NFP and contraception

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“These people” acknowledged the natural moral law unlike those here who do not understand that it is a part of human nature which is recognised and acted upon according to conscience.

How God has made human nature has everything to do with how man can act, and how man acts has everything to do with the morality of the action. As God has provided an infertile period, mankind acts reasonably when only that is used for a time for serious reasons.

No flawed study has been mentioned or considered.
As expected, I knew that you would be unable to provide as source.

The reason is that they were unaware of this fact. You have provided no evidence to the contrary. Repeating the same thing over and over doesn’t make the facts go away.
 
Yes they are. It has to do with The age of the egg and sperm. Say a couple has sex on the last day of “infertility”. Those sperm are swimming around for a few days, the egg is released, and gets fertilized by one dying little sperm that has been floating around there for 5 days or so. This sperm is not going to be in top shape. The same works hue other way. The couple waits until the end of “fertility” to have sex, but the egg still happens to be viable and present. The sperm fertilize an egg that is essentially dying and there is a miscarriage later on because ofthe health of the egg.

It has to do with the age of the gametes involved I think.

To truly eliminate his possibility, you would have to take the most conservative form of NFP and add several days of abstinence on either side of the fertility window.
Standard, modern NFP methods do put several days of abstinence on either side of the fertility window. The most conservative form of NFP uses only one side of the fertility window.

Say a couple has sex on the last day of infertility (no sensation of wetness, absence of cervical fluid). Those sperm die within about four hours. The same works the other way. The couple waits until the end of fertility to have sex (peak wetness plus at least four days of drying up, cross checked by at least three days of high temperatures for sympto-thermal NFP users) when they know that egg is dead and gone. Once progesterone levels are up, as shown by dryness and elevated temperatures, it’s just a matter of time until sperm have no egg, young or old, left to fertilize.

Though this theoretically could apply to modern NFP users who ‘cheat’ or make mistakes, your article was talking *exclusively *about rythm users.
 
The attempts to smear NBR are without relevance to the condemnation of contraception from the beginning. The teaching on the correct use of NBR based on the natural moral law and affirmed by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church which has built Western civilization is in accord with the fact that real science arose once, only in Europe based on reason from medieval theology. Catholics support real science, not dubious conclusions as sacredcello and others have shown.

un.org/popin/popis/journals/network/network171/nfp171.html
UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs
“Recent studies, however, have found no link between NFP use and a greater risk of miscarriage. In one study of women in the United States, Chile, Colombia and Italy among 868 pregnancies, 10.1 percent ended in miscarriage. The spontaneous abortion rate for optimally timed conceptions (those occurring on the day of ovulation) was 9.1 percent and 10.9 percent among non-optimally timed conceptions (those resulting from intercourse that occurred two or more days before ovulation and one or more days after ovulation).”15
  1. Gray RH, Simpson JL, Kambic RT. Timing of conception and the risk of spontaneous abortion among pregnancies occurring during the use of natural family planning. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1995;172(5):1567-72.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7755073
Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1995 May;172(5):1567-72.
Timing of conception and the risk of spontaneous abortion among pregnancies occurring during the use of natural family planning.
Gray RH, Simpson JL, Kambic RT, Queenan JT, Mena P, Perez A, Barbato M.
SourceDepartment of Population Dynamics, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
“CONCLUSIONS: Overall, there is no excess risk of spontaneous abortion among the pregnancies conceived during natural family planning use. However, among women with a history of pregnancy loss, there is an increased risk of spontaneous abortion associated with preovulatory or postovulatory delayed conceptions.

“The results of a large, multicenter study suggest that users of natural family planning are not at increased risk of spontaneous abortion, even when conceptions are not optimally timed.”
 
I also have to wonder that if a cheap, simple test were to come out that told a woman with a 100% accuracy level that she was not fertile, making NFP 100% accurate, cheap and easy(while greatly extending the window during which relations would be possible) and if 95% of women started using it like they do with ABC, would the Church still condone it? I highly doubt it.

The “virtue” of NFP is largely based on the extended periods of abstinence and its failure rate with average use. If it were much simpler, much less restrictive and much more effective for the average user, I think the Church would start to have a real problem with it and maybe come out and say that while we can chart mucous, we cannot use OPKS or other scientific tools to predict ovulation. Just speculation on my part though. As the science of this becomes ever more accurate, we will see.
Please, LaSainte. You have shown yourself better than this hurtful, inaccurate argument. I am THE poster child for NFP. If there is a weird problem, or a reason to limit family size and space pregnancies, I have probably dealt with it. (Have I mentioned that I have saintly husband who works very hard and is an amazing father? He is also a chronic and severe sleepwalker. Trying to chase a giant, naked man back into the house at 2 am while nine months pregnant, is no easy task.) 😃

If we never conceive again, we will have lived our marriage very virtuously. No one in their right mind would tell us that we need to be hoping for an “oops” (I hate that term) to be more virtuous. Just because some people are confused on the so-called “failure rates” of NFP, doesn’t make it more virtuous to conceive when you didn’t intend. NFP is about the natural design. There are no “failures” in God’s plan or His design.

That brings me to your other point. Even IF the study you cite is true, one would be a *spontaneous *abortion. The other, a *procured *abortion. HUGE difference. One is by natural design, the other by man’s thwarting of the natural design. And that is even IF an article citing “The Rhythm Method” in 2006 (!) is even accurate.

You make the point of the woman who gives up trying to conceive because it is too “emotional” to keep miscarrying. But you stop your example early, yet again. It doesn’t apply to the chronically infertile. Show me that the couple who keeps trying and keeps miscarrying has sinned. They haven’t. A miscarried baby meets her parents in heaven. An aborted baby is the death that cries out for justice. I am thankful for all those little ones I might have conceived. In heaven I will have the large family that our fallen nature has denied me here on Earth!

Again, St Augustine would have likely (possibly) called us to total celibacy. That would have made him wrong. While we firmly believe that God has called us to our very small family, He can still lift that burden, any time he wants. I am fertile today. I am also bed-bound, unable to have relations today. If God healed my health problems right now, and said, “Go make a baby!” Nothing would stop me. I would even wake the sleepwalker to accomplish God’s holy will. HIS WILL.

That is what matters. That is the difference. We don’t have fertile relations because God has not called us to it. If we thwart God’s design how do we hear His voice? With contraception, I could act on *any *urge I felt. I would have no need to check that urge. Is it mine, or is it God calling us? It is the *abstinence *that makes the difference. I admit wholeheartedly, the only difference between the ST method of NFP and the FA method of contraception is the act of sex that occurs using condoms or a spermicide in FAM. It is an act of sex where the natural design is purposefully broken. Abstinence is a waiting. Just because you know people who use NFP with a selfish intent, doesn’t mean that the **method **is equal to contraception.

God designed the infertile phase. And He designed it specifically to the female, not the male. Do you believe, like Chrono13 seems to, that the infertile female phase was an oddity on God’s part? Did He design it to make us wonder about our sinfulness? “Oh no! St. Augustine said we can’t have sex that doesn’t beget. What if we aren’t begetting right now? Do we need to go to Confession tomorrow or not?!” (Not as crazy as it sounds, which brings me to Chrono in my next post.)
 
The final answer is that St. Thomas and St. Francis simply tolerate sex between sterile partners. But to them, a woman in infertile period is not sterile, since *infertility *is part of fertile circle. To have sex on infertile day because of marital debt is tolerated. To have sex on purpose because of infertility, is an attempt to ejaculate without chance of generation.
I have never ejaculated in my life. I have never attempted to ejaculate either. I am female and therefore incapable of it. BUT, in your absurd statement, you actually have hit the point that the Church is making about natural design. I cannot find your earlier quote, please forgive me for not digging further. But you have also argued that the infertile phase of the *cycle *of fertility was *not *designed to avoid conception. What please was it designed to do then? Men do not have a “cycle.” Men are fertile from puberty until death. Most ejaculations do not generate. There is **nothing **there to join. “To make honey, bee need young flower, not old prune.” (Extra points to everyone who can name the quote!)

The rabbit doe ovulates every single time she has sex. There are barbs on the buck’s penis that cause it. When she is pregnant, she will not have sex. Only humans have truly infertile sex. (Some people argue dolphins do too, but I haven’t known if they have sex while pregnant.) It isn’t like God didn’t know how to design a completely fertile animal.

The important fact is that human *females *have a cycle of infertility, while still maintaining the ability to have infertile sex. Human males do not have a cycle of infertility. God didn’t design it that way because He was interesting in confusing people about their sinfulness. (“Are we attempting to beget?”) He designed it that way so that every sexual encounter in humans did **not **result in begetting. A man with a pregnant wife could impregnate another woman. This is where the horrible practice of polygamy comes in. Do you really think that he made pregnant women infertile because He wanted those men to go off and impregnate other women? If so, I know of a few religions who would welcome you with open arms. I doubt you think that, but your argument leads there.

Just because St. Augustine used the common euphemism of “procreative” interchangeably with “beget” doesn’t make it mean what you want it to mean. There are still theologians who do it. It doesn’t make it right. The beloved Scott Hahn is on a recording saying, “That is when God takes the procreation away.” That doesn’t make what he said make sense. He *means *that the infertile phase is by God’s design, and that it is designed for infertile relations. There have been many efforts in recent history to go back and fix faulty translations. Many current theologians say that the word “lust” was often used in more translations than the original warranted. St. Augustine wasn’t nearly as harsh as we have been led to believe. He didn’t believe any sex was *subjectively *sinless, but he had words other than “lust” to describe the sin.

Please tell me Chrono, in addition to answering the purpose of the infertile design, please answer this: At what point would the couple under Augustinian’s watch have known that their sex was acceptable since it had resulted in a “procreation?” Do you think that with a confusing interpretation like that, do you think that you would have had couples skipping Communion and going to Confession all the time to confess this “sin” of sex? (HINT: You are *not *the first person to misinterpret St. Augustine.)
 
The attempts to smear NBR are without relevance to the condemnation of contraception from the beginning.
Nope…your interpretation meant to flair emotions. We’re just looking at the facts, and attempting to have a discussion. You can’t directly address the issue, but rather constantly refer to the Church’s position on NFP…which also doesn’t address the issue we are discussing.
Catholics support real science, not dubious conclusions as sacredcello and others have shown.
Good…you do know I am a science grad, right?
un.org/popin/popis/journals/network/network171/nfp171.html
UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs
“Recent studies, however, have found no link between NFP use and a greater risk of miscarriage. In one study of women in the United States, Chile, Colombia and Italy among 868 pregnancies, 10.1 percent ended in miscarriage. The spontaneous abortion rate for optimally timed conceptions (those occurring on the day of ovulation) was 9.1 percent and 10.9 percent among non-optimally timed conceptions (those resulting from intercourse that occurred two or more days before ovulation and one or more days after ovulation).”15
  1. Gray RH, Simpson JL, Kambic RT. Timing of conception and the risk of spontaneous abortion among pregnancies occurring during the use of natural family planning. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1995;172(5):1567-72.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7755073
Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1995 May;172(5):1567-72.
Timing of conception and the risk of spontaneous abortion among pregnancies occurring during the use of natural family planning.
Gray RH, Simpson JL, Kambic RT, Queenan JT, Mena P, Perez A, Barbato M.
SourceDepartment of Population Dynamics, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
“CONCLUSIONS: Overall, there is no excess risk of spontaneous abortion among the pregnancies conceived during natural family planning use. However, among women with a history of pregnancy loss, there is an increased risk of spontaneous abortion associated with preovulatory or postovulatory delayed conceptions.
“The results of a large, multicenter study suggest that users of natural family planning are not at increased risk of spontaneous abortion, even when conceptions are not optimally timed.”
I hope you realize that your supporting exactly what I’m saying with these studies. One thing you might notice if you read anything besides the conclusions is that the number of miscarriages of non-optimally times miscarriages is always higher. The conclusion also does not state there is no “risk,” it states there is no excess risk. That is an incredibly important distinction, especially if one considers conception starts at fertilization and every life is precious.
 
Quickies today.
Therefore, St. Augustine’s idea about worldly things must be taken and applied to sexuality, his personal views regarding sexuality notwithstanding, since the quote is not about sexuality.
This simply can not follow. Even if Augustine spoke of worldly things generally, sexuality would be included in them. Which means that his view of sex is connected with his view of material things. Also, if De Sales, speaking of sex, is using Augustine to prove his point, he has a reason to do so.
I am probably with you on this one that a lot of people in the Church did teach that sex is only for procreation (I can’t be certain). However, not all held the view and it was not considered a matter doctrine. If it had been, it is doubtful that the bishop would have petitioned the Holy See on the matter to begin with.
You will have trouble finding the other case. For example, St. Augustine of Canterbury petitioned the Holy See regarding clarification whether sex can be practiced without sin. St. Gregory the Great replied that such intercourse would be a miracle.
But the idea here is that St. Francis is saying that it’s NOT a sin. Hence he says that, “In these occurrences corporal commerce does not cease to be just and holy, provided the rules of generation are followed.” Whereas St. Augustine would say as you have said that that would be a case of venial sin.
However, the rules of generation are that couple needs to wish for procreation, even if they are barren.
St. Francis was not as influenced by stoicism as St. Augustine was. It should also be understood that in this context the purposes of marriage and the marital act are seen to be synonymous. If you read through the paragraph, he makes no distinction.
However, Francis was “under influence” of Augustine, and thus, under stoic approach as well. Marriage and marital act are sometimes used as synonymous in cases, but taking the broader picture you can clearly see the difference in terms.
In the same chapter St. Francis uses the example of eating and food to express his idea of sex. Here is what he says:
"1. Eating is directed to the preservation of life. Eating, simply for the nourishment and preservation of life, is good, holy and recommended. So too acts required for the generation children and the multiplication of persons in marriage are good and very holy, since this is the principal purpose of marriage. *[Here he establishes the procreative purpose of intercourse, which we both agree on. I don’t need to say much about it.]
  1. To eat not only for preserving life but also for promoting fellowship and sociability, which we must have for one another, is something very just and honest. In the same way, the mutual and lawful satisfaction of the husband and the wife in marriage is called marital duty (1 Cor. 7:3) by St.Paul. But it is so great a duty that he does not wish one of them to abstain from it without the free and voluntary consent of the other, not even for the sake of the exercise of devotion (1 Cor. 7:5). It made me give the advice mentioned in the chapter on Holy Communion on this subject. (153) How much less, then, can they abstain from it for a whimsical show of virtue or due to anger and contempt! "** [Here, on the other hand, he establishes the unitive* purpose of intercourse. And in just the same way as with eating, he says that marital intercourse is for promoting fellowship and sociability between the two married persons. He even go so far as to call it very just and honest. That hardly sounds like something being merely permitted]
However, he continues…
  1. Those who eat because of the obligation of mutual sociability must eat freely and not by force. Moreover, they are to show some appetite. Similarly the marriage debt should always be rendered faithfully, frankly and just as if it were with the hope of begetting children, even though sometimes there may be no such hope. (**This is probably the best answer to your question regarding infertile couples. They can have sex only with desire of begetting, since this intent means the act is done with it’s use in mind. This also makes NFP out of the question) **
  2. To eat not because of the first two reasons mentioned above but only to satisfy the appetite is something tolerable but all the same not praiseworthy. The mere pleasure of the sensual appetite is not sufficient reason to make an action praiseworthy. It is enough that it is permissible. (This would probably go on the way of “Theology of the body”, when it says one can have lust even in marriage. It is a little catchy that this practice is “tolerable” and “permisasible” to De Sales. Sounds like St. Augustine, also).
  3. To eat not from mere hunger, but in excess and from disorder, is something more or less blameworthy in so far as the excess is great or little. (This is open for many interpretations. However, it seems any act done without desire of begetting is excess to a certain level. If you would add some extra spice to the act (and there are many ways to do that in this sinful world), it makes it even more excessive).
Understood now. But as shown above, for St. Francis de Sales that is not the case. He even goes so far as to say it is very just and honest. St. Francis sees this satisfaction as so important that there are few excuses for denying ones partner it.
The argument can go only to the level that couple can have sex for unity while desiring child (“Honey, I love you, let’s try to make a child!”) Sterility does not effect the morality of the act if such intent exists.
 
False.
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.

St Augustine’s opposition to the Stoics is clear:
“The system of Pelagius can today be better understood than heretofore. Pelagius doubtless denied original sin, and the immortality and integrity of Adam; in a word, the whole supernatural order. But the parent idea of his system, which was of stoic origin, was nothing else than the complete ‘emancipation’ of human liberty with regard to God, and its limitless power for good and for evil. It depended on man to attain by himself, without the grace of God, a stoic impeccability and even insensibility, or the absolute control of his passions."
newadvent.org/cathen/02091a.htm
These paragraphs were pasted many times by your side during this discussion. Yet, in no case you were ready to discuss them.
SAINT AUGUSTINE AND CONJUGAL SEXUALITY
By Monsignor Cormac Burke

churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/augustine.htm
Burke’s text is filled with claims which were already touched and refuted during this discussion. For examples you cited…
“Augustine is conscious not only of the procreative ordering of marriage, but also of its unitive value."
Of marriage? Yes. Of marital sex? Not.
“It may well be that earlier in the twentieth century Christians needed to shake off a certain Puritanism in sexual matters, although it should be said that this was a particularly Protestant problem. In any case, it is scarcely the problem facing us today.
But in order to shake off the Puritanism, no matter whether it is Catholic or Protestant, you need to see how it was practiced and how it influenced theology. And this is what was not done during sixties (for many reasons). Puritanism said sex is only for procreation and should be practiced with minimum sensual involvement. Today we behave as it never happened.
“In this context, it is interesting to recall how Augustine had first to defend marriage and sexuality against the Manichean tendency to treat them with contempt or hatred, and later had to continue to defend them against the Pelagian tendency to treat them as if there were nothing delicate or problematic about them.
This is true, but Burke doesn’t seem to go one step further. For example, what were the reasons behind Augustine’s ban of NFP?
“Insofar as Puritanism or Jansenism contained some semi-Manichean elements, we have moved away from them. Augustine’s firmly held, middle-of-the-road position can warn us of the dangers coming from a neo-Pelagianism, with its false suggestion that nothing is wrong with sex, that there is nothing needing control in sex.”
This is problematic because Augustine’s middle of the road is not what Burke suggests in his text. Modern world is not Puritan, Manichean, Jansenist, or even Pelaginasian, for that matter. It is the world which searches for his identity. And has read Augustine and his claims that “there is something wrong with sex”.
 
Standard, modern NFP methods do put several days of abstinence on either side of the fertility window. The most conservative form of NFP uses only one side of the fertility window.

Say a couple has sex on the last day of infertility (no sensation of wetness, absence of cervical fluid). Those sperm die within about four hours. The same works the other way. The couple waits until the end of fertility to have sex (peak wetness plus at least four days of drying up, cross checked by at least three days of high temperatures for sympto-thermal NFP users) when they know that egg is dead and gone. Once progesterone levels are up, as shown by dryness and elevated temperatures, it’s just a matter of time until sperm have no egg, young or old, left to fertilize.

Though this theoretically could apply to modern NFP users who ‘cheat’ or make mistakes, your article was talking *exclusively *about rythm users.
By “rhythm” the article referring to NFP users, although perhaps they placed it under the umbrella of “rhythm”. Let’s face it, nobody uses the rhythm method as we Catholics understand it anymore.

If you are correct about your description of the most conservative forms of NFP, hen how do you explain the failure rate? How would it be possible for ANYONE to become pregnant using it? The fact is that it can and does fail, and when it fails for a woman with a tendency to miscarry, the chances of spontaneous abortion/miscarriage rise by 15%. Is this acceptable? Apparently.
 
Little Deb, this is where I get lost.

How can the results not matter, morally speaking? How can the death of a baby not matter when one KNOWS that the method they are using can cause more embryonic death than with another (albeit artificial) method?

You say that with NFP he abortion is spontaneous, but it is PLANNED as a part of hrs failure rate of NFP if one knows it is a possibility.

This is where I assume double effect comes in , which is a rule I have always thought to be quite convenient when the known side-effects of our actions result in something as unsavory as the death of a child (as in the invasive removal of an entire Fallopian tube vs. injecting the embryo with a solution that kills it and breaks it up without requiring major surgery).

But if double effect works for the above example, then it would technically also have to work for the Pill, no? Any miscarries/abortions resulting from the pill would be because of a FAILURE of the true mechanism of the pill, which is the suppression of ovulation-an UNINTENDED yet foreseeable consequence.

I just have a very hard time with the idea that for some reason, the METHOD is the only thing that matters here, Outweighing any intent on the part of the couple, and even more disturbingly, outweighing even the loss of maternal or fetal life. How can this be so? No matter how I try, I cannot force my conscience to comply with the idea that it doesn’t matter how many people die as long as you don’t wear a piece of rubber while having sex. It violates my conscience to the core.
 
Little Deb, this is where I get lost.

How can the results not matter, morally speaking? How can the death of a baby not matter when one KNOWS that the method they are using can cause more embryonic death than with another (albeit artificial) method?

You say that with NFP he abortion is spontaneous, but it is PLANNED as a part of hrs failure rate of NFP if one knows it is a possibility.

This is where I assume double effect comes in , which is a rule I have always thought to be quite convenient when the known side-effects of our actions result in something as unsavory as the death of a child (as in the invasive removal of an entire Fallopian tube vs. injecting the embryo with a solution that kills it and breaks it up without requiring major surgery).

But if double effect works for the above example, then it would technically also have to work for the Pill, no? Any miscarries/abortions resulting from the pill would be because of a FAILURE of the true mechanism of the pill, which is the suppression of ovulation-an UNINTENDED yet foreseeable consequence.

I just have a very hard time with the idea that for some reason, the METHOD is the only thing that matters here, Outweighing any intent on the part of the couple, and even more disturbingly, outweighing even the loss of maternal or fetal life. How can this be so? No matter how I try, I cannot force my conscience to comply with the idea that it doesn’t matter how many people die as long as you don’t wear a piece of rubber while having sex. It violates my conscience to the core.
I posted Creighton (2 times) regarding their study of miscarriages.

They do not feel that timed of conception causes miscarriage, but other factors such as follicle size, short mucus cycles, short luteal phase.

Also they site that previous miscarriage raises a woman’s overall risk of miscarriage.

Creighton has great success in allowing women with risk of miscarriage carry to term as well.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7755073

This is the study being cited.

What it does not say is if NFP was being used to achieve pregnancy or avoid.

This phrase leads me to think this is a study of misscarriage with couples trying to conceive

.
Of the 361 conceptions judged to have occurred during the optimal time frame, 33 (9.1%) were spontaneously aborted. The miscarriage rate among the 507 conceptions that occurred at nonoptimal times was 10.9% (55). The difference was not statistically different. Among the 171 women with a previous pregnancy loss, an optimally timed conception in the index pregnancy was associated with a low rate of miscarriage (7.3%). There was, however, an excess rate of spontaneous abortion (22.6%) in women with a prior miscarriage and a pre- or post-ovulatory conception in the recent pregnancy. Although the biologic reasons for this finding are unclear, it is recommended that women with a prior spontaneous abortion use the ovulation method mucus peak or the basal body temperature rise to conceive during the optimal time.
The investigators were looking at the charts kept by the women themselves:
Timing of conception was determined from 868 natural family planning charts that recorded day of intercourse and indices of ovulation (cervical mucus peak obtained according to the ovulation method and/or basal body temperature). Conceptions on days - 1 or 0 with respect to the natural family planning estimated day of ovulation were considered to be “optimally timed,” and all other conceptions were considered as “non-optimally timed.”
It seems that if couples were initmate at peak (as noted by the charts) or in the time right before or right after, they were not avoiding strictly.
 
This simply can not follow. Even if Augustine spoke of worldly things generally, sexuality would be included in them. Which means that his view of sex is connected with his view of material things. Also, if De Sales, speaking of sex, is using Augustine to prove his point, he has a reason to do so.
I agree. But my point is that the use of a thing and its enjoyment cannot be explicitly divided. We also need to figure out in what ways does St. Francis think marriage intercourse can be used.
You will have trouble finding the other case. For example, St. Augustine of Canterbury petitioned the Holy See regarding clarification whether sex can be practiced without sin. St. Gregory the Great replied that such intercourse would be a miracle.
Do you have a source for this?
However, the rules of generation are that couple needs to wish for procreation, even if they are barren.
Furthermore, by your reasoning a woman who is pregnant needs to hope she procreates again while she is having relations? This doesn’t make any sense. A rule is not a wish. Neither is the “order appointed for the procreation of children” (another translation) a wish. I think what he means by “rules of generation” is a certain way of having intercourse (ex. The Rule of St. Benedict). He probably has something like Onanism in mind (hence he recalls the story of Onan). According to him, intercourse should be done in a way that would lead to procreation even in spite of conditions preventing it.
However, Francis was “under influence” of Augustine, and thus, under stoic approach as well. Marriage and marital act are sometimes used as synonymous in cases, but taking the broader picture you can clearly see the difference in terms.
I have no doubt that St. Augustine influenced St. Francis de Sales. But I would not be wrong to say that he was influenced more so by St. Thomas Aquinas (influenced the Council of Trent even more so than St. Augustine), his contemporaries, his superiors and even himself.

However, he continues…
  1. Those who eat because of the obligation of mutual sociability must eat freely and not by force. Moreover, they are to show some appetite. Similarly the marriage debt should always be rendered faithfully, frankly and just as if it were with the hope of begetting children, even though sometimes there may be no such hope. (**This is probably the best answer to your question regarding infertile couples. They can have sex only with desire of begetting, since this intent means the act is done with it’s use in mind. This also makes NFP out of the question) **
I think you are misreading the underlined statement. The very statement seems to contradict what you are saying about it. (“Similarly the marriage debt should always be rendered faithfully, frankly and just as if it were with the hope of begetting children, even though sometimes there may be no such hope (of begetting children)”). Obviously, again, what St. Francis de Sales is talking about is the way that intercourse is had. It should be done single-mindedly, honestly and in a way that would result in the begetting of children. In the sentence, St. Francis de Sales quite explicitly recognizes that “sometimes there may be no such hope”. In other words, he understands that sometimes a couple, for some reason, will not hope (or expect) to have children through intercourse. Reasonably, a woman who is having intercourse while she is pregnant is not hoping to beget another child through the act of intercourse itself. But St. Francis later says that even during that time intercourse does not cease to be good and holy provided it is done in a way that would result in procreation otherwise.
  1. To eat not because of the first two reasons mentioned above but only to satisfy the appetite is something tolerable but all the same not praiseworthy. The mere pleasure of the sensual appetite is not sufficient reason to make an action praiseworthy. It is enough that it is permissible. (This would probably go on the way of “Theology of the body”, when it says one can have lust even in marriage. It is a little catchy that this practice is “tolerable” and “permisasible” to De Sales. Sounds like St. Augustine, also).
But as you notice, and this will further amplify the point, to St. Francis de Sales eating to satisfy the appetite is different from eating for friendship and sociability. Likewise, having sex simply for pleasure and having sex to nurture love between the couple are not the same thing. The former is merely tolerable, the other, on the other hand, is “very just and honest”.
  1. To eat not from mere hunger, but in excess and from disorder, is something more or less blameworthy in so far as the excess is great or little. (This is open for many interpretations. However, it seems any act done without desire of begetting is excess to a certain level. If you would add some extra spice to the act (and there are many ways to do that in this sinful world), it makes it even more excessive).
Clearly a pregnant woman who is having intercourse does NOT have the desire to beget. She knows full well that during pregnancy, a child cannot be begotten, as does St. Francis. Yet, he says that even during such a time as pregnancy, intercourse does not cease to be holy. He is not simply talking merely about the circumstances, but also about the intention. A pregnant woman surely has no intention or “hope” of begetting again through intercourse. Therefore, to St. Francis at least, having sex without a desire to beget is not necessarily excessive.
 
The argument can go only to the level that couple can have sex for unity while desiring child (“Honey, I love you, let’s try to make a child!”) Sterility does not effect the morality of the act if such intent exists.
My good friend, you aren’t making sense anymore. St. Francis de Sales says this:
“Nevertheless, it is not possible to effect it in some particular circumstances as in the case of barrenness or pregnancy which prevents begetting and generation. In such case sexual intercourse does not cease to be just and holy provided the laws of generation are followed.” Here St. Francis acknowledges that sterility and pregnancy prevent begetting and generation. I highly doubt that he’s telling the couple that they must desire to have another child during intercourse while the woman is pregnant. Much less during a barrenness (sterility) that is due to old age. The lack of sense here is not something I attribute to St. Francis, who I understand completely, but to your interpretation of him, in a desperate attempt to reconcile him to your point of view, which make him sound inconsistent and unreasonable.

On another note, you claimed that he like St. Augustine thought sex was for procreation only and sex between infertile couples is only permitted, but still sinful. Now that it has been shown that St. Francis did NOT think so, but thought that sex was also for purposes of uniting (and sex between two sterile people is not sinful in any sense), you have now modified your position and said, “yes, it’s not sinful, but only in so far as they desire to beget”. Why would a pregnant woman desire to beget again after she has already conceived? :confused: Why would a barren old woman (Sarah notwithstanding) continue to desire to beget? (God created menopause for a reason, I suppose) :confused: It is not St. Francis demanding all this, but you.
 
I need to repost this because I think I’ve found a less repetitive way of explaining my point.
  1. Those who eat because of the obligation of mutual sociability must eat freely and not by force. Moreover, they are to show some appetite. Similarly the marriage debt should always be rendered faithfully, frankly and just as if it were with the hope of begetting children, even though sometimes there may be no such hope. (**This is probably the best answer to your question regarding infertile couples. They can have sex only with desire of begetting, since this intent means the act is done with it’s use in mind. This also makes NFP out of the question) **
I think you are misreading the underlined statement. It says that “the marriage debt should always be rendered faithfully, frankly, and just as if it were with the hope of begetting children…” NOT “the marriage debt should always be rendered faithfully, frankly, and with the hope of begetting children…”.

They are saying two different things (The phrase “as if it were” is key). The first one makes sense the second one doesn’t. Rather it says intercourse should always be done with the hope of begetting even though such a hope may sometimes not exist :confused:. It’s like the saying that “I played the violin just as if it were my own”. The clause “as if it were” implies that it, in fact, is not my own. Likewise with the statement from St. Francis. He’s saying that “the marriage debt should always be rendered…as if it were with the hope of begetting children”. He’s talking about the way intercourse is had (rendered) all the while implying that “the hope of begetting children” does not in actuality exist. To wit, he is saying what I have been saying he says, that sex should be procreative (capable of procreation) even though it does not result in procreation.
 
But if double effect works for the above example, then it would technically also have to work for the Pill, no? Any miscarries/abortions resulting from the pill would be because of a FAILURE of the true mechanism of the pill, which is the suppression of ovulation-an UNINTENDED yet foreseeable consequence.
Yes, I think that would be the case: strictly speaking using the pill isn’t the same morally as procuring an abortion. Nevertheless, it could be argued that due to the attitudes surrounding using the pill vs NFP, people who use the pill also intend the abortion as part of not getting pregnant.
 
Furthermore, by your reasoning a woman who is pregnant needs to hope she procreates again while she is having relations? This doesn’t make any sense. A rule is not a wish. Neither is the “order appointed for the procreation of children” (another translation) a wish. I think what he means by “rules of generation” is a certain way of having intercourse (ex. The Rule of St. Benedict). He probably has something like Onanism in mind (hence he recalls the story of Onan). According to him, intercourse should be done in a way that would lead to procreation even in spite of conditions preventing it.
That’s an interesting point. Did Augustine say anything about having sex while pregnant?
 
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7755073

This is the study being cited.

What it does not say is if NFP was being used to achieve pregnancy or avoid.

This phrase leads me to think this is a study of misscarriage with couples trying to conceive
Indeed, Mary Gail. There is nothing in the study which indicates that the couples were trying to avoid conception. It speaks of optimally timed and non-optimally timed conceptions.

Also, the miscarriage rate in this study is for pregnancies which were actually detected (i.e. implantation had already occurred and HCG levels were present). It says nothing about conceptions that occurred during peak-day (most fertile) that ended in miscarriage before implantation. Daily ultrasound would be needed and there is no mention of this in the study. In other words, there could be just as many, or more early miscarriages that happen as a result of relations during the most fertile time (around peak day). There is no evidence that the detectable miscarriages are occurring at the same or higher rate than the non-detectable ones.

There would have to be a study of couples who were using NFP to avoid conception in order to prove there is any correlation. But, this would likely take years or even decades, because if couples in the study were using NFP to actively avoid pregnancy, there would not be a large enough sample of pregnancies to study…it would take a very long time to undertake.
 
The same thing happens with the pill, whose function is to stop ovulation…yet it occasionally happens anyway.
Yes, Warrior1979, we are in agreement that breakthrough ovulation and conception happens with the Pill. Yet, this is not the only reason that the Pill is immoral. It is also immoral because the couple who engage in this practice are committing a violation against love. In The Human Body… a sign of dignity and a gift by the late Rev. Richard M. Hogan he explains:

“The theology of the family also begins from our creation as images of God with our vocation to love as God loves. We are called by our very creation to imitate the love and communion of the Trinity. From this point of view, the overwhelming value of family life (as an imitation of the Trinity) becomes clear while violations against love (the sexual sins) desecrate the sacred love of husband and wife because they involve the use (as opposed to love) of another (the spouse or someone else). Violations against love attack the family as an imitation of the Trinity and can almost be said to be sacrilegious, a violation of something sacred.”

As LittleDeb has pointed out, contraceptives allow the couple to act on any urge. It is the abstinence, which is required to practice NFP, that allows a couple to discern the will of God.

Also, the Pill, in particular, is immoral because it causes an increased risk of death. It was tested on poor women in Puerto Rico and many of them died. They readjusted the dosage, but the increased risk of stroke, heart disease and breast cancer is still there. The Pill is killing women and it has been classified as a Group I carcinogen by the World Health Organization.
 
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