It appears as though there is a variety of dissension from people who are unwilling to submit to God’s basic message to married couples: Be fruitful and multiply!
The Catholic Church understands this (as far as I understand it) to mean that married couples
should try to bring new life into the world. There are two notions to unpack in that statement: should and try. Catholic couples
should do this, because it is a moral obligation they have - an obligation whose satisfaction will bring a couple closer to God’s graces, and whose dissatisfaction amounts to discarding God’s blessing in their married lives. Bringing new life into this world creates the image of the Blessed Trinity in the family: a loving relationship of three in one cooperative family. And Catholics should
try to bring about new life, in the sense that at least at some point during their marriage they do not actively avoid pregnancy whenever they engage in the conjugal act. Insofar as these acts do not result in fertilization, they have done no wrong as they have put the blessing of children in God’s hands, and out of their own. Even when people engage in NFP, they should know that this method for avoiding pregnancy is only morally licit on the condition that the couple has a serious reason to avoid pregnancy (as discussed between that couple and their confessor). Lifelong avoidance of pregnancy, barring some serious reasons like crippling poverty or extreme emotional distress, is sinful - and perhaps so gravely sinful that one puts her immortal soul in danger of hell. I cannot tell if any couple satisfies these conditions here, but the descriptions people have voluntarily submitted seems to indicate that the rationale for barrenness is something as trite as
not wanting children. This reason, to be clear, is
not a morally licit reason to avoid pregnancy. If people are using this as the reason they are continuing to engage in the conjugal act and avoiding pregnancy in that act, then (assuming this is done knowingly and willingly) they are participating in mortal sin and need to repent and confess these sins to restore salvific graces in their soul.
Yes, married couples
should try to bring new life into the world. Not immediately, perhaps, but somewhere along the line their conjugal acts should be genuinely open to pregnancy with the intent to raise any resulting children as Catholics - and
this duty is a principal goal of married life. A conjugal act being “genuinely open” to pregnancy means that it involves no form of contraception (contraception, of course, being *always *wrong) or Natural Family Planning. If a couple dissents from this duty, in willfully intending not to have children at any point in their marriage through active avoidance of pregnancy, then the Church openly questions whether such a dissenting couple is truly married. Several posters in this thread seem to describe themselves in this way - a position they should be aware is
wrong, according to that one Catholic and Apostolic Church confessed to in the Creed at Mass.
rick43235:
What I find absurd, uncharitable, and ridiculous, on the other hand, is the notion that living a celibate life without the company of a spouse is the only option one has if one does not feel called to have children.
[SIGN]Welcome to Rome, please check your own will at the door and you will be given a copy of God’s will for your life during confirmation![/SIGN]
Good to hear you are in RCIA. I am finishing RCIA and will be confirmed at the Easter Vigil in a few days. We converts should have a unique knowledge that becoming Catholic means submitting what we think in all matters to what the Church has preached now and always, an institution that St. Paul calls “the pillar and foundation of the truth.” Without such willingness, the soul is no closer to God before confirmation than it is after you enter the Church. Don’t make the mistake of being a Protestant: inside or outside of this most holy institution, The Church. Such a soul cuts itself off from God in the intellect, though not necessarily in the passions or in the will.
). Please make sure you give people good advice on a Catholic forum.
And I probably came off the wrong way in my first post but can;t seem to edit it now…but should have been more clear that I do think divorce should be her last option. Not that she should go out right now and get one without at least trying to work things out and I guess since she is Catholic find out if she has a marriage or not.