From your experence why does NFP feel better than contraception?

[Blacksword]

Distinctly related to this is the fact that the Church’s teachings on contraception follow logically from the same natural law philosophy from which its teaching on all of sexual morality derive, including its prohibition on homosexuality, masturbation, various paraphilias, etc. How is it possible to condemn these things while declaring the teachings from which the prohibition derives as wrong?

Well, the teachings against homosexuality are backed by a number of scriptural references. The teaching on masturbation…sigh, again with the masturbation, every thread seems to go there eventually, lol! Suffice to say, here again, while the Church teaches it is a sin, and I am NOT saying, “ignore that, go right ahead and do it”, I’ve talked about this issue with my Priest and the prevailing attitude among the priesthood, based on what many on here have said they heard from multiple priests, is in line with my priest on the issue. And that is that this is a FAR more subtle area of morality than, say, committing adultery.

Contraceptive teachings and masturbation teachings BOTH have significant influence from a terrible and outmoded understanding of basic biology. Church fathers who, though I love Augustine and all the others, were NOT infallible, believed that semen contained Homonculi, and so wasting seed was tantamount to murder or infanticide! Bad biology leads to bad theology sometimes…that poor understanding of the biology of sex is not the only reason for the Church’s teachings or I would have thrown them out altogether, but it remains a not insignificant part of the historical reasoning on these issues.

There is a need to be more spiritual in all aspects of our lives, yes. There is a need for marriage relations to be generally ordered to unity and procreation, yes. But I cannot assent fully to rigid rules about how every single act of marital relations MUST end. And, even more significantly, the teaching on NFP being permissible is…unpersuasive. Every argument trying to differentiate it from any other form of ABC commits one or more glaring logical fallacies in reasoning. Assuming the consequent, circular reasoning, distinctions without a difference, the list goes on. Here’s the crux of it: every single couple using NFP hoping not to get pregnant absolutely has a contraceptive mentality, and I think we all know it. Their intent is exactly the same intent, as they hope to engage in sex without pregnancy resulting.

I say again, the Church has NOT infallibly declared that this teaching must be accepted as dogma by the faithful, and there is a role for private conscience and private dissent on this issue. The moment it is declared ex cathedra, I will unhappily accept it. In the meantime though, I will continue to search and pray on it, but I refuse to accept that I somehow cannot be a Catholic because I take issue with this SINGLE issue among all of the Church’s teachings. And I will point out that if this were the criteria for admission, it would have been stated so in all RCIA classes, and that the Church would have about 5%, at best, of it’s current membership worldwide.

 

[Blacksword]

And a final question on this issue. Those arguing for the absolute adherence to this teaching keep say g it all comes down to trusting God. I agree that we must trust the Lord. But we must use the brains He gave us also. The question is: where is the role for human intelligence and planning/attempted intervention? Where should trust in the Lord meet the rubber on the road, so to speak, of actually making decisions for our lives and doing something from our end? Do you not work? If you do work, then why? Shouldn’t we all just sit out on a hill in white bedsheets awaiting manna from Heaven, as the Lord will provide our needs? Or rather, are we required to also do our share of planning, deliberating, working, and making decisions in life?

In the end, we will answer to the Lord, and only to Him. I will continue to ask for mercy, knowing I need it greatly at all times. However, in the long list of sins I must answer for, I’d frankly put “I practiced the withdrawal method with my wife when we were not ready and totally unprepared to support and raise a child” WAY down the list! Likewise “I gave my wife oral sex, or she gave me oral sex just for the desire to give each other pleasure and love, but didn’t have intercourse right after”. But if the Church’s teachings on this issue are absolute essentials, then she is doing a very poor job of making it clear. In logically unsound or invalid arguments that fail reasoned scrutiny, in completely all over the map statements and positions on it from Bishops and Priests around the world, and in judgmental attitudes among its more…strident, shall we say, adherents on this teaching, not to mention its continued glaring failure to formally declare this as infallible dogma. Put it in the Creed, make it a required statement of assent at every Mass, “Every Sperm is Sacred”, like the Monty Python song, and if you don’t accept it, you’re a heretic and unwelcome, no communion for those who cannot aver that they always follow the Rule about marital relations in every act. I’m sorry for any frustration, but it’s 1:00 am and I need sleep, but can’t for the life of me understand why these steps are not done if it’s really, really, REALLY the absolute, on the level of the belief in the virgin birth, dogma so many on here say it is.

 

[Bookcat]

“Rather, courage is needed to adhere to the Church’s faith, even if this contradicts the “logic” of the contemporary world. This is the non-conformism of faith which Paul calls an “adult faith”. It is the faith that he desires.’”

Pope Benedict XVI

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20090628_chius-anno-paolino_en.html

Let us all have courage and adhere fully to the Church’s Faith

Lord increase the Faith of us all and the joy in living it.

 

[cviolette]

For those who engage in contraceptive intercourse…it does not carry the meaning it is suppose to carry…the marital meaning is absent…contracepted away…the marital act is frustrated…the act of intercourse is frustrated…it it an act contrary to their love…it is a it a non-marital act…it is in contrary to the love of marriage…contrary to the meaning of marriage…

How about if you had a tubal ligation while you were away from the Church because another pregnancy would be dangerous? You go back to the church and confess it but do not have it reversed. It is still contraceptive intercourse even though the sin is forgiven. Would you still consider it a non-marital act?

What if the wife is extremely sorry and wants to reverse it but the husband refuses? The wife has confessed but the husband has not. It seems like the act would be selfish and meaningless because both have not repented.

 

[ahs]

How about if you had a tubal ligation…

I don’t know exactly what a tubal ligation is, but what I understand from the Church on vasectomy is that, if a man has repented, confessed, and completed his penance, he is not required to have the vasectomy reversed. .

The coulpe may still engage in intercourse provided they do nothing that would further prevent conception. If conception is still possible with tubal ligation (which I get the feeling it’s not) and that would be a dangerous situation, that is where NFP could be used by the couple (periodic continence)…assuming it is a “just reason”.

I would assume the same is true here…BUT DON’T TAKE MY WORD ON THIS! (I dont’ want to lead you astray…just giving you my understanding.) You need to get this clarified with your Priest

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

How about if you had a tubal ligation while you were away from the Church because another pregnancy would be dangerous? You go back to the church and confess it but do not have it reversed. It is still contraceptive intercourse even though the sin is forgiven. Would you still consider it a non-marital act?

What if the wife is extremely sorry and wants to reverse it but the husband refuses? The wife has confessed but the husband has not. It seems like the act would be selfish and meaningless because both have not repented.

As long as the woman has confessed, she is not bound to reverse the tubal—especially if there are various factors that would make it difficult.

As for the wife confessing but not the husband… the wife really has no control about what the husband does. Both should be in a state of grace, but we cannot force the other spouse

The wife should make the effort to forgive herself after receiving absolution. God is merciful and we should graciously accept his mercy.

 

[Bookcat]

How about if you had a tubal ligation while you were away from the Church because another pregnancy would be dangerous? You go back to the church and confess it but do not have it reversed. It is still contraceptive intercourse even though the sin is forgiven. Would you still consider it a non-marital act?

What if the wife is extremely sorry and wants to reverse it but the husband refuses? The wife has confessed but the husband has not. It seems like the act would be selfish and meaningless because both have not repented.

I used rather stark words when I first used the term “meaningless”…I should have better worded such (see above)…

Lets first take the better (easier) senerio …which is clear. If both repented and confessed…set their will against what had been done. There is as I recall not an obligation to attempt to reverse it (due to various reasons…such as low success rate, risk expense etc). So their relations would not longer be contraceptive etc. They will be in a similar boat as those for some other reason are infertile. They are now open to life and repentant…and forgiven…knowing again* true life* in Christ. The intercourse does not separate the procreative (open to life) and unitive. It is fully marital.

As for the couple where one repents and the other does not…that is a case calling for prayer etc for the one who has not repented (just like other like cases).

As to what to say of the intercourse between this couple…I am afraid I do not have a full answer I will give you my current thoughts…certainly his attitude is a contraceptive attitude … since he is not repentant he still intends the sterilization …the non-openness to life…his intent is against the part of the very meaning that such an act is to have.

What I argued in regards to the acts of intercourse of couples who contracept is a theological argument about the nature of the action.

Certainly the unitive and procreative meaning is to be there as the very marital meaning of the act…on the side of the husband in this case the husband is to honestly repent and be absolved…but what if he does not? I am afraid I do not have the full answer. Now when the question of does an act of contraceptive intercourse consummate the marriage on the wedding night…I recall canonists have argued that contraception which is not a barrier between the husband and wife (condom)…can still even consummate …while other theologians have argued against such…

That being said…even in the case of one spouse using contraception …the question has come up…can the other licitly cooperate (have relations under such conditions).

The Vadimeacum for Confessors issued in 1997 by the Pontifical Council for the Family states:

1. Special difficulties are presented by cases of cooperation in the sin of a spouse who voluntarily renders the unitive act infecund. In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish cooperation in the proper sense, from violence or unjust imposition on the part of one of the spouses, which the other spouse in fact cannot resist.46, 561).] This cooperation can be licit when the three following conditions are jointly met:
2. when the action of the cooperating spouse is not already illicit in itself;47
3. when proportionally grave reasons exist for cooperating in the sin of the other spouse;
4. when one is seeking to help the other spouse to desist from such conduct (patiently, with prayer, charity and dialogue; although not necessarily in that moment, nor on every single occasion).
5. Furthermore, it is necessary to carefully evaluate the question of cooperation in evil when recourse is made to means which can have an abortifacient effect.48

---

Now if can be argued that if there can be licit cooperation under the above conditions…then in the case of the aftermath of sterilization that there could be it would seem similar observations --especially (or perhaps even more so!) since in the case above the person sterilized has repented…and the other person is not doing anything at the moment to contracept…it is his interior dispositions that are not right…

But as to how I would theologically describe the act of intercourse with a spouse who intends it to be basically contraceptive…again I can not fully offer an opinion. On the one hand nothing is being done now to frustrate the act …what was done has been repented by the spouse who did it and been forgiven…so on the one hand they are in the situation like a couple where the wife is infertile (the marital acts of infertile couples is not meaningless in any way! for infertile couples do not intend to frustrate the act…but are indeed suffering often from the infertility…they are not closed to life)…but on the other hand the husband is not repentant and his approach to the marital act is not correct here…it is gravely disordered…and yes there is a kind of selfishness here on his part (just as in any grave sin for that matter!) perhaps there is a lessening of culpability for one reason or another on his part? Due to fear regarding his wife? I do not know. But certainly he is not yet in the place he needs to be for his sake and for the full good of their marriage.

(One can call perhaps the Catholic Answers Apologists they can discuss this further with you …they deal I think with these sorts of things all the time…and of course seek the council of a good Priest…like ones confessor)

(Now on a related side note… if they have a “serious reason” and they would it would seem if a life is at stake…(not that the “serious reason” to use NFP to avoid must be life or death…there are all sorts of things that come up) …she would want perhaps to use NFP …due to the risk to life…for is there not a small chance of pregnancy even if such has been done to a woman? )

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

From my experience, NFP feels better than contraception because it is heartbreaking to sit in a pew at Mass and watch others receive Jesus in the Eucharist knowing that you can’t.

I don’t know how Catholics who are content to contracept stay away from the Eucharist without a profound feeling of loss.

I wanted to touch on this. One mortal sin prevents us from receiving the Eucharist licitly. One mortal sin causes the reception of the Eucharist to be sacrilegious.

It confuses me that a person:

1. believes that the Church has the authority to turn bread and wine into the actual true presence of Jesus
2. But simultaneously the Church has no authority to demand requirements in allowing the reception of the Eucharist.

Contraception is a mortal sin. Ignorance of this might mitigate culpability. Disagreement does not mitigate culpability.

One can go to Mass and abstain from communion. That separation is to give respect to Jesus…but also should cause us to reflect on our culpability.

Really, imagine inviting Jesus to your home and telling him, “You are welcome in my home…I don’t agree with your wife though.”

 

[Elizabeth502]

I don’t know exactly what a tubal ligation is,

Medical procedure which clamps, ties, or severs and seals, a woman’s fallopian tubes so that her ovaries cannot be carried to her uterus for fertilization by sperm.

 

[Odell]

I think the idea is that sex rarely happens spontaneously just because you want to unite with your spouse. It is always a matter of “CAN we do it today?”, or “Well today’s the last day we can do it so I guess we should…”, or “How bad do we want it because we are cutting it pretty close…” One way or the other, there is often so much pressure and anxiety associated with what is already a tricky part of married life.

But there are other ways to unite with your spouse. If you always have to give in to your emotions your in danger of using your spouse sometimes without even realizing it.

Your in danger of putting a value on pleasure of this other person only in so far as it gives pleasure to you. Not you personaly I’m not attacing you it gives you pleasure, that someone else is experiencing pleasure. If, however, you cease to experience pleasure, or it does not tally with your happiness then the pleasure of the other person ceases to be your obligation. The only escape from this egoism is by recognizing beyond any purely subjective good, beyond pleasure, an objective good, which can also unite persons and thereby acquire the characteristics of a common good.

This is what NFP affords when you do abstain.

With this all a side the days my wife and I are capable of having sex are very passionate.

Ihave a problem with the sentince where you said “well today is the last day we can do it so I guess we should.” This to me is an attidue one in the marriage would have if you were just going threw the motion because the other spouse was pushing you to have sex.
That would be a problem that would need fixing cause one can feel used and we would have the same problem as above.

Here’s the extremely short version:

Since our time to have sex was limited each month, it made us feel like we had to do a really good job and have really good, long, passionate sex on the nights I was infertile. We felt like we had to make the most of the infertile time each month, because we knew it would be a while till we would be able to have sex again. This pressure felt unnatural and stressed us out. Sex became a stressor, and it made it hard for us to focus on our lovemaking when we were so concerned about trying to have “good” sex while we still could.
See above.

Why not make the most of your fertile time?
What happens when the long passionate sex is no longer there? I think we know already that nothing else is there to unite when there is no lovemaking. The maximization of pleasure will slways stand in the way of love.

God bless

 

[LaSainte]

But there are other ways to unite with your spouse. If you always have to give in to your emotions your in danger of using your spouse sometimes without even realizing it.

Your in danger of putting a value on pleasure of this other person only in so far as it gives pleasure to you. Not you personaly I’m not attacing you it gives you pleasure, that someone else is experiencing pleasure. If, however, you cease to experience pleasure, or it does not tally with your happiness then the pleasure of the other person ceases to be your obligation. The only escape from this egoism is by recognizing beyond any purely subjective good, beyond pleasure, an objective good, which can also unite persons and thereby acquire the characteristics of a common good.

This is what NFP affords when you do abstain.

With this all a side the days my wife and I are capable of having sex are very passionate.

Ihave a problem with the sentince where you said “well today is the last day we can do it so I guess we should.” This to me is an attidue one in the marriage would have if you were just going threw the motion because the other spouse was pushing you to have sex.
That would be a problem that would need fixing cause one can feel used and we would have the same problem as above.

Why not make the most of your fertile time?
What happens when the long passionate sex is no longer there? I think we know already that nothing else is there to unite when there is no lovemaking. The maximization of pleasure will slways stand in the way of love.

God bless

It’s not at all about the days of abstinence for me. It’s the whole kit n caboodle. BOTH parties can feel pressure to have sex on days when they really aren’t in the mood just because they know they have a period of abstinence coming up, or to have sex more often during those times when they are able just for the sake of it. This isn’t pressure coming from one spouse or another, just pressure the spouses put on themselves.

Also, don’t forget that NFP requires that the wife pretty much NEVER gets to have sex during the times when she most feels like it (during the time around ovulation).

People who don’t like NFP aren’t a bunch of sex-crazed maniacs, contrary to what many of you think. We just don’t want to have sex according to a timetable every time. For some people, it sucks the romance right out of it. Especially when you have children, because your sex lives are already not very spontaneous. It reduces a couple to simply having sex when the CAN instead of when they actually want to.

 

[Bookcat]

I say again, the Church has NOT infallibly declared that this teaching must be accepted as dogma by the faithful, and their is a role for private conscience and private dissent on this issue. The moment it is declared ex cathedra, I will unhappily accept it. In the meantime though, I will continue to search and pray on it, but I refuse to accept that I somehow cannot be a Catholic because I take issue with this SINGLE issue among all of the Church’s teachings. And I will point out that if this were the criteria for admission, it would have been stated so in all RCIA classes, and that the Church would have about 5%, at best, of it’s current membership worldwide.

The last line is not on target…for one thing RCIA varies from place to place…and from presenter to presenter…ones mileage will vary…(and the 5% is a rather far off notion).

The rejection of contraception is not an optional thing…it is not a matter open to opinion.

It is not an optional thing…not a thing for private opinion. As Pope John Paul II noted when asked in 1987 : “What is taught by the Church on contraception is not one of the matters that may be freely disputed by theologians. To teach the contrary is equivalent to leading the conscience of spouses into error”…

Lets say for argument sake that such is not infallible …even then it would still something one is to *assent *to as a Catholic.

(and someone who claims that the practical judgment of their conscience (which would be erroneious) tells them that they would sin here and now if they did not use contraception…need to *correct *their erroneious conscience just as one who thinks it would be a sin to pray needs to. It is by the way not their conscience against the Church…but their conscience divided against itself…for they are Catholics and the teaching of the Church is not some foreign thing to their conscience…)

There are various kinds of assent to be given the various kinds of teaching…but assent is to be given as a Catholic. As the Catechism notes as well as has been explained by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith…

The CDF noted that there are certain things that are to be given the assent of Faith…other things that are to be given a “firm and definitive assent” based on faith in the Holy Spirit’s assistance etc and there are teachings that require the religious submission of intellect and will…

Also I should note

The Vademecum issued by in 1997 for confessors noted:

"The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life (Vademecum for Confessors 2:4)

Jimmy Akin – Catholic Answers senior apologist give the following commentary in 2004:

jimmyakin.org/2004/11/contraception_i.html

And in a note from the CDF in 2010 one interestingly finds regarding the mortal norm concerning contraception this line: “This norm belongs to the tradition of the Church…”

 

[Bookcat]

Also, don’t forget that NFP requires that the wife pretty much NEVER gets to have sex during the times when she most feels like it (during the time around ovulation).

.

Yes…NFP to avoid is not a normal thing…it is something only for serious reasons.

Normally it should be relations at various times.

But as we all know* from other areas in life*…we do not always have circumstances that are in favor of the normal… such is part of the struggle in life… flu and headaches…not getting the raise one wants…those annoying knats around ones head on ones vacation etc…

Let us learn of course to offer these little jabs up for the good of others …such too is part of our life. (see Pope Benedict XVI Encylical on Hope)

 

[Elizabeth502]

Bookcat, I think the reason that one gets a strong difference of opinion about the inconvenience of NFP, is that so many Catholic couples who do use it, do it as the exception and do not have small families. So they don’t “feel the pain” so much. Could that be the reason?

I feel really divided about this issue. On the one hand, orthodox Jews have standard periods of abstinence which are essentially the opposite of the Catholic version, and they do say that there’s a respect and a joy that gets built around this cycle, which makes it like a mini-honeymoon (not in a desperate way), and which keeps the focus on the wholeness of the marriage as opposed to the everyday accessibility of sex.

On the other hand, having been one who used timing to facilitate pregnancy, I’m aware of how nerve-wracking it can indeed be to “plan” your love-life. There’s no doubt that spontaneity is affected: how can it not be? What saved us from dreading the experience is that my hubby was a natural comedian, and he joked about it so much that it took the ‘earnestness’ out of the timing.

I really think that couples who integrate any kind of planning into their lovemaking (for fertility or lack of it), and do it successfully, have to have a trusting attitude in order not to have it interfere with the joy of coming together. If you’re deathly afraid of a pregnancy, there’s no question that that will affect you as a couple. If, however, you are in fact in an NFP-way, shall we say, but you’re resigned that – as with all unprotected intercourse, and even with barrier methods – the woman can still get pregnant, and if she does get pregnant you will deal with it happily together, then I think it’s a whole different thing. Hence, my first comment above: Those who do not find NFP stifling are those who are resigned to its possible failure.

 

[Bookcat]

Bookcat, I think the reason that one gets a strong difference of opinion about the inconvenience of NFP, is that so many Catholic couples who do use it, do it as the exception and do not have small families. So they don’t “feel the pain” so much. Could that be the reason?

Perhaps. Family size varies even with those who do not use NFP . Each couple’s fertility will be different. Some are very fertile …some are not at all…and there is a whole range in between. (and ways of periodic continence differ!!) As I noted above NFP use to avoid is not the normal course of life (not to say that couples will not have various serious reasons at different times in their lives…of course…for these are not “life or death” things…necessarily.) But even for those who do need to use NFP to avoid a good deal or even indefinately…yes there are difficulties…but also there is plus’s (the honeymoon effect you referred to).

And yes there is also stresses etc associated with using NFP to seek to achieve (something one can do anytime of course) …but that too is part of life. Infertility just like other difficulties in life…have less happy aspects to its “cure” as well…just like other things in life.

I guess this is my phrase here: Just like many things in life…

Let us offer up the little jabs…and let us live according to the Gospel.

Various crosses are not always what we desire emotionally…but there is good in them …for us and for others…

 

[Nate13]

@Deborah
you need to read this book “Good News about Sex and Marriage” by Christopher West. If you read this book I guarantee you will at least see where we are coming from and be able to acknowledge based on the premises in the book for what marriage and love are all about, contraception is wrong. Even if you don’t agree with us you will at least see where we are coming from. The book also has LOTS of great stuff on the differences between NFP and contraception and helpful analogies I have not heard from any other source. In my opinion, this book or something like it should be required for all newly weds.

 

[sw85]

Well, the teachings against homosexuality are backed by a number of scriptural references. The teaching on masturbation…sigh, again with the masturbation, every thread seems to go there eventually, lol! Suffice to say, here again, while the Church teaches it is a sin, and I am NOT saying, “ignore that, go right ahead and do it”, I’ve talked about this issue with my Priest and the prevailing attitude among the priesthood, based on what many on here have said they heard from multiple priests, is in line with my priest on the issue. And that is that this is a FAR more subtle area of morality than, say, committing adultery.

They are also backed by natural law philosophy, which is quite clear where the Scriptures are, arguably, less so.

I can agree that masturbation is less severe a sin than adultery (I don’t think anyone sane would argue otherwise – both are contrary to natural law, but the latter compounds that violation with the sin of oathbreaking). It is nevertheless a sin.

Contraceptive teachings and masturbation teachings BOTH have significant influence from a terrible and outmoded understanding of basic biology. Church fathers who, though I love Augustine and all the others, were NOT infallible, believed that semen contained Homonculi, and so wasting seed was tantamount to murder or infanticide! Bad biology leads to bad theology sometimes…that poor understanding of the biology of sex is not the only reason for the Church’s teachings or I would have thrown them out altogether, but it remains a not insignificant part of the historical reasoning on these issues.

I admit I’m not as well read on the works of the Church fathers as I’d like to be (I’m only just now coming into the Church). But to me natural law seems quite clear on this, and I see no way to reject the natural law teaching on sexual morality in one respect without rejecting it in all others.

There is a need to be more spiritual in all aspects of our lives, yes. There is a need for marriage relations to be generally ordered to unity and procreation, yes. But I cannot assent fully to rigid rules about how every single act of marital relations MUST end. And, even more significantly, the teaching on NFP being permissible is…unpersuasive. Every argument trying to differentiate it from any other form of ABC commits one or more glaring logical fallacies in reasoning. Assuming the consequent, circular reasoning, distinctions without a difference, the list goes on. Here’s the crux of it: every single couple using NFP hoping not to get pregnant absolutely has a contraceptive mentality, and I think we all know it. Their intent is exactly the same intent, as they hope to engage in sex without pregnancy resulting.

It’s only confusing when you approach the issue with a consequentialist mentality (and if you do, your misapprehension of NFP is pretty far down the list of problems here).

Why is NFP an acceptable measure of birth control? Because in that case the act still conforms to the objective telos of the human sexual faculty. This is not the case with any literally any other form of sexual encounter, whether contraceptive, homosexual, paraphiliac, masturbatory, etc. The outcome is irrelevant here. As has been said elsewhere, it can still rise to the level of a sin if the will itself is disordered – that is, if NFP is employed because, say, one would rather spend one’s money touring Europe or using drugs or something than having and raising children and not because one legitimately could not emotionally or financially bear having more children – but the act remains licit.

I say again, the Church has NOT infallibly declared that this teaching must be accepted as dogma by the faithful, and there is a role for private conscience and private dissent on this issue. The moment it is declared ex cathedra, I will unhappily accept it. In the meantime though, I will continue to search and pray on it, but I refuse to accept that I somehow cannot be a Catholic because I take issue with this SINGLE issue among all of the Church’s teachings. And I will point out that if this were the criteria for admission, it would have been stated so in all RCIA classes, and that the Church would have about 5%, at best, of it’s current membership worldwide.

It may be the case that the teaching as related by the Popes is fallible. I’m simply saying, for my own part, that I don’t see a way one can reconcile contraception with the body of the Church’s teachings on sexual morality in general. They stand and fall together.

The Church is in the business of speaking truths, even those the people don’t want to hear, so I’m not convinced by the claim that the Church ought to refrain from teaching it for fear its pews will empty.

 

[LaSainte]

You say that NFP is not the normal course of life, but that is simply not true. If the average couple is having random, unprotected sex for a year, they will most likely conceive. With 9 months of pregnancy and 6 months of breastfeeding, that leaves an average of 3 years between children (this is pretty generous-I’m about to have my second and my baby just turned 2). If a woman gets married at 25 and has her first baby at 27 and then one every 3 years after that, she would end up with about 7 or 8 kids by the time all was said and done, possibly up to 10 if she has one every 2 years like me.

I don’t know about you, but that is MANY more children than would be prudent for 99% of families to have.

The fact is that most couples who use NFP would have to do so the majority of the time (aside from when they are already pregnant or breastfeeding) to avoid having more than 4 children. NFP would be the norm, not regular spontaneous sex.

 

[Bookcat]

You say that NFP is not the normal course of life, but that is simply not true. If the average couple is having random, unprotected sex for a year, they will most likely conceive. With 9 months of pregnancy and 6 months of breastfeeding, that leaves an average of 3 years between children (this is pretty generous-I’m about to have my second and my baby just turned 2). If a woman gets married at 25 and has her first baby at 27 and then one every 3 years after that, she would end up with about 7 or 8 kids by the time all was said and done, possibly up to 10 if she has one every 2 years like me.

I don’t know about you, but that is MANY more children than would be prudent for 99% of families to have.

The fact is that most couples who use NFP would have to do so the majority of the time (aside from when they are already pregnant or breastfeeding) to avoid having more than 4 children. NFP would be the norm, not regular spontaneous sex.

I repeat what I wrote above.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Perhaps. Family size varies even with those who do not use NFP.

That’s not even close to what my point was. I’m talking about couples who do use NFP, but use it occasionally, not as their primary and ‘dead-serious’ form of controlling/spacing births. I’m not talking about couples “who do not use NFP.”

And yes there is also stresses etc associated with using NFP to seek to achieve (something one can do anytime of course) …but that too is part of life.

I guess this is my phrase here: Just like many things in life…

Let us offer up the little jabs…and let us live according to the Gospel.

I think this is really blowing off as trivial the concerns of others who have expressed them here. I repeat: the crux of the matter is for Catholic couples who seriously want to limit their fertility - not once in awhile, but all/most of the time. For them, NFP will be a source of anxiety if they dread an accident. Period. So for them to be able to use NFP and not have it interfere with their lovemaking, they will have to become resigned to the possibility of pregnancy.