I can't help it

[Genesis315]

I don’t think it’s possible to make a reasonable argument that NFP is bad unless you declare that a couple must have sex during every fertile period and must abstain during all infertile periods. But that has never been uttered by anyone at any time, as far as I know.

 

[SeekerJen]

MH84,

Sorry, my language was imprecise. I meant couples who are permanently infertile. If, as Noah proposes, fertility is necessary for the conjugal act it would seem to mean that a couple who knew they were permanently infertile would not have the ability to consummate their marriage.

Infertile couples are those still able to physically consummate the marriage and are permitted to marry. As seen in Scripture, God has sometimes blessed infertile couples with children even when it would seem impossible (see Abraham and Sarah, Zechariah and Elizabeth). Permanently impotent couples are not able to physically consummate the marriage and are not permitted to marry in the Church.

 

[brianwalden]

Infertile couples are those still able to physically consummate the marriage and are permitted to marry. As seen in Scripture, God has sometimes blessed infertile couples with children even when it would seem impossible (see Abraham and Sarah, Zechariah and Elizabeth). Permanently impotent couples are not able to physically consummate the marriage and are not permitted to marry in the Church.

Right, you’ve stated the Church teaching properly.

But Noah suggested that couples should only have sex when conception is likely. Which is why I asked him if that would make permanently infertile couples ineligble for marriage because they wouldn’t have the ability to consummate a marriage under his requirements.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Basically, sex when conception is not likely or possible. I disagree with it intensly. I think that abstinance should be useed all the time. Save for the cause of procreation.

So what you’re saying is that you disagree with the Church’s teaching on the twofold obligation of conjugal love within marriage?

From the catechism…(emphasis mine)

2363
The spouses’ union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple’s spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family.

The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity.

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

 

[wcknight]

Sex between a man and wife is permissible even IF the wife can not conceive. The Church considers marital sex as an essential part of the sacrament of marriage.

For example, there is no reason for a couple to abstain when the wife is not fertile or when she has passed menapause.

 

[jemfinch]

The Church considers marital sex as an essential part of the sacrament of marriage.

The possibility of it, yes. The actuality of it, no. Celibate marriages are still genuine, sacramental marriages within the Church. Otherwise what would we say of the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph?

Jeremy

 

[agapewolf]

The possibility of it, yes. The actuality of it, no. Celibate marriages are still genuine, sacramental marriages within the Church. Otherwise what would we say of the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph?

Jeremy

I could be wrong, but I don’t think celibate marriages are sacramental. They are valid, but not sacramental.

Since Jesus instituted the sacraments, I don’t think Joseph and Mary’s marriage could be sacramental.

 

[jemfinch]

I could be wrong, but I don’t think celibate marriages are sacramental. They are valid, but not sacramental.

That’s not right. See Canon 1055:

Can. 1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.

§2. For this reason, a valid matrimonial contract cannot exist between the baptized without it being by that fact a sacrament.

There’s no such thing as a “valid but not sacramental” marriage between the baptized. You’re right that it’s valid, though; see canon 1061:

Can. 1061 §1. A valid marriage between the baptized is called ratum tantum if it has not been consummated; it is called ratum et consummatum if the spouses have performed between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring, to which marriage is ordered by its nature and by which the spouses become one flesh.

Hence, valid, non-consummated marriages between baptized Catholics are still sacramental.

Jeremy

 

[agapewolf]

That’s not right. See Canon 1055:

There’s no such thing as a “valid but not sacramental” marriage between the baptized. You’re right that it’s valid, though; see canon 1061:

Hence, valid, non-consummated marriages between baptized Catholics are still sacramental.

Jeremy

I wasnt’ talking about two baptized…I was talking about Mary and Joseph. They weren’t baptized.

 

[Leopard]

I wasnt’ talking about two baptized…I was talking about Mary and Joseph. They weren’t baptized.

:ehh: I don’t think I would go that far. True, Joseph and Mary were almost certainly not baptized in the usual sense in which that sacrament is understood, but the Church recognizes at least two exceptional circumstances by which one may be considered to be baptized: baptism by desire and baptism by blood.

If we consider what baptism means (the state of being a baptized person, not the action of baptizing), it means a remission of all sin, an infusion of sanctifying grace into one’s soul, and being made a member of the family of God (the Church). In Mary’s case, all these conditions already exist: she was preserved from original sin by her Immaculate Conception and from actual sin by God’s continuing grace, and she most intimately became a member of God’s family when God became a member of her family. In Mary’s case, rather than consider her unbaptized, I think it might not be theologically incorrect to speculate that she is super-baptized by a third extraordinary form of baptism: baptism by being a member of the Holy Family.

While the Immaculate Conception is not dogmatically taught as applying to St. Joseph, his unique vocation and relationship as a father to Jesus in every sense except the biological is such that I think it might not be theologically incorrect to speculate that he might also share this unique hypothetical extraordinary form of baptism. It might even be considered as possibly applying to still other members of the original Domestic Church, the incarnate Family of God; Sts. Joachim and Anne, Elizabeth and Zechariah, or John the Baptist, perhaps.

In any case, rather than dismissing Joseph and Mary’s marriage as being non-sacramental, I would submit that it was super-sacramental, the standard against which all other sacramental marriages might be measured.

 

[jemfinch]

I wasnt’ talking about two baptized…I was talking about Mary and Joseph. They weren’t baptized.

But you specifically said, “I could be wrong, but I don’t think celibate marriages are sacramental. They are valid, but not sacramental.” I was correcting that statement.

Jeremy