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Rau
Guest
It your wife is inboard with abstinence, what is the debate about?
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Default
Guest
I don’t know what the debate is about. I am just answering the questions people asked me. I can’t say I have had an affirmative discussion with my wife about abstinence in explicit terms. I can say that we have been married almost 18 years and my experience in the last several years is that she certainly doesn’t view any overtures as a positive. I would describe it that a few times a year she may tolerate marital relations but nothing beyond that. Given those facts I don’t see how abstinence is sinful unless there is a requirement on my part to actively persuade my wife to have relations.
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Rau
Guest
No one has suggested that abstinence, when acceptable to both parties, is sinful. To my mind, the absence of desire you describe seems unfortunate, but not sinful. That she would prefer not to have sex with you ought perhaps to be of some concern to you. That might at least warrant a discussion.
K
kaos713
Guest
No, but your comment is.
The argument I hear against condoms is that they result in people having sex for pleasure while reducing the chance of having a baby (with varying success). Other contraceptives achieve a similar aim. Humans have noticed how their bodies work, i.e. that sperm must meet with fertile eggs in order for there to be a chance of pregnancy, and have devised methods to avoid this happening. Whether this be avoiding the fertile eggs by practicing NFP, or stopping the sperm reaching the eggs by using condoms.
To use an argument similar to that used for NFP: if God didn’t want us to use condoms, why did he create a system whereby sperm must transfer from a man to a woman, where that can easily be prevented with a bit of latex (or lamb intestines, etc). He could have created a system where if a man and a woman were in a loving marriage the woman simply had a baby at regular intervals or as determined by God, no physical process necessary. Why beat around the bush?
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jilly4ski
Guest
No, the argument is that you have changed or distorted sex so that you are not actually engaging in the marital act or “real” intercourse when you use a condom. If you prevent the sperm from being transferred to your spouse, you are engaging in nothing more than masturbation, and it is no longer the marital act.
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Abu
Guest
Totally false, and rejects both reason and faith.
Condom-mania ensures the rupture of the intimate link between the love-giving and life-giving meanings of the marital act.
The man views his wife as a passive receptacle for his own passions.
The use of contraceptives since the 1960s has increased hand in hand with the rising divorce rate.
God has very clearly shown that contraception by any means is gravely evil.
“That Onan’s unnatural act as such is condemned as sinful in Gen. 38: 9-10 was an interpretation held by the Fathers and Doctors of the Catholic Church, by the Protestant Reformers, and by nearly all celibate and married theologians of all Christian denominations until the early years of this century, when some exegetes began to approach the text with preconceptions deriving from the sexual decadence of modern Western culture and its exaggerated concern for ‘over-population.’ ” [Pope Pius XI, Encyclical on *Christian Marriage, Casti Connubii (31 December 1930)].
Onan’s sin
Answer by Fr. John Echert (EWTN) on May-14-2006:
Referring to Genesis 38.
“By the ancient custom – later to become the law of God in the time of Moses – in order that the family name would live on through a man’s descendants, if a brother died leaving a widow and no sons, then it was the duty of his brother to take his widow as his own and produce offspring from the relationship. Onan not only failed to fulfill this command of God, but committed an additional violation of the law of God by spilling his seed on the ground, that is, withdrawal during the act of sexual intercourse. His sin was twofold and showed contempt for God and nature. Incidentally, this biblical account is important to keep in mind in the whole matter of contraception which is against the law of God and nature. Sexual intercourse is intended to be fruitful and one must have at least the openness to the possibility of new life; Onan showed contempt for life and law.”
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kaos713
Guest
The same argument could be made against NFP.
Contraception is a method to prevent pregnancy (contra - against, conception - beginning of pregnancy)
NFP is a method to prevent pregnancy.
NFP is a a form of contraception.
By your reasoning, NFP is gravely evil.
Discuss.
Where, then, is the outrage against brothers who do not **** their dead brother’s widow as commanded by God?
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Rau
Guest
The argument you have heard is not a Catholic one. Better that you debate it with the purveyors of that argument.
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Thorns
Guest
Arent condoms just a physical extension of NFP?
For exanple, talking on the internet is just an artifical extension of talking to people face to face. Talking on the internet is still considered natural since its order is still fulfilled. Condoms are just an artifical extension of avoiding pregnancy. The goal is still fulfilled. Why are artificial extensions evil in one instance and not in others?
Also, if condoms truly prevent sexual intercourse from taking place, are people who fornicate while using condoms not really committing the sin of fornication then?
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Rau
Guest
One can avoid pregnancy in various ways, none of which are necessarily improper. Don’t get married. Don’t have sex. Limit the frequency of sex. All have in common this characteristic - they do nothing to subvert or “mess with” the marital act. They merely deny the parties the act. Catholic morality on this point simply says “when you have sex, do it naturally”. Contraception is different in this specific regard. Messing with the act is the thing Catholic morality opposes.
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Rau
Guest
Talking on the internet or face to face is still TALKING. Avoiding pregnancy by applying NFP involves not engaging in the marital act. Contraception is simulating the marital act - a bit like a chat session attempts to simulate a face to face conversation (if you must use that analogy).
There is no moral issue at stake in communicating by means other than face to face conversation. The marital act “subverted” with condoms is entirely different to not engaging in the act.
T
thewanderer
Guest
I think the “debate” is coming from people misunderstanding the situation. In your situation it is definitely not sinful for you to abstain. There is no requirement for someone to have sex if their spouse is unwilling or to convince your spouse to have sex or any such thing. If you are both content without relations then there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. So, as far as I understand it, the debate about just why the church believes and teaches what it doesn’t really effect your life much. If you’re one of those people, who, like me, like to debate issues even when they don’t have a practical application to their life then I am more than willing to continue to help explain my understanding of the Church’s teachings. Otherwise, I would say there’s really no need for you to worry about it. If you are interested in hearing my opinions let me know but don’t feel obliged to get into a discussion about it all if it doesn’t even have a practical effect on your life.
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Rau
Guest
.yes, this has been said multiple times, and no one has said anything to the contrary. Default seems reticent to believe us!
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jilly4ski
Guest
No, not having sex to avoid pregnancy is not at all like simulating sex in order to avoid pregnancy.
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jilly4ski
Guest
If NFP is a form of contraception, then we are all contracepting almost every moment of our lives. By your logic, any moment you are not engaging in the marital act you are contracpeting. In order for you to be contracepting, you first have to be engaging in an activity where conception is actually possible, namely the marital act.
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Abu
Guest
Totally false – there is nothing to contracept.
Obviously not – natural birth regulation (NBR) is recommended for serious, grave reasons as taught by the Church and no real Catholic even doubts, much less disregards, Her teaching. See post #89 for the reality of Pope Paul VI’s teaching in Humanae Vitae, and post #68.
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Rau
Guest
Abu, while I admire your complete acceptance of the authority of Church teaching (to which you’ve appealed in a number of posts), I think the fact that the Church has such authority is a secondary factor for a person seeking to **understand **the teaching and to accept it. After all, the Church itself goes to the trouble of analysing moral issues and documenting that process and its conclusions.
It is not wrong to assert that a particular course is moral because the Church says so. It is just unlikely to be of itself persuasive. Were it so, all posts arguing the case of Church teaching could be terribly brief!
I would disagree with you that one who has doubts ceases to be a “real Catholic”. An “imperfect Catholic” - by all means.
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Rau
Guest
Default’s initial point was a difficulty in accepting that NFP was licit - the idea of having sex when you believe you won’t/can’t get pregnant seemed to him at best inconsistent with the rest of the Church’s teaching in this area, and at worst improper.
He moved on from that to question whether it was OK to not have sex at all - given his prior point might lead one to thing that only total abstinence was acceptable if becoming pregnant was not desired (or to be avoided).
It is almost as though believing the first point provides a basis for the second - which is his current marital predicament. Despite a few occasions of posters saying “no sex is OK if you both agree”, he repeated the rhetorical “…I can’t see what’s wrong with no sex” (paraphrased)
That’s my take. I guess we await further (name removed by moderator)ut from Default.
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Abu
Guest
John Henry Cardinal Newman said “ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate.” (Apologia pro vita Sua). [Fr Thomas Dubay, *Faith And Certitude, Ignatius Press, 1995. p 82-4].
Doubt and Difficulty
“A negative doubt is a close relation to ignorance. An opinion is an assent of the mind but with a well-founded fear that the opposite may be true.” With an unhealthy doubt, “a person suspends judgment even when the evidence is conclusive and completely adequate. This is skepticism, intellectual cowardice……A difficulty is a problem, a not-seeing how two realities fit together….a situation we do not yet understand and perhaps will never understand. It is a limitation on our knowledge, a passing or permanent limitation.” [Fr Thomas Dubay, *Faith And Certitude, Ignatius Press, 1995. p 82-4].
Thus one may have a difficulty, but to doubt is unCatholic and thus not part of the real Catholic.
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