ask married people to have relations in the way that children are conceived, no others things. The vocabulary is “oriented toward procreation”.

The same act, and nothing to deliberately avoid conception.

bolding is mine

 

[Inquiry]

Well, that’s a bummer. I remember many a day coming home from school and my parents weren’t having sex. I guess they didn’t want all of each other.

And when we went out to the movies as a family they weren’t having sex there either. I guess they didn’t want all of each other.

And of course there were the times my grandparents visited for dinner. My parents weren’t having sex then either. I guess they didn’t want all of each other.

No wait. The Church doesn’t teach that at all. Not having sex is not a rejection of your spouse. Instead the Church teaches that when a couple has sex, they must not inhibit either it’s unitive or procreative elements. When they choose to truncate the marital embrace that is when they are rejecting part of each other.

 

[JMMJ]

That’s not what NFP is. At all. Couples are not required to have sex at every opportunity (for one thing it would make going out to eat very awkward) so at times when they are not having sex they are not rejecting each other.

There are many ways for a husband and wife to express the totality of their love for each other whichever one the couple chooses they must engage in it fully and honestly.

Again, you aren’t addressing the question. If a couple really wants to have sex, but then they say to eachother “Let’s not, because we don’t really want all of each other tonight”… That doesn’t seem like good direction for a married couple. The “all of me” argument is used all the time for proponents of NFP. It can also be used to make the case in the opposite direction.

I have never bought the “all of me” argument. My fertility, or lack there of, is a chartereristic of my body. I don’t find it to be an important part of who I am, on the whole.

 

[JMMJ]

Well, that’s a bummer. I remember many a day coming home from school and my parents weren’t having sex. I guess they didn’t want all of each other.

obviously I’m not talking about having sex 24/7. You left out the part where I said they really wanted to be having sex with each other. I don’t know about you, but the desire is not in the average person for every minute of every day.

 

[whatistrue]

The “all of me” argument is used all the time for proponents of NFP. It can also be used to make the case in the opposite direction.

Only by misinterpreting what it means.

 

[Inquiry]

Again, you aren’t addressing the question. If a couple really wants to have sex, but then they say to eachother “Let’s not, because we don’t really want all of each other tonight”… That doesn’t seem like good direction for a married couple. The “all of me” argument is used all the time for proponents of NFP. It can also be used to make the case in the opposite direction.

See you are trying to make that sound like a bad thing, but if a couple really wants sex but they don’t want all of each other then they have to decide which of the two is more important to them. Choosing sex over all of each other isn’t a loving compromise, it is lust. Choosing all of each other over sex (or all of each other and sex) values the love over the act. It is never objectifying to choose love over lust.

 

[goout]

Inquiry:

That’s not what NFP is. At all. Couples are not required to have sex at every opportunity (for one thing it would make going out to eat very awkward) so at times when they are not having sex they are not rejecting each other.

There are many ways for a husband and wife to express the totality of their love for each other whichever one the couple chooses they must engage in it fully and honestly.

Again, you aren’t addressing the question. If a couple really wants to have sex, but then they say to eachother “Let’s not, because we don’t really want all of each other tonight”… That doesn’t seem like good direction for a married couple. The “all of me” argument is used all the time for proponents of NFP. It can also be used to make the case in the opposite direction.

I have never bought the “all of me” argument. My fertility, or lack there of, is a chartereristic of my body. I don’t find it to be an important part of who I am, on the whole.

Human beings are a unity of body and soul. We are"holistic" beings. The physical is bound up with the spiritual.

 

[goout]

Inquiry:

That’s not what NFP is. At all. Couples are not required to have sex at every opportunity (for one thing it would make going out to eat very awkward) so at times when they are not having sex they are not rejecting each other.

There are many ways for a husband and wife to express the totality of their love for each other whichever one the couple chooses they must engage in it fully and honestly.

Again, you aren’t addressing the question. If a couple really wants to have sex, but then they say to eachother “Let’s not, because we don’t really want all of each other tonight”… That doesn’t seem like good direction for a married couple. The “all of me” argument is used all the time for proponents of NFP. It can also be used to make the case in the opposite direction.

The scenario you propose is a little humorous, you probably intend it that way.

Virtue is a practice. It’s not something that happens on the spot. In chastity, the couple is working together throughout life to order sexuality with the whole of their lives, not just the moment of sexual arousal.
Planning
Natural Family Planning.
The moment of sexual engagement is the fruit of a full life together, not on the spot philosophizing. In this way it becomes truly natural, not contrived.

 

[Ammi]

I’m not criticizing the phrase “must be ordered towards procreation”. Im only saying that the Church does use the phrase “open to life”, and it’s a good and appropriate phrase too.

The phrase “must be ordered towards procreation” can be misunderstood too. It could be thought to mean that every sex act must try to conceive.

 

[Dorothy]

With God all things are possible. Thankfully we have the Eucharist, Sacrament of Reconciliation and prayer to make us holy and able to practice what is difficult.

This life is the stepping stone to the next, and Our Lord Jesus Christ gave us everything we need to obey His commandments and moral teachings. True peace and joy comes from obedience.

 

[Ammi]

I agree with your post. But @JMMJ didnt actually believe a couple speaks to each other like that on the spot (or that’s how I discerned the post). It’s more of a reflection of the relationship, and if it were vocalized (“on the spot”), that is what might be said.

 

[Ammi]

Well what does that mean, when 80% of Catholics are doing something far worse than abortion?

 

[Ammi]

I agree that the state of marriage in the Church is awful. I even believe that a large degree of the way that the United States tribunal has been approaching validity of marriage is very similar to the concession to divorce by Moses, which Jesus abrogated based on the hardness of hearts. In fact, I’d venture to say that it’s easier to get an annulment and marry again, than it was for the Hebrews to divorce and remarry.

Though I dont believe contraception is worse than abortion.

I think they are closely related, and either one is deadly when we dont have remorse and strive to reconcile for doing them.

I do think they are both a corruption of the marital bed and purity of the Domestic Church. And that contraception is not spoken out against nearly as much as abortion. Abortion seems to be alot easier to wave a banner at, while our clergy does not like to confront and admonish contraception.

So contraception, is by far, more prevalent and cancerous within the body of the Church.

 

[JMMJ]

It’s a stinginess of the heart. It leads to “contracepted hearts” and when a marriage is made up of contracepted hearts, it’s going to lead to bad consequences.

How, then, do you explain all of the happily married couples who use or have used contraception?

 

[HomeschoolDad]

When there are circumstances that make having children going forward difficult to consider, or even physically impossible, it might be good to lament the fact that one’s childbearing days are over, and wish it were possible to have more children.

I didn’t tell anyone to do anything. I merely offered an idea and shared my own experience. Many people lament the fact that they can’t have any more children. I wish I were 20 years younger and had a six-figure income so that my wife could easily stay at home and I could put half a dozen children through university. But it didn’t happen that way. I am thankful to have the one son, and to be able to provide a modest upbringing for him. Many fathers in divorce situations end up with only minimal visitation and have to write checks every month, which if you think about it, serves the purpose of enabling “stepfathers” while the fathers have no real role in the upbringing of their children. Things turn out the way they turn out, and if “the way they turn out” is good, we should simply be thankful for that.

 

[JMMJ]

Doubtful. Whose God?

 

[JMMJ]

Contracepted marriages are limited, there is still a spirit of stinginess and untrust to them. Eventually a “me” focus takes over.

We have to agree to disagree.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Honestly, I’ve never talked to my neighbors about our sex life.

It is important for parents to teach their kids about the Church through words and examples and caidid conversations.

When our son was around 12 he came home from a friend’s house, that mom told me somehow vasectomies came up in conversation. Our son proceeded to give the medical details in an accurate manner and followed with “and it is a serious sin”.

He knew about how the human reproductive system worked for men and women, the basics of STM and mucous only methods (this was before tech was involved).

That is how things change, parents who are not timid when instructiing their kids.

 

[TheLittleLady]

The tone of such a family will be “bright and cheerful”

We used NFP for decades. We were a normal family, we had our bright and cheerful times and we had ugly problems. We separated twice during our marriage, both times we reconciled after some time.

We cannot promise that NFP gives constant happiness.

 

[Ammi]

I would agree. Not necessarily disagreeing with HappyCatholic49, but it’s not the “end all struggles” to be rejecting contraception.

It actually can bring to surface our problems. And we can be in periods of struggling in order to practice NFP. But its fighting the good fight, over all. It’s better to bring things to light and confront our faults, than to seek temporary ease.

Plus, contraception probably does enable many couples to “stay married”. Yet, it’s a mutual rejection of God. This is when God should come before mere convenience of lifestyle. Two spouses can collaborate against faithfulness, while becoming friends in doing so.

Reminds me of Pilate and Herod becoming friends, through their contempt for Jesus.