J
Joe_5859
Guest
I think these “various other catholic theology websites” are giving you the wrong impression.
This is a key distinction here. Notice the difference between these two scenarios:
(1) An engaged couple is adamant that they will never have children. They are willing to do anything and everything they possibly can to ensure that they won’t have children (e.g. contraception, sterilization, abortion, etc.)
(2) An engaged couple believes it is unwise (given their circumstances) to have children. However, they are willing to abide by Catholic teaching and not use artificial contraception. Even though they suspect they will use NFP to avoid pregnancy indefinitely, they will still accept God’s will if they do get pregnant unexpectedly.
In the first case, there is no openness to life (and that’s actually an impediment to entering into a valid marriage). In the second case, there is an openness, even if the couple isn’t planning on it.
On the internet, you will hear a lot of opinions regarding what is a “good enough” reason to postpone pregnancy. Some individual Catholics out there seem to think that the only reason to avoid having more children would be if it were a virtual certainty that the woman would die in childbirth. Anything short of that, they think, is “selfish”. That is not the Catholic position.
A lot of it requires discernment. Obviously, there are times where people are postponing pregnancy for selfish reasons. But that doesn’t mean anything short of impending death is intrinsically self-centered. I’ll just say, my wife and I have a special needs child that takes a lot of our time and attention. And so we don’t have as many children as I would have liked to have had. That’s the way it goes sometimes. Does that mean we are being “selfish” for not churning out as many babies as possible? I don’t believe so.