Do Traditionalists believe that married couples are morally obligated to have a child, regardless of circumstances?

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As I understand it, the Church teaches that sex is intended for the purposes of procreation within a marriage. If you must avoid having children, you should avoid having sex at times when pregnancy is possible. I see no problem with that. I think it’s very mature.
 
Cassandra_Lyn said:
As I understand it, the Church teaches that sex is intended for the purposes of procreation within a marriage. If you must avoid having children, you should avoid having sex at times when pregnancy is possible. I see no problem with that. I think it’s very mature.
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Just not its only purpose.

There’s also the bonding of the man and woman that is part of the purpose of sex.
 
PRmerger said:
Do you have something from the magisterium that says that it is the primary purpose?
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Yes. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (then called ‘The Holy Office’) addressed this:

Decree of the Holy Office, March 29, 1944:

Exposition: In certain writings it is asserted that the primary end of matrimony is not the generation of offspring or that the secondary ends are not subordinate to the primary ends but are independent of it.

In these works, the primary end of marriage is designated differently by the various writers, as for example: the completion and personal perfection of the spouses through a complete mutual fellowship of life and action; mutual love and the fostering and perfection of the union of the spouses by the psychic and bodily surrender of one’s own person; and many other such things.

In the same writings a sense is sometimes attributed to words occurring in documents of the Church (as for example, primary, secondary end) that does not agree with these concepts according to the common usage by theologians.

Question: Can the opinion of certain writers be admitted who either deny that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and rearing of offspring, or teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinate to the primary end, but are equally principal and independent?

Response (confirmed by the supreme pontiff on March 30): No

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You are correct that procreation is not the only purpose, but it is the primary purpose and the other purposes are secondary purposes, though still very important, profound and beautiful.
 
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

V. The Goods and Requirements of Conjugal Love

1643 “Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility.”

The Catechism does not appear to put procreation ahead of unity. In other words, it does not speak in terms of primary and secondary ends of marriage.
 
otjm said:
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

V. The Goods and Requirements of Conjugal Love

1643 “Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility.”

The Catechism does not appear to put procreation ahead of unity. In other words, it does not speak in terms of primary and secondary ends of marriage.
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Beautiful passage from the 1992 Catechism. I’m really glad you shared it, it’s particularly relevant today. I agree with you that the Catechism does not indicate equality between the ends of marriage, and does not contradict either the Pope or the CDF’s statements regarding the primary and secondary ends of marriage.
 
otjm said:
FThe Catechism does not appear to put procreation ahead of unity. In other words, it does not speak in terms of primary and secondary ends of marriage.
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Yes, that is my assessment, too.

Both are necessary purposes of the marital act.
 
PRmerger said:
Yes, that is my assessment, too.

Both are necessary purposes of the marital act.
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I think perhaps I misunderstood your question. I was responding to “Do you have something from the magisterium that says that it is the primary purpose?” Not “Does the 1992 Catechism address this?”

They are, as you say, both necessary purposes of the marital act. Both the primary and the secondary ends are necessary.
 
LordHaveMercy said:
I think perhaps I misunderstood your question. I was responding to “Do you have something from the magisterium that says that it is the primary purpose?” Not “Does the 1992 Catechism address this?”

They are, as you say, both necessary purposes of the marital act. Both the primary and the secondary ends are necessary.
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The Catechism does not identify a primary and secondary end. It simply states that there are 2 ends to the marital act.

And logic dictates that if procreation were the primary purpose of the marital act, then elderly couples would be proscribed from marrying in the Church.

Yet, they are not.

Clearly, it can’t be the primary end.
 
PRmerger said:
The Catechism does not identify a primary and secondary end. It simply states that there are 2 ends to the marital act.
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Yes, as I said, I was responding to your question about whether anything from the magisterium addressed this, and I provided an example from a recent Pope. I understand that the 1992 Catechism does not address primary and secondary, as I said. If you had asked “Does the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church address primary and secondary?” I would have said no, it doesn’t.
And logic dictates that if procreation were the primary purpose of the marital act, then elderly couples would be proscribed from marrying in the Church.
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I’m not sure I follow. We are both saying that procreation is one of the necessary ends, we are disagreeing about how it relates to the other necessary end(s). Why would the relationship between procreation and the other ends impact the elderly if we are both saying it’s a necessary end?
 
LordHaveMercy said:
Why would the relationship between procreation and the other ends impact the elderly if we are both saying it’s a necessary end?
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I am saying that it obviously can’t be the primary end of the marital act if we permit elderly couples who simply can’t procreate to marry.
 
PRmerger said:
I am saying that it obviously can’t be the primary end of the marital act if we permit elderly couples who simply can’t procreate to marry.
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But you are arguing that procreation is a necessary end. If procreation is a necessary end why do we allow elderly couples who simply can’t procreate to marry?
 
PRmerger said:
Obviously, not.

One must be open to procreation, but procreating itself is not necessary.

Being infertile, IOW, does not invalidate the marital act, nor does it invalidate the marriage.
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👍 exactly! The primary end of marriage does not present a barrier to infertile couples. I think we both have made our points. By agreeing that procreation is even related to marriage and the marital act, we are in the minority in modern times.
 
LordHaveMercy said:
👍 exactly! The primary end of marriage does not present a barrier to infertile couples. I think we both have made our points. By agreeing that procreation is even related to marriage and the marital act, we are in the minority in modern times.
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True, dat. 👍

However, I think the fact that the Catechism does not assert that procreation is the primary end of the marital act, as well as the fact that we permit elderly couples who can’t procreate to marry, limns the fact that it’s an end, but not the primary end.
 
LordHaveMercy said:
Yes. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (then called ‘The Holy Office’) addressed this:

Decree of the Holy Office, March 29, 1944:

Exposition: In certain writings it is asserted that the primary end of matrimony is not the generation of offspring or that the secondary ends are not subordinate to the primary ends but are independent of it.

In these works, the primary end of marriage is designated differently by the various writers, as for example: the completion and personal perfection of the spouses through a complete mutual fellowship of life and action; mutual love and the fostering and perfection of the union of the spouses by the psychic and bodily surrender of one’s own person; and many other such things.

In the same writings a sense is sometimes attributed to words occurring in documents of the Church (as for example, primary, secondary end) that does not agree with these concepts according to the common usage by theologians.

Question: Can the opinion of certain writers be admitted who either deny that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and rearing of offspring, or teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinate to the primary end, but are equally principal and independent?

Response (confirmed by the supreme pontiff on March 30): No​

You are correct that procreation is not the only purpose, but it is the primary purpose and the other purposes are secondary purposes, though still very important, profound and beautiful.
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For whatever it is worth, this document is dated 1944. Oxytocin was discovered in 1952. And it may have taken a little while for that to get around to the theologians.

I do not have the time (or the energy) to research this matter greatly. I will leave it to theologians (and to those who have no degree in theology, but read some) to argue whether or not the Church currently holds that openness to children (as opposed to the physical ability to have children) is first and the unitive aspect of the sexual act is second, or if they are both, united, primary ends of marriage.

I have been around long enough to have heard numerous arguments about the matter, including back to when I was in college in the late 60’s. Having listened to some who wanted to make the unitive aspect of seriously lesser significance, I was occasionally left with the distinct impression that some who argued that sounded (and appeared) to be uncomfortable with the sexual act, as if it were tainted and perhaps only an infinitesimal distance from serious sin. Some of those same people went through interesting hoops to try to rewrite the Song of Songs.

In any event, the Catechism doesn’t seem to define what is primary and what is secondary, and speaks of the unitive aspect first; none of which of necessity indicates that the 1944 document is revised, or reconfigured.

And not for no reason has oxytocin been called the “stupid hormone”.
 
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