From your experence why does NFP feel better than contraception?

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Debora123 said:
Blacksword, the part I have bolded here is EXACTLY what happened with my husband and I, amongst other things as well. I couldn’t have said it better myself. While it works great for some people, (which is wonderful, and I envy those people) it just didn’t feel right for us. It put pressure on our lovemaking, and ultimately stress on our marriage. 😦
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Right there with you. I do envy others who find NFP and following church teachings is some great blessing. It is not always, but for those of us in that rocky boat, we’re told we’re wrong, disordered, etc. if we engage(d) in other types of loving, selfless sex and things don’t end up in intercourse.

Couples need to be able to physically express their love for their God-given spouse via sex, even at times when intercourse is not an option. If not, for some of us, it is extremely detrimental.
 
Indeed as Bl. Pope John Paul II taught in an audience in 1984 that an act of contraceptive relations:

“deprived of its interior truth because it is artificially deprived of its procreative capacity, ceases also to be an act of love”
 
Bookcat said:
:yup::yup::yup: …meaningless and objectively selfish…and indeed non marital.
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Nope, not even close. Not meaningless or selfish or non-marital.

Who is to say so? Yes, the church pre-emptively assumes it. But I can tell you from personal experience that making love to my wife - and not ending in intercourse - was far from meaningless or selfish. I love making her feel as good as possible exactly because I love her. In doing so, I am totally giving of all of myself to do so; that is not selfish. Maybe you don’t see it that way or have not experienced that, but it is intensely intimate.

The church telling couples what they are to feel and at the detriment of their blessed relationship, all because semen is supposed to land in the right spot, is not right. I don’t even find that morally right because of the negative effects on couples. And it is not a matter of wanting sex; that is another assumption by the church. Sex is indeed a gift, a wonderful, fun one at that. But couples need to be able to express their love usingit at times intercourse is not an option.

The church telling couples that all sex has to end in intercourse, no matter how long it has been, and that all else to climax is wrong, simple means that the church considers sex is for having kids, and it doesn’t want couples focusing only on the pleasure aspect, assuming couples will abuse sex and each other, and never have intercourse to have kids.

Maybe not so oddly, we never liked condoms and were on the pill for a very short time when we first got married. We didn’t like the side effects, wasn’t fair to my wife, stppoed using it.
 
ahs said:
…and to Blacksword and Warrior1979, etc…

Those quotes do not condemn periodic continence. The Church to whom those Chruch Fathers belong and profess their Faith is clear and concise, as early as many of those writings that sex has unitive value. St. Augustine, St. Franice DeSales, St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Gregory I, etc…have all written as such.

It was wrong of me to use those quotes without clarifying the facts for you and I wrongly assumed that every reader of the thread would know Church teacing…this article will do what I failed to:

catholic.com/library/Contraception_and_Sterilization.asp

“It should be noted that some of the Church Fathers use language that can suggest to modern ears that there is no unitive.aspect to marital intercourse and that there is only a procreative.aspect. It is unclear whether this is what some of them actually thought or whether they are intending simply to stress that sexual activity becomes immoral if the procreative.aspect of a given marital act is deliberately frustrated. However that may be, over the course of time the Church has called greater attention to the unitive.aspect of marital intercourse, yet it remains true that the procreative.aspect of each particular marital act must not be frustrated.”

And there is still another matter that has not yet been addressed. We still have not seen any Church writing or Scriptural passage that condones contraception or states that contraception is a matter of personal discernment.

-ahs
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Lol, um, this passage above is highly similar to what I said just a little bit ago about the church coming to a greater understanding of these matters. And did you just say Aquinas wrote of the unitive aspects of sexual pleasure as a good thing? Where? I’m finishing up the abridged Summa, and perhaps I missed it, but his writings seem pretty clear that sex is for procreation only, and to above all, if you must engage in it, not enjoy it ever!😃
 
Bookcat said:
Objectively …actually it is. Even if you do not recognize it.
and objectively it has not helped your marriage or any marriage…it is by nature objective contrary to marital love.
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And this is outright arrogance on your part. You can parrot what the church says all day, but to tell others what it is they feel or have felt or experienced? Arrogance.

I haven’t even gotten past the second page of this thread…
 
Nate13 said:
Do you also claim scripture contradicts itself as well? Some Protestants love to point to the verse in Matthew I believe that says “call no man Father” as well as the verse that says “there is only one Mediator, Jesus” and bash the priesthood. Are you not doing something similar to them? You look at one line, condemn it, and say they were on the wrong track. I’m simply asking is it possible that they were writing from a certain perspective to a certain group of people and thus spoke in a language that they would understand. I believe Protestants also struggle with Romans vs. James because they seem to obviously contradict each other with respect to faith alone vs faith and works. However when we look at who the audience was for each of these Letters we see why the author spoke as he did and that they don’t contradict each other. Why is it you are able to look at these situations in context and not take these verses absolutely literally, but refuse to think this possible of the Early Church Father’s writings and give them any due credit?
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Because these are the only things they ever actually said about the topic! Maybe there’s some trove of writings from the early fathers wherein they extol the goodness of sexual pleasure in the bonds of marriage and wrote odes to healthy desire like Song of Solomon, but I’ve yet to read it. Whenever the issue is brought up, these are the ONLY quotes ever referenced from the early fathers. 🤷
 
ahs said:
WHAT?! :eek: But, Debora123, you are a Catholic…and the Church is very clear that (and gives clear explanations in the CCC and in several encyclicals as to why) contraception is a grave evil…intrinsically immoral and a selfish act, regardless of how it “feels”.

Do you, as a Catholic, really disagree with the Church’s teaching on this? Then how would you be any different than a Protestant? 😦 (Nothing against Protestants…it just hurts me to see a Catholic not wanting to be Catholic.)
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What? :eek: Who said anything about not wanting to be Catholic? Catholics can’t disagree with the church? The supposedly clear explanations are not clear. They tell couples what they feel and believe is not real and wrong and whatever. It creates massive confusion and pain because some of us are told we are disordered and evil.

I’m a Catholic - I believe in Christ in the Eucharist. I don’t believe church teachings on sex.
 
Bookcat said:
Objectively …contraceptive acts by anyone who is married are both non-marital and selfish and gravely disordered…such is the nature (aside from any intent).
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You keep repeating this - it doesn’t make it so. It is simply what is written in CCC, which denies reality that couples live in. Stop the “objectively” stuff - you obviously are not.
 
searching04 said:
You keep repeating this - it doesn’t make it so. It is simply what is written in CCC, which denies reality that couples live in. Stop the “objectively” stuff - you obviously are not.
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It is objectively true.
 
Debora123 said:
We peacefully agree to disagree. In the mean time I would appreciate it if people stopped telling me that I am being selfish. Thank you. 👍
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For the record - you’re not selfish, nor were we, when we got to engage in other things besides finishing in intercourse.
 
Blacksword said:
Lol, um, this passage above is highly similar to what I said just a little bit ago about the church coming to a greater understanding of these matters. And did you just say Aquinas wrote of the unitive aspects of sexual pleasure as a good thing? Where? I’m finishing up the abridged Summa, and perhaps I missed it, but his writings seem pretty clear that sex is for procreation only, and to above all, if you must engage in it, not enjoy it ever!😃
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You must have missed these:

St. Thomas Aquinas

“There are some who say that intercourse between married persons is not devoid of sin. But this is heretical, for the Apostle says: “Let marriage be honorable in all and the bed undefiled.”[15] Not only is it devoid of sin, but for those in the state of grace it is meritorious for eternal life. Sometimes, however, it may be a venial sin, sometimes a mortal sin. When it is had with the intention of bringing forth offspring, it is an act of virtue. When it is had with the intent of rendering mutual comfort, it is an act of justice…” (Catechism of St. Thomas Aquinas, pg. 80)

“… the marriage act is always either sinful or meritorious in one who is in a state of grace. For if the motive for the marriage act be a virtue, **whether of justice that they may render the debt, or of religion, that they may beget children **for the worship of God, it is meritorious …” (Summa Theologica Supplement Question 41)
 
searching04 said:
What? :eek: Who said anything about not wanting to be Catholic? Catholics can’t disagree with the church? The supposedly clear explanations are not clear. They tell couples what they feel and believe is not real and wrong and whatever. It creates massive confusion and pain because some of us are told we are disordered and evil.

I’m a Catholic - I believe in Christ in the Eucharist. I don’t believe church teachings on sex.
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I have to agree with you here. We are all sinners and hopefully doing our best to embrace the Truth, notice the capital T 😉 I would hope anyone using contraception would be going to confession for it however and showing obedience to Mother Church in this respect even if they disagree with her. It could simply be a confession of disobedience to the Church on the issue if you don’t want to confess contraception itself. The 4th commandment is to honor our Father and Mother. Our Church is our Mother and if we are going to disobey Her even if we believe She is wrong on this issue we are still guilty of disobeying Her correct?
 
ahs said:
Right, but she has already stated that she knows the Church teaches this to be a grave sin. She says she had read all the teachings on it…so she knows it is grave matter because the Church calls it “gravely disordered” in Church teaching (CCC). It is also called “grave sin” in the “examination of conscience” (though I won’t presume whether she has read one of those). I didn’t have to inform her, she already knows, she just doesn’t agree. But not agreeing does not remove the graveness of a sin or make it not sinful.

I wouldn’t call myself “ultra-conservative”. I’m just a Catholic, and I submit to the Authority of the Church.
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The debate is whether the church is correct. The church says it is a grave sin and disordered - why? Because semen landed somewhere else or didn’t at all? So a condom or other forms of ABC are not unitive because the sperm didn’t get where it was supposed to? Teachings on sex are not dogma as is the Trinity, Christ in the Eucharist, etc. They are teachings, tradition maybe, in the same category as war, illegls, and the death penalty.
 
Blacksword said:
Because these are the only things they ever actually said about the topic! Maybe there’s some trove of writings from the early fathers wherein they extol the goodness of sexual pleasure in the bonds of marriage and wrote odes to healthy desire like Song of Solomon, but I’ve yet to read it. Whenever the issue is brought up, these are the ONLY quotes ever referenced from the early fathers. 🤷
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Haha well if you can read Latin or can get Chapter 23 of Divine Institutions translated into English, we will get that quote in context and it may shed some light on it. However I would point out that your view clearly relies upon telling these Church fathers they were wrong about sex, while the Church’s current viewpoint simply builds on what was stated and potentially has to tell Lanctius he was wrong if your view of what he meant is right haha. The Church’s view today could be called a fulfillment of the Truth about sex, while your view would be a refutation of their views of sex, no? Doesn’t your view of sex rely upon the fact that there are times where we can have sex solely for unitive purposes? This would be a complete 180 on the view of the Early Church Father’s while the Church’s current view would basically be, yes the Early Church Father’s were right that sex is about procreation, however over time we have found the unitive aspect to be of much greater importance than their writings would suggest they believed it to be. However, the Church does uphold the idea that all sexual acts must be ordered towards procreation which is a fundamental of every single writing that has been posted.
 
searching04 said:
I’m a Catholic - I believe in Christ in the Eucharist. I don’t believe church teachings on sex.
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That’s a really old post that we already went over (those involved in the thread at the time).

But since you bring it up (the fact that you disagree with the Church teaching on sex)…can you please, for the benfit of those who may want to follwo your example and experience contraception for themselves, show us where in Church teaching or in Scripture is there mention of contraception being acceptable or being a matter of personal discernment?
 
searching04 said:
For the record - you’re not selfish, nor were we, when we got to engage in other things besides finishing in intercourse.
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Speaking of myself , I was selfish when i would deny my husband because he forgot to go the drug store, or when we would do “other things” because we couldn’t do “that”, because he forgot to go to the drugstore.
 
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