Despite Catholic teachings, women religiously take the pill

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Julianna said:
I agree on the marriage and family part. I have been married 29 yrs, very rare. When my husband and I married, we knew what a commitment for life we were making. I know you and I disagree on alot…but marriage to me is a sacred institution. (on civil unions…you and I disagree as to “who” the participants are)

on secular forums…I am considered a prude…yeah, that is what it is like out in the big ocean.
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I’m sure we agree on many, many things. Debate always highlights differences.

Congrats on the 29 years of marriage! We just celebrated our 24th…and found out our 5th kid is on the way. 🙂
 
rlg94086 said:
I’m sure we agree on many, many things. Debate always highlights differences.

Congrats on the 29 years of marriage! We just celebrated our 24th…and found out our 5th kid is on the way. 🙂
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Congrats to you on the new little one!!! Isn’t “life” grand!!! 😃
 
Julianna said:
Congrats to you on the new little one!!! Isn’t “life” grand!!! 😃
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It is, indeed. We are already discussing names just 7-8 weeks in…maybe she’ll let me name a boy after my Dad and Grandpa this time - Cubert. 😃
 
rlg94086 said:
The importance of marriage and family has diminished for many, …
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Well, why go through all the expense and hassel of getting married, when twenty years down the line, your spouse can hook up with another partner and get the marriage annulled for some reason or another. So all that expense and effort was for nothing, since there was no marriage in the first place anyway.
I am not advocating this. It is just a reflection on how things are at this time and possibly can give some illumination as to why many Catholic couples are not marrying today.
 
Check your Diocese web site regarding annulments. There are limited reasons, and a specific procedure that must be followed. The marriage to be annuled was never recognized as legitimate in the first place.

Witnesses must be supplied to attest to the honesty of statements of the requestor.

If someone lies, then God will know and the person will answer to Him.
 
sidbrown said:
Well, why go through all the expense and hassel of getting married, when twenty years down the line, your spouse can hook up with another partner and get the marriage annulled for some reason or another. So all that expense and effort was for nothing, since there was no marriage in the first place anyway.
I am not advocating this. It is just a reflection on how things are at this time and possibly can give some illumination as to why many Catholic couples are not marrying today.
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I think it’s a lot of things that contribute to Catholic couples not marrying as much today, or going for civil marriages instead. Weddings are expensive, and divorces are expensive. On the contrary, though I know some Catholics who have petitioned and gotten an annulment, more often than not, I’m seeing Catholics ignoring the whole teaching regarding divorce, and just divorcing, and getting on with their love lives as before.

My mom was divorced and got an annullment from her first husband. She did have legitimate grounds. She couldn’t afford to pay what they asked, and they told her to send it when she could - which she did, like five years later.

The point is, I’m seeing the cost associated with marriage, and even more so with divorce, to be the biggest factor attributing to why people aren’t getting married anymore. But that’s just in my neck of the woods.
 
Rence said:
I think it’s a lot of things that contribute to Catholic couples not marrying as much today, or going for civil marriages instead. Weddings are expensive, and divorces are expensive. On the contrary, though I know some Catholics who have petitioned and gotten an annulment, more often than not, I’m seeing Catholics ignoring the whole teaching regarding divorce, and just divorcing, and getting on with their love lives as before.

My mom was divorced and got an annullment from her first husband. She did have legitimate grounds. She couldn’t afford to pay what they asked, and they told her to send it when she could - which she did, like five years later.

The point is, I’m seeing the cost associated with marriage, and even more so with divorce, to be the biggest factor attributing to why people aren’t getting married anymore. But that’s just in my neck of the woods.
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Divorce is expensive (monetarily, psychically, etc.) but marriage is not…unless you choose it to be. I don’t think cost is the reason - especially for Catholics. A Catholic who chooses not to marry and/or to marry outside of the Church is certainly doing so for more than just money concerns. No Catholic would choose mortal sin because they couldn’t afford to get married.
 
Marriage, as the marriage tablets themselves proclaim, joins male and female for the procreation of children. Whoever says that to procreate children is a worse sin than to copulate thereby prohibits the purpose of marriage; and he makes the woman no more a wife than a harlot, who, when she has been given certain gifts, is joined to a man to satisfy his lust. If there is a wife, there is matrimony. But there is no matrimony where motherhood is prevented, for then there is no wife.
  • St. Augustine
 
SaintSerafina said:
Marriage, as the marriage tablets themselves proclaim, joins male and female for the procreation of children. Whoever says that to procreate children is a worse sin than to copulate thereby prohibits the purpose of marriage; and he makes the woman no more a wife than a harlot, who, when she has been given certain gifts, is joined to a man to satisfy his lust. If there is a wife, there is matrimony. But there is no matrimony where motherhood is prevented, for then there is no wife.
  • St. Augustine
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There are an awful lot of people who don’t look to Augustine for advice on marriage.
 
SaintSerafina said:
Marriage, as the marriage tablets themselves proclaim, joins male and female for the procreation of children. Whoever says that to procreate children is a worse sin than to copulate thereby prohibits the purpose of marriage; and he makes the woman no more a wife than a harlot, who, when she has been given certain gifts, is joined to a man to satisfy his lust. If there is a wife, there is matrimony. But there is no matrimony where motherhood is prevented, for then there is no wife.
  • St. Augustine
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The idea that procreation is the sole good or end of marriage was rejected by Humanae Vitae, which taught that marriage both leads to the loving union of husband and wife and leads to the procreation of children (n. 8): “As a consequence, husband and wife, through that mutual gift of themselves, which is specific and exclusive to them alone, develop that union of two persons in which they perfect one another, cooperating with God in the generation and rearing of new lives. The marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition, invested with the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the union of Christ and His Church.” For this reason, it is a moral good for even infertile couples to have sexual relations and for fertile couples to regulate the size of their families by licit means, according to HV.
 
Alan55 said:
The idea that procreation is the sole good or end of marriage was rejected by Humanae Vitae, which taught that marriage both leads to the loving union of husband and wife and leads to the procreation of children (n. 8): “As a consequence, husband and wife, through that mutual gift of themselves, which is specific and exclusive to them alone, develop that union of two persons in which they perfect one another, cooperating with God in the generation and rearing of new lives. The marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition, invested with the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the union of Christ and His Church.” For this reason, it is a moral good for even infertile couples to have sexual relations and for fertile couples to regulate the size of their families by licit means, according to HV.
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St Augustine didn’t mention infertility. You have to pay attention to key words:
But there is no matrimony where motherhood is** prevented**…
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An infertile couple and/or a couple using NFP are not “preventing” a pregnancy. Also, HV teaches that you can’t separate the unitive from the procreative. This is in-line with what Augustine said. He just didn’t mention the unitive aspect.
 
rlg94086 said:
St Augustine didn’t mention infertility. You have to pay attention to key words:

An infertile couple and/or a couple using NFP are not “preventing” a pregnancy. Also, HV teaches that you can’t separate the unitive from the procreative. This is in-line with what Augustine said. He just didn’t mention the unitive aspect.
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I don’t think that Augustine needs defenders – he has been a key theologian for both Catholic and Protestant Christians (Luther, an Augustinian monk, drew heavily from Augustine as did Calvin, for example). I’m a big admirer of Augustine, a theological genius and a great leader. However, regarding marriage, it’s not the case that Augustine just didn’t mention the unitive aspect of marriage. Like many in the early church, sexual relations between spouses could be justified only by procreation. That the unitive aspect of marriage was on equal footing with procreation was an a development even with regard to Pope Pius XI’s encyclical *Casti Connubii *(On Christian Marriage, 1930), let alone Augustine, and represents a real advance in Church teaching on marriage.
 
Alan55 said:
I don’t think that Augustine needs defenders – he has been a key theologian for both Catholic and Protestant Christians (Luther, an Augustinian monk, drew heavily from Augustine as did Calvin, for example). I’m a big admirer of Augustine, a theological genius and a great leader. However, regarding marriage, it’s not the case that Augustine just didn’t mention the unitive aspect of marriage. Like many in the early church, sexual relations between spouses could be justified only by procreation. That the unitive aspect of marriage was on equal footing with procreation was an a development even with regard to Pope Pius XI’s encyclical *Casti Connubii *(On Christian Marriage, 1930), let alone Augustine, and represents a real advance in Church teaching on marriage.
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Where does Augustine state that a marriage without children (infertile couple) is not a valid marriage? If you can find that, I will accept your point. What was quoted is that a marriage where “motherhood is prevented” is not true matrimony.

I agree with the fact that the unitve aspect was a development/clarification, but the unitive aspect of marriage has always been there. It can not exist separate from the procreative aspect though, even if the ability to conceive is not there.

Adding below reference from the Catechism - bolding mine:
2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is "on the side of life,"151 teaches that "it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life."152 "This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the** inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act**."153

2367** Called to give life,** spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God.154 "Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility."155

2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:
When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts, criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart.156 2369 "By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man’s exalted vocation to parenthood."157
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rlg94086 said:
Where does Augustine state that a marriage without children (infertile couple) is not a valid marriage? If you can find that, I will accept your point. What was quoted is that a marriage where “motherhood is prevented” is not true matrimony.

I agree with the fact that the unitve aspect was a development/clarification, but the unitive aspect of marriage has always been there. It can not exist separate from the procreative aspect though, even if the ability to conceive is not there.
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I didn’t say that Augustine would find a marriage without children invalid. My point is that Augustine, like many theologians of his era, would argue that sexual relations in situations in which the couple was naturally infertile, such as when either spouse was infertile or due to old age, would be morally shaky. That’s not the current view of the Church, so you won’t find it in the Catechism, but it was commonly argued way back when.
 
Alan55 said:
I didn’t say that Augustine would find a marriage without children invalid. My point is that Augustine, like many theologians of his era, would argue that sexual relations in situations in which the couple was naturally infertile, such as when either spouse was infertile or due to old age, would be morally shaky. That’s not the current view of the Church, so you won’t find it in the Catechism, but it was commonly argued way back when.
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Please provide a citation.
 
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