No birth control is really hard if you're poor

[Clementine14]

Aside from morality- if the financial situation is dire, I wouldn’t be trusting condoms over NFP. It makes better sense to know when ovulation is and avoid, either periodically or completely, than to not bother and use condoms.

A lot of methods work with irregular cycles and can be self-taught if necessary. Abstinence is probably smart during the learning period and especially with postpartum cycles. My cycles are not regular and I have two kids, both planned. We’ve been married almost a decade and used NFP most of that time. It’s involved quite a bit of abstinence sometimes, but when you have good reasons it’s easier to be careful.

 

[Michael_Anthony]

You are correct that the CC is opposed to any means used with the intention of never having kids, but your prior statement was that the CC is blanket opposed to any natural, unnatural, or medical affect to the marrital act, in reality, the church opposes anything that works against the “ends” (in the philosophical sense) of sex (procreation and union) it is possible to abstain from sex during fertile times, and in doing so you violate neither, for you engage in sex which you leave the natural possibility durring it’s infertile (~1% chance) period, which is perfectly moral, if you use contraception, you violate the procreative by actively seeking to rid the act of the possibility (however remote (around 1%) it would be in NFP) of procreation, but NFP could be used with a “contraceptive menatlity” where you try to use it in the same manner as contraception and you violate the marriage vow of fruitfulness, by seeking to ridding the marriage of its natural fruitfulness in children. The CC only opposes these later two, using the natural cycle to space children, or hold off children for serious reason (like being able to keep them off the streets) would be perfectly valid and not sinful.

 

[TheLittleLady]

NFP could be used with a “contraceptive menatlity”

This is not part of Catholic teaching, it is a popular phrase used by commentators.

 

[LilyM]

Kaliaa:

Also the percentage of regular church attendees in the US believing or not believing that birth control is unacceptable is irrelevant to this topic.

I think it’s quite relevant that 87% of regular attendees do not believe that a teaching is grave matter. Obviously the message isn’t getting through.

When the Saviour told people in person about the Eucharist in the Gospel of John Chapter 6, large numbers of His followers walked away, saying it was “a hard teaching”. So majority opinion, understanding or acceptance of a teaching doesn’t make a blind bit of difference as to whether it is true or not.

 

[Michael_Anthony]

First, the condom has a failure rate that I wouldn’t trust if you were to apply it to anything else (approx. 15+%, so as someone put it, if you went bungie jumping, and right before you jumped, they said “by the way out bungies have an 85% success rate, 85% of the time they’re fine, but the other 15% they break and you go falling to your death” would you go bungie jumping?) by contrast, NFP when properly used, has a failure rate approaching 1% (between 1 and 3).
Also NFP has come a long way from the rhythm method which was dependent on one’s cycle being consistent, modern methods are based on biological indicators, and with a little research, they should prove fairly accessible (I think they rarely require much beyond a thermometer, and I heard there is an app that has come out which does the hard work for you, you just take (or tell it I’m not exactly sure) her temperature, and it recommends to either go ahead, or use another form of contraception (aka, abstain) with that you don’t need much, and you are good to go).
Finally, I’ve heard of a story of a guy, whose wife was abused as a child and had to ask her husband to abstain because it was bringing up too many bad memories, they ended up abstaining for a full year, and their marriage ended up all the better for it. What I’m trying to say is, if you trust God, you will find all sorts of blessings come from trials. There are other ways of showing affection, and if you recall when you were dating, intimacy means “in-to-me-see” so as one nun put it " you can have lots of sex and no intimacy, or lots of intimacy and no sex".
Here is the app: https://www.naturalcycles.com/birthcontrol/theapp
I wish I could quickly find some more info, but I’m on an iPad, and clicking through isn’t super practical, I hope you can find something, I don’t know what the internet is like in the Philippines, but you might try using google.com which is America’s domain to find more info.

 

[Michael_Anthony]

My point was simply that anything could be used in an improper way, but that doesn’t mean NFP is inherently immoral, but that it could be used immorally which is in Catholic teaching.

 

[1ke]

What is the true statement then?

NFP is information. NFP is not “bad” and it’s not “good”. I suggest reading Humanae Vitae.

Does not then RC church oppose even natural methods if the intention is to avoid having children permanently?

No.

If one has a serious reason to postpone children, even indefinitely, one may abstain periodically or completely. If one abstains periodically, you are still engaging in acts per se ordered to procreation. If my mutual consent you abstain totally, you have the right to procreative sex acts but do not exercise that right.

One may also abstain periodically or completely for reasons unrelated to childbearing.

That is not the same as excluding the bonum prolis.

My wedding vow was pretty clear: “will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the teaching of Christ and his church.”

There is nothing in that vow that requires you to actively try to have children nor even to have intercourse if the spouses mutually agree not to.

When you give consent regarding the bonum prolis, you know and accept that marriage is ordered to procreation, and you know and accept that you are to exchange the right to procreative acts, i.e. acts that are per se ordered to procreation.

If your intention is to avoid having kids, then even NFP is unacceptable.

You overstate. You can absolutely give valid consent regarding the bonum prolis, and refrain periodically or indefinitely for a reason that does not impact consent.

Having a real and serious motivation for not having children for a time or indefinitely does not mean they have excluded this good of marriage.

There is a difference between actually excluding children and not having children.