Marriage and children.

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YipYupYep

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Hello,

Simple question but maybe a complicated answer.

Must married Catholics have children if the can, and why?
 
All marriages must be open to children.

Why? Because children are a blessing from God, because God created marriage for having children and God is the boss.
 
Simple answer is that you probably make a vow to it on your wedding day (at least I know I did). And you don’t get to choose what vows to follow and which ones you can break (or else it wouldn’t be a vow).

I tried looking for the reason in the Catechism, but I couldn’t find anything definitive except what the last poster said, “children are a gift from God.” Interesting enough, the Catechism makes an assumption that everyone who is married want to have children and then it lists out what are acceptable means of having one and what is not. But I only went through it briefly so perhaps I missed something.
 
PrayHarder said:
Simple answer is that you probably make a vow to it on your wedding day (at least I know I did). And you don’t get to choose what vows to follow and which ones you can break (or else it wouldn’t be a vow).
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What vow is that? I never took a vow like that. It was more than a quarter of a century ago, so I may be a bit fogy, but I think I would remember.
 
YipYupYep said:
What vow is that? I never took a vow like that. It was more than a quarter of a century ago, so I may be a bit fogy, but I think I would remember.
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I got married in a Catholic ceremony in 1985. I definitely remember promising to welcome children as part of my vows.
 
YipYupYep said:
Really? Where do you find that? I am not disagreeing, just asking.
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That is one of the primary purposes of marriage, it is part of the Catholic vows (and should you have had a dispensation from form, you and your spouse were informed of this vow).

Read the CCC on marriage, it begins at 1601, is contained in Article 7

scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c3a7.htm#1601

1601 "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament."84
 
I did a quick google search of “Nuptial Mass order of service.” Prior to the exchanging of vows, the priest asks the following questions:

Question #1:
Priest: Joseph and Mary, have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?

Joseph and Mary: We have.

Question #2":
Priest: Will you love and honor each other as husband and wife for the rest of your lives?

Joseph and Mary: We will.

Question #3:
Priest: Will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and His Church?

Joseph and Mary: We will.

If a Catholic couple is adamant about not having children, then they probably shouldn’t get married in the Church. Standing in front of your family and friends (and God) and lying while you say “yes/we will” to answer #3 is a bad idea in my book. I mean, if they’re lying about question #3, what about the other 2 questions? And what about their vows?

Now, I know of 4 couples that were adamant about not having children and yet they still had a Nuptial Mass and said “yes/we will” to question #3. All I could do was shake my head and feel sad about their blatant dishonesty, especially since everyone knew their stance (even the priest :confused: ). Unfortunately, 2 of the couples ended up divorced and 1 received a declaration of nullity (primarily because dh lied about question #3 and dw lied about question #1).

Madame Butterfly
 
MadameButterfly said:
Question #3:
Priest: Will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and His Church?

Joseph and Mary: We will.
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Well said Madame Butterfly. Since this question enevitably comes up in these types of conversations I thought I would head it off. The vow is to be open and accept children according to God’s will. You are not breaking that vow if you cannot have children for some sort of medical or biological reason.
 
kage_ar said:
That is one of the primary purposes of marriage, it is part of the Catholic vows
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Okay. No problem. The CCC is the rule book of my life. Yes having children is good. Its is proper and a normal outcome of marriage. Why is it a must? Not from the Bible that I know of. First Corinthians. Better to stay single.

Its not a commandment for sure. Did someone come up with it, like eating fish on Friday back in the day?🤷
 
YipYupYep said:
Hello,

Simple question but maybe a complicated answer.

Must married Catholics have children if the can, and why?
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all marriages must be open to children, as they are the purpose and fruit of marriage.
 
YipYupYep said:
Okay. No problem. The CCC is the rule book of my life. Yes having children is good. Its is proper and a normal outcome of marriage. Why is it a must? Not from the Bible that I know of. First Corinthians. Better to stay single.

Its not a commandment for sure. Did someone come up with it, like eating fish on Friday back in the day?🤷
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Just as a point of semantics, there is a slight difference between ‘being open to’ and ‘must’. ‘Being open to’ means ordering your marriage around the principle that the primary purpose is to produce children, and to accept any pregnancy that comes your way. ‘Must’ implies that there is some sort of time-line or limit or something, every couple must have a child within X number of years, or must have X number of children, which isn’t the case. And it’s only recently that couples have been able to really try to have kids, as in using fertility treatments and/or NFP, versus magic herbs and having sex lots.
Hope that helps a bit, and I know it’s more complicated than that, but hopefully that’s a starting point.
 
YipYupYep said:
Its not a commandment for sure.
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It may not be one of The Ten, but as far as I know, the first commandment God gave to mankind was to “be fruitful and multiply.” Pretty sure that meant having children (or attempting to have them, at least). 😉
 
YipYupYep said:
Okay. No problem. The CCC is the rule book of my life. Yes having children is good. Its is proper and a normal outcome of marriage. Why is it a must? Not from the Bible that I know of. First Corinthians. Better to stay single.

Its not a commandment for sure. Did someone come up with it, like eating fish on Friday back in the day?🤷
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You may want to crack open the Bible and give it a read.

One of the very FIRST commands to the first people was “be fruitful and multiply”.
 
Hmm I donlt really think though that using the be fruitful and multiply command is a good argument. The commandment was given when there was basically no people on the earth. So if we hadn;t procreated we would have died out really quick. Now well not so much. Not to mention why make some people infertile? On that note doesn;t the Catholic church allow infertile people to marry? If marriage is all about fulfilling that commandment then shouldn;t infertile people not be allowed to marry?
 
But what if someone doesn’t want to be a parent? That would be mean to have unwanted children in this case i think.:confused:
 
Corinne3 said:
But what if someone doesn’t want to be a parent? That would be mean to have unwanted children in this case i think.:confused:
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Then In the Roman Catholic Church they should figure this out beforehand. They must be in agreement to have children to get the green light to get married.
 
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