NFP and contraception

[Image_of_God]

Basically, he means to say that the Church cannot change it’s stance on contraception without calling infallibility into question - that was the major reason for disallowing the Pill given by those who dissented from the majority report of the commission - rather than a moral reason.

The majority report agreed upon by all 40 lay people, 7 of the 9 bishops, 8 of the 16 theologian priests and 6 of the 7 cardinals of the commitee, gave these reasons for allowing the Pill:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Commission_on_Birth_Control

However a small minority of the commission led by the archconservative Cardinal Ottaviani (who also opposed separation of Church & State and religious liberty at Vatican II) dissented from the majority view stating that the Church could not change it’s teaching without damaging papal infallibility as JPII stated in the minority report.

The fact that the church’s stance on contraception is a political rather than moral one is readily apparent by the unprecedented dissent (compared to any other Church teaching) from laity, theologians, bishops (note the dissenting statements issued in response to Humane Vitae) and clergy (only something like 16% of priests think using contraception is intrinsically evil)

Plus, the Vatican itself under Pius XI (who promulgated Casti Connubi) held a controlling share in Istituto Farmacologico Serono di Roma, Italy’s largest manufacturer of birth control products - so it certainly had no qualms in profiting from contraception.

Yes, they simply cannot argue against this premise since not only do the Church Fathers affirm this but even from a secular perspective - ie. from biology, the only intrinsic purpose of sex is for reproduction.

I was hovering in these forums (not logged in) and wasn’t hoping to reply. However, I thought that I could post something useful, so I decided to break my abstinence.

When I saw that you had posted the wikipedia article, I was willing to take that it as the full story. But as I tried to understand the issues and the politics that revolved around the pronunciation of Humanae Vitae, I came across another side of the story, and it was an unlikely encounter. Below is the link of several documents that give a fuller picture to what actually went on:
twotlj.org/BCCommission.html

Many documents in the link were only recently released after being held secret for years and they were written by people who were actually involved in the controversy.

I will admit I have not read all the documents, but this is what I’ve gathered:

1. The so-called “Majority Report” and “Minority Report” were two documents with different purposes (they were NOT meant to two present to sides of the argument). The person who leaked them (probably pro-contraception) labeled them as such. The actual name of the "Majority Report) was Schema Documenti.
2. Some documents were released in order to pressure Pope Paul VI into declaring in favor of contraception. [In consequence of this, I think it is somewhat unlikely that Ottaviani had as much influence as the article claims he did. The Pope had other things to consider as well].
3. The proponents of contraception were themselves inconsistent about why contraception should be permitted by the Church. Their were various conflicting opinions of why it should be permitted by its proponents. Some of the things that were said in favor of contraception seem quite odd to any person with some experience in Catholic thought.

 

[Abu]

razredge
It should make us sad, this kind of legalism, rooted in blind tradition is precisely what Christ taught against.

Typically confused and misled, precisely what dissenters imagine, against what Christ stood for.

This false idea of Christ as against a self-styled “legalism” is easily dispelled as Christ told the woman taken in adultery to “sin no more” as she had breached the sixth commandment – He ensured that she paid more attention to the law. (Jn 8:3-11).

To “What must I do to have eternal life?”, Christ’s answer is “Keep the commandments.” (Mt 19:17). “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” (Jn 14:15).
It is easy to ignore the Master’s examples on how we fail to love God or neighbour in His warnings of sins which defile or befoul (Mk 7:21-23), in addition to ignoring His guarantees against error in transmitting His truths.

Apart from commanding the woman found in adultery to “go and sin no more” the Christ commanded us to
“Stop judging by appearances, but judge justly.” (Jn 7:24).
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them” (Mt 7:15, 16).
“Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So by their fruits you will know them.” (Mt 7:19-20).

And St Paul, following the Master:
“Test everything: retain what is good.” (1Thess 5:21).
“The spiritual person, however, can judge everything but is not subject to judgment by anyone.” (1 Cor 2:15).

That is precisely why we judge actions, speech, writing against true teaching to what is good and what is evil, and we know what is good and what is evil only by following the teaching of His Church – not by our opinions, desires, prejudices, feelings, wants, known as selfism.

 

[Chrono13]

Yes, they simply cannot argue against this premise since not only do the Church Fathers affirm this but even from a secular perspective - ie. from biology, the only intrinsic purpose of sex is for reproduction.

This is why animals were sometimes used as a role model for sexual behavior. They have relations only to beget offspring.

And yes, “they” are very angry for their lack of argument. It is easy to counter people outside of the Church, but a Catholic with knowledge of history is completely other story.

 

[Chrono13]

Again, this would make illicit all forms of sex between infertile couples or intercourse between couples where the wife is not fertile for a certain period of time. Biblical record clearly supports otherwise. Ejecting semen into a vagina that is infertile is not by its nature against the natural law. I illustrated that last post.

This seems so, but Church Fathers also allowed sex in order to satisfy “marital debt”. This system claimed marital intercourse without desire of begetting is sinful, yet allowed, since pair has to help each other in “weakness”- this being lack of sexual control.

NFP, as I illustrated before, does not stop procreation. You are also ignoring the distinction that has been made between intentional act and further intention. This is where you need to focus, I think.

The intention of NFP act is destruction of the sperm. And it is difficult to say one is open to life that way.

I don’t quite know what you mean by “outside” here. The man is giving all of himself to a woman, even if they are practicing NFP. He is not holding anything back.

Man is having sex on infertile day precisely because he wants to avoid woman’s fertility, and refuses it, as well as woman. By “outside” I meant “outside of the woman”, because the whole idea of NFP is to assure refusal of sperm and it’s destruction as natural waste, which exits human body.

He does intend for his semen to go in a different place than if he were having sex during her fertile period. Further, if the egg were fertilized, he would be doing nothing to stop that from occurring. This further points to the similarity (and acceptability) between non-contraceptive NFP sex and non-contraceptive sex without planning.

He intends sperm to be destroyed and extracted from human body. This is different then person who tries to beget (the only moral according to original ethic) , or person who doesn’t care about outcome of intercourse (most people do so, nobody really thinks where the sperm will end).

I find the way you present this a little strange honestly. The current leaders of the Church know what you know—and more. Hundreds, thousands of books have been written on just this topic. There is no danger writing about what you think the Church fathers said. There’s no big secret here.

Just the fact that Church was forbidding NFP in the past might sound as a secret to somebody’s faith.

This sounds like a very endsjustifythemeans kind of reasoning. Me genoito! I don’t think this is what Paul meant at all. I don’t think rendering the marital debt is ever to be understood as a sinful (venial or otherwise) act. It’s something you owe by nature of the relationship. It only becomes a sin when you withhold it—a breach of the contract. I would hardly say upholding the contract could ever be a sin (all things being equal). Also, it would be very difficult for marriage to be seen as a sacrament following this reasoning. “I am binding you together before God—but the relationship will definitely regress into a sinful state of affairs—because she is going to age; sorry. But it’s alright now!”

I also don’t share that opinion on Paul’s writings. However, saints such as St. Augustine didn’t share our opinion, and claimed sex is sinful in venial matter, if not done with intent of procreation. This reflected our view of sex up to 19th Century. I mean, Casti Connubii is the first document in history of the Church which says marital sex is love act. Before, it was lustful moment of weakness in marriage.

 

[Chrono13]

An excellent example of the misuse of reason, and the inability to understand clearly expressed facts and reality – precisely why the prejudices against the Church are so vitriolic. An inability to see the difference in God’s creation betwen mankind and animals is so common these days.

“Our status as the only rational, moral animal is the source of our natural belief that human beings are distinct from other animals. That is the origin of all laws against murder, for the notion of “murder” assumes that killing a human being is fundamentally distinct from killing a chicken, and that the murderer actually had the moral freedom not to kill (otherwise, jailing the man would make as much sense as jailing the knife). Let go of this fundamental assumption, and soon killing anything will be considered murder (as some animal rights activists maintain).”
Dr. Benjamin Wiker
Benjamin Wiker holds a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Vanderbilt University.

This isn’t wrong, but doesn’t contribute to your point.

First, if infertile period exists in nature for grave matters, animals would use it this way on their instinctive ground.

Second, your logic is a little twisted. If you need ration in order to use infertile period, animals have it for nothing, and people only for grave reasons.

That is sloppy.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

You should have asked clergy at that time

I’m not sure what you mean…

Could you explain:

If relations were considered immoral without the goal of begetting children:

1. Why were Elizabeth and Zacharia intimate when:
   a. She was barren
   b. he was an “old man”?
   c. Zacharia was obviously shocked that Elizabeth became pregnant.
2. Why were Elizabeth and Zacharia described as impeccable? (impeccable 1530s, “not capable of sin,” from M.Fr. impeccable (15c.), from L. impeccabilis “not liable to sin,” from in- “not” (see in- (1)) + pecare “to sin,” of unknown origin.)

etymonline.com/index.php?search=impeccable&searchmode=none
3

Elizabeth and Zacharia are the parents of John the Baptist. Elizabeth is cousin of Mary, and Zacharia was a high priest…examples of people devoted to the Lord.

 

[Chrono13]

False as usual. These prejudices are worthless against facts that with all the magic and drugs recommended, St Augustine specifically stated that “Husband and wife owe one another not only the faithful association of sexual union for the sake of getting children—which makes the first society of the human race in this our mortality—but more than that a kind of mutual service of bearing the burden of one another’s weakness, so as to prevent unlawful intercourse.”

In other words, Augustine said that marital sex is burden of the couple, and they have to endure this sad service of another’s weakness. A man who wants to have sex with his woman without desire of children, but in order to show his love for her, for Augustine is weak in faith- he can love her without sexual intercourse.

Reality with St Augustine
“St Augustine was the great Father of the Church who exposed the errors of Manichaeism. It was Augustine, too, who wrote most extensively against the practice of contraception, which those who were influenced by Manichaeism had come to defend on ideological grounds.” (Fr John A Hardon,S.J., The Catholic Catechism, Doubleday, 1975, p 369).

And against NFP as well, you will have to agree.

’ But the unmarried, too, may be ‘lawfully wedded spouses who resort to this last; for intercourse with one’s legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked whenever the conception of children is prevented.’ ”

We have already proved that NFP is form of preventing conception to St. Augustine.

So, “St Augustine did not mean, no more than St Paul, to have this taken universally, as though marriage was only a remedy for passion, or as though persons cannot enter the sacred state of matrimony for very noble reasons that have nothing to do with merely bridling one’s passions.” (Op. cit. p 369).

This is talk about marriage, not marital sex.

Elizabeth Anscombe observes that St Thomas makes the point that “a man ought to pay the marriage debt if he can see the wife wants it without her having to ask him. And he ought to notice if she does not want it. This is an apt gloss on St Augustine’s ‘mutual service’, and it destroys the basis for the picture which some have had of intercourse not for the sake of children as a little bit sinful on one side, since one must be ‘demanding’, and not for any worthy motive but purely ‘out of desire for pleasure’. One could hardly say that being diagnosable as wanting intercourse was a sin!”

For St. Augustine, she is just wrong. For St. Thomas, we can talk.

[Elizabeth Anscombe is one of the foremost scholars of philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century, and her article on *Contraception And Chastity

gives the reality of the arguments on sex in marriage in Why Humanae Vitae Was Right, Ignatius, 1993, p 127].

And St. Augustine said sex is only for procreation. And no scholar will change that.

 

[Chrono13]

Catholics faithful to Christ accept His mandate protecting His Church from teaching error on faith and on morals. They assent to all of His teaching through His Church.

Dissenters make up their own prejudices based on their feelings.

His teachings never deny truth, no matter how hard it is. For He is Truth incarnate, and foe of the manipulator.

Let us live in fear of God. But knock on His door, seeking truth.

 

[Chrono13]

I’m not sure what you mean…

I mean that people were asking such questions, and were not answered in satisfying way, But they had to obey, nevertheless.

I can’t answer your questions, since I don’t think sex is sinful. My posts simply stress that moral theology observed it that way for majority of time.

 

[Abu]

Chrono13, #360
Casti Connubii is the first document in history of the Church which says marital sex is love act. Before, it was lustful moment of weakness in marriage.

Just basically erroneous. This poster makes his own trouble by falsifying history as well as rejecting Christ and His Church.

St Paul on love in marriage:
“Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for Her.” (Eph 5:25).
“Husbands love your wives, and do not be bitter towards them.” (Col 3:19).
“…train the younger women to be wise, to love their husbands and their children, so that the word of God be not reviled.” (Tit 2:4).

“Before the end of the second century, **Clement of Alexandria **wrote the masterful catechetical treatise Paidagogos, which synthesized the pattern of Christian education in the East and North Africa in the first generation after the Apostles. It also reflects a very balanced attitude toward marriage. On the one hand, Clement defended marriage and marital intercourse as good and holy. Thus he said that marital ‘love tends toward sexual relations by its very nature,” and “sometimes nature denies them (husband and wife) the opportunity to perform the marriage act so that it may be all the more desirable because it is delayed.”

CCC #2365:
St. John Chrysostom suggests that young husbands should say to their wives: I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us. . . . I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you.150
150 St. John Chrysostom, Hom. in Eph. 20,8G 62,146-147.

**“The procreation of children is not in itself the sole purpose of marriage, but a marriage without the desire for children, and the prayer to God to bear and nurture them, is contrary to the ‘sacrament of love.’”**19
Note
19. St. John Chrysostom, Homily on Ephesians 20, PG.

CCC1661: “The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life [cf. **Council of Trent: DS 1799].

#361, Second, your logic is a little twisted. If you need ration in order to use infertile period, animals have it for nothing, and people only for grave reasons. That is sloppy.

Again the inanity of comparing people to animals, myopically unable to see them as made in the image and likeness of God, unlike animals – that IS sloppy!

Secondly, opposing the Magisterium of Christ’s Church is dissent, as Blessed John Paul II has confirmed: “It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a ‘good Catholic’ and poses no obstacle to the reception of the sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching office of the bishops of the United States and elsewhere.” [Meeting with US Bishops at Our Lady Queen of Angels Minor Seminary, Los Angeles, Sept 16, 1987]

 

[Good_Daughter]

In stoic way of thinking, it is not important whether you like babies or not- as long as you have sex only with desire to beget them.

We still call properly ordered sex “the act that makes a baby”, regardless of fertility. I don’t see how that aspect of Catholicism has changed.

It is *possibility *of act.

Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean here.

They gave many interpretations- but not the literal one, since sexuality was suspicious.

They didn’t have to give a literal interpretation, the work itself is literal. Sexuality is still “suspicious” today. Not inherently evil, just widely abused.

Not really. He doesn’t claim Jovanius sees *only *marital enjoyment in Song of Songs.

St Jerome says, “I pass to the Song of Songs, and whereas our opponent thinks it makes altogether for marriage, I shall show that it contains the mysteries of virginity.”

 

[Chrono13]

Just basically erroneous. This poster makes his own trouble by falsifying history as well as rejecting Christ and His Church.

St Paul on love in marriage:
“Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for Her.” (Eph 5:25).
“Husbands love your wives, and do not be bitter towards them.” (Col 3:19).
“…train the younger women to be wise, to love their husbands and their children, so that the word of God be not reviled.” (Tit 2:4).

“Before the end of the second century, **Clement of Alexandria **wrote the masterful catechetical treatise Paidagogos, which synthesized the pattern of Christian education in the East and North Africa in the first generation after the Apostles. It also reflects a very balanced attitude toward marriage. On the one hand, Clement defended marriage and marital intercourse as good and holy. Thus he said that marital ‘love tends toward sexual relations by its very nature,” and “sometimes nature denies them (husband and wife) the opportunity to perform the marriage act so that it may be all the more desirable because it is delayed.”
CCC #2365:
St. John Chrysostom suggests that young husbands should say to their wives: I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us. . . . I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you.150
150 St. John Chrysostom, Hom. in Eph. 20,8G 62,146-147.

**“The procreation of children is not in itself the sole purpose of marriage, but a marriage without the desire for children, and the prayer to God to bear and nurture them, is contrary to the ‘sacrament of love.’”**19
Note
19. St. John Chrysostom, Homily on Ephesians 20, PG.

Several issues. First, most of sources you suggest are not Church documents. Second, majority of them speak of marriage, and not of marital intercourse.

No Church document prior to Casti Connubii declines sexuality as means of love. At the contrary, pontifical writ usually attacks pleasure in sexual intercourse (“Regula Pastoralis” of Pope Gregory).

CCC1661: “The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life [cf. **Council of Trent

: DS 1799].

This speaks of marriage, not of marital intercourse.

Again the inanity of comparing people to animals, myopically unable to see them as made in the image and likeness of God, unlike animals – that IS sloppy!

People reading this are not stupid. They know I never made such claim.

My point is that, if *natural law * is based on idea that every thing in nature has it’s purpose, one can rightfully ask what is purpose of animal’s infertility period. And if you need ration in order to know purpose of thing in nature, animals have no use of infertile period since they don’t have ration.

Meaning, we have it for “grave situations”, and they have it for nothing. It is not comparison, but logical conclusion.

And a very sloppy one.

Secondly, opposing the Magisterium of Christ’s Church is dissent, as Blessed John Paul II has confirmed: “It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a ‘good Catholic’ and poses no obstacle to the reception of the sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching office of the bishops of the United States and elsewhere.” [Meeting with US Bishops at Our Lady Queen of Angels Minor Seminary, Los Angeles, Sept 16, 1987]

Which Bishop of United States of America claims Church allowed NFP prior to 19th Century?

 

[Chrono13]

We still call properly ordered sex “the act that makes a baby”, regardless of fertility. I don’t see how that aspect of Catholicism has changed.

Because act was moral only if couple wanted to make a baby. To have sex “open to life” but without desire to conceive one was unnatural.

They didn’t have to give a literal interpretation, the work itself is literal.

You and I know that. They weren’t thrilled with the idea.

St Jerome says, “I pass to the Song of Songs, and whereas our opponent thinks it makes altogether for marriage, I shall show that it contains the mysteries of virginity.”

I see your point, but I doubt Jovanius was that far in interpretation. The thing is, Jerome praises virginity in his interpretation because for him, sexuality was impure even in marriage and it was tricky to cherish it in Scripture.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I mean that people were asking such questions, and were not answered in satisfying way, But they had to obey, nevertheless.

I can’t answer your questions, since I don’t think sex is sinful. My posts simply stress that moral theology observed it that way for majority of time.

I guess you are not seeing my point.

How could the church ever think married sexuality was sinful when there is a New Testament example of a merried couple who was virtuous, sexually intimate, yet barren?

John the Baptist’s parents were examples of holiness.

 

[Debora123]

I guess you are not seeing my point.

How could the church ever think married sexuality was sinful when there is a New Testament example of a merried couple who was virtuous, sexually intimate, yet barren?

John the Baptist’s parents were examples of holiness.

His parents weren’t purposely trying to avoid having children though… they were simply too old.

I think what Chrono is trying to say is that at one point, the Church frowned down upon ANY type of deliberate action to avoid pregnancy (apart from total abstinence), including rhythm charting - which was the old fashioned version of “NFP.”

So if natural means of avoiding pregnancy were illicit back then (even for serious reasons), why are they licit now?

I’m pretty sure that’s the point Chrono was trying to get across.

 

[Abu]

Quote from Abu
Secondly, opposing the Magisterium of Christ’s Church is dissent, as Blessed John Paul II has confirmed: “It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a ‘good Catholic’ and poses no obstacle to the reception of the sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching office of the bishops of the United States and elsewhere.” [Meeting with US Bishops at Our Lady Queen of Angels Minor Seminary, Los Angeles, Sept 16, 1987]

Chrono13, #368
Which Bishop of United States of America claims Church allowed NFP prior to 19th Century?

What a howler! This poster can’t even understand the fact that the U.S. Bishops (N.C.C.B.) in 1968 had tried to promote “norms of licit dissent” an unheard of oxymoron in the face of the theological dissent thrown at Humanae Vitae and at Vatican II.

Thus Blessed John Paul II calls on, and challenges, them to teach that dissent is incompatible with being a good Catholic and can pose an obstacle to receiving the sacraments. To feel otherwise is a grave error.

Catholic Medical Weekly
cathmedweek.blogspot.com/2007/03/on-contraception.html
A great website:
“Pope Sixtus, in the late 1500’s, condemned simultaneously contraception and abortion.[10] The Holy Office under Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) handed down several decisions condemning contraception, noting that the wrongness of contraception is a wrong against human nature. That is, it is not a “situational” wrong, but is a universal wrong against the nature of man, as is abortion and infanticide.[11]
[W. E. May, *Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 2000.
[10] pg 144
[11] pg 371.”

freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1839832/posts
During the reign of Pius IX (1846-78), at least 5 decisions were handed down by the Holy See with regard to contraception. One of these specifically mentions that the practice is opposed to natural law, and authorizes confessors to question penitents if they have reason to suppose that contraception is being practiced. It also quotes Blessed Innocent XI’s (16th century) censure against those who theorize that contraception is opposed only to divine positive law and not to natural law.

An excellent example of the misuse of reason, and the inability to understand clearly expressed facts and reality is Chrono13’s repeated attempts to compare mankind to animals re God’s infertile periods. How puerile for not being able to distinguish mankind as rational rather than nothing more than animals, and why some act like animals.

All the falsehoods have been exposed and the deceitful attempts to portray Christ’s Church and His Supreme Vicars as wrong on contraception from the beginning are all completely without any truth.

 

[Seatuck]

Listen to Marriage and the Eucharist.

biblechristiansociety.com/download

 

[Abu]

This thread has enabled the truth to be revealed and many errors exposed. Contraception has always been condemned while Natural Birth Regulation (NBR) makes use of God-given fertility cycles legitimately when serious reasons exist to cooperate with God’s Will in that way.

We have seen that it is Christ’s Catholic Church through Her Sacred Scriptures, especially in Genesis 38, with God killing Onan, St Paul in his Epistles to the Ephesians, the Colossians and to Titus, Her Fathers and Doctors, Her Tradition and Her Magisterium which has raised marriage to the height of a sacrament from the beginning and protected the sanctity of the marital union from the errors of the Manicheans, the Stoics, from abortion and contraception and every other perversion of reason and faith.

We’ve seen in post #226 that the DIDACHE, one of the earliest written disciplinary documents from the infant Church (100-150 A.D.) condemned both abortion and contraception, as in the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX (1148-1241), as did Pope Sixtus and Blessed Pope Innocent XI in the 16th century, and the Council of Trent. During the reign of Pius IX (1846-78), at least 5 decisions were handed down by the Holy See with regard to contraception. One of these specifically mentions that the practice is opposed to natural law, and authorizes confessors to question penitents if they have reason to suppose that contraception is being practiced. Thus the infallible doctrine in Casti Connubii of Pius XI and in Humanae Vitae of Paul VI – consistent and from the earliest times.

In Casti Connubii, Pius XI refers to that “doctrine handed down from the beginning without interruption” which fact alone makes it an infallible teaching according to the “universality of time” which argument was used also by Pius XII for the dogma of Our Lady’s Assumption (1950).

The challenge to the infallible doctrine against contraception is a challenge against Christ and the truth that He gave His Church His authority to teach on faith and morals in His name without error, and a challenge to His protection given to Her through the Holy Spirit for this purpose.

 

[Chrono13]

I guess you are not seeing my point.

How could the church ever think married sexuality was sinful when there is a New Testament example of a merried couple who was virtuous, sexually intimate, yet barren?

John the Baptist’s parents were examples of holiness.

I see your point. I can only reply that this example, when asked to provide more detailed explanation, was left without one. Or it was said that this holy pair only had sex for procreation (with intent of begetting, not of unifying bond). There are ways how stoic would interpret this line.

 

[Chrono13]

His parents weren’t purposely trying to avoid having children though… they were simply too old.

I think what Chrono is trying to say is that at one point, the Church frowned down upon ANY type of deliberate action to avoid pregnancy (apart from total abstinence), including rhythm charting - which was the old fashioned version of “NFP.”

So if natural means of avoiding pregnancy were illicit back then (even for serious reasons), why are they licit now?

I’m pretty sure that’s the point Chrono was trying to get across.

We could say that, yes.

The moral arbiter of sexual intercourse was intent, and since sexuality generally wasn’t seen as something unifying, each intercourse without intent of begetting was an act of lust.

Since NFP is usually used as a mean to have unprocreative sex, by default, it was forbidden.