Is Using Contraception a Mortal Sin?

[ahs]

I am referring to this paragraph:

“With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.”

(emphasis added)
It’s the “more” and the “additional” part that I am asking about because I never picked up on that before.

Using the OP’s situation as an example: some have said he/his wife are being selfish by making their education and finances a higher priority than having children. Would people be saying this if the OP already had children? Are they only accusing him of being selfish because he is currently childless? If so, could you, Portrait, or anyone point me to where it says having a first baby requires a more serious reason than having subsequent babies?

The “more” and “additional”, to my understanding, comes from the fact that Marriage, in and of itself, is ordered toward procreation. We in these “modern” days don’t see a connection as easily, but Marriage is entered into by a couple who wish to make a family, to begin procreating. That is the purpose of Marriage. “Sex” has always been, and shoud be, referred to as the “Marriage Act”…or rather, it IS the Marriage Act, whose primary purpose is procreation. That meaning has been lost or shaded to some degree, so the concept of getting Married and right away trying to conceive seems foriegn to us. But that’s why those words appear in that way, to my understanding.

The understandiong would be that if a couple is not ready for children, they should wait to get Married…because engaging in the Marital Act once they are Married will naturally order their union to procreation…unless they contracept.

Does that help?

 

[Bookcat]

T I was under the impression Humanae Vitae was addressed to all Catholics who are married, regardless of whether or not they have already had children.

The “more” and “additional”, to my understanding, comes from the fact that Marriage, in and of itself, is ordered toward procreation. We in these “modern” days don’t see a connection as easily, but Marriage is entered into by a couple who wish to make a family, to begin procreating. That is the purpose of Marriage. “Sex” has always been, and shoud be, referred to as the “Marriage Act”…or rather, it IS the Marriage Act, whose primary purpose is procreation. That meaning has been lost or shaded to some degree, so the concept of getting Married and right away trying to conceive seems foriegn to us. But that’s why those words appear in that way, to my understanding.

The understandiong would be that if a couple is not ready for children, they should wait to get Married…because engaging in the Marital Act once they are Married will naturally order their union to procreation…unless they contracept.

Does that help?

Now lets say a couple of course intend to accept Children and get married and find that they have a serious reason from beginning…well they may use NFP at that time as well. I do not believe the Church requires one to have a child first in order to use NFP (that is the normal way of course…children come…and the are very good to come…even from the very beginning)

…all sorts of contingencies can happen to a couple in this life.

Here is a nice summary from the Compendium issued by Pope Benedict XVI:

1. When is it moral to regulate births?

2368-2369
2399

The regulation of births, which is an aspect of responsible fatherhood and motherhood, is objectively morally acceptable when it is pursued by the spouses without external pressure; when it is practiced not out of selfishness but for serious reasons; and with methods that conform to the objective criteria of morality, that is, periodic continence and use of the infertile periods.

1. What are immoral means of birth control?

2370-2372

Every action - for example, direct sterilization or contraception - is intrinsically immoral which (either in anticipation of the conjugal act, in its accomplishment or in the development of its natural consequences) proposes, as an end or as a means, to hinder procreation.

 

[ahs]

Now lets say a couple of course intend to accept Children and get married and find that they have a serious reason from beginning…well they may use NFP at that time as well. I do not believe the Church requires one to have a child first in order to use NFP (that is the normal way of course…children come…and the are very good to come…even from the very beginning)

…all sorts of contingencies can happen to a couple in this life.

Here is a nice summary from the Compendium issued by Pope Benedict XVI:

1. When is it moral to regulate births?

2368-2369
2399

The regulation of births, which is an aspect of responsible fatherhood and motherhood, is objectively morally acceptable when it is pursued by the spouses without external pressure; when it is practiced not out of selfishness but for serious reasons; and with methods that conform to the objective criteria of morality, that is, periodic continence and use of the infertile periods.

1. What are immoral means of birth control?

2370-2372

Every action - for example, direct sterilization or contraception - is intrinsically immoral which (either in anticipation of the conjugal act, in its accomplishment or in the development of its natural consequences) proposes, as an end or as a means, to hinder procreation.

Yes, exactly. A couple, at any time, can discern that they have a just reason to postpone pregnacy and can practice periodic abstinence. I don’t think the aforementioned writings were intended to say that a couple must have a child already. I think it reads in that way though…because, at that time, it was generally accepted that when a couple Married they were doing so in order to raise a family and, by the time they felt a need to take a break (from baby-making) they would preseumably have already had a child. But it must be noted that the Church does not say that a couple MUST have a child within ‘such-and-such’ time of being Married…only that the couple needs to recognize the meaning of Marriage and the gift that children are…and that contraception is gravely immoral…and natural birth regulation is okay.