As much as I’ve argued against Church teachings on this issue in the past, I think I’m starting to get some insight as to why she is so staunch on it. I don’t necessarily agree with her conclusions, but I think it is the spirit of them that counts most.
To me, it seems contraception can be expanded to be any attempt at preventing the Holy Spirit to communicate between souls. Therefore I envision “contraception” can be modeled with any number of behaviors that either intentionally or accidentally prevent a spiritual message from “getting through.”
In this way, I could even model a person who intentionally stands in the way of a charitable act of any sort as being contraceptive, and thus has directly interposed himself into a spiritual communication of some sort. Under that expanded definition of contraception, I begin to respect more the Church teachings that as far as I know apply to the physical act. At the same time, I know that Church traditions most often have spiritual meaning far beyond the physical ritual itself, so maybe I’m not so far from the Church on this after all.
Alan
