Protestant wants to understand Catholic position on Birth Control

[manualman]

That’s very interesting. Tell me, are your statistics drawn from the United States or wider? And can you give me a simple-ish definition of middle class, because I suspect you may be using it in a different way from the way an Englishman would use it. Thanks.

A lot of it comes from reading the white papers that typically accompany the UN population projections, available at the UN website. You have to dig a little, but there is actually quite a bit of supporting studies published almost as appendices. More widely, demographers almost universally recognize the “demographic transition theory” which posits three major phases of demographic change rates:

1. Primitive rural societies: high fertility, high mortality, low pop growth rates.
2. Transitional societies: high fertility, much reduced mortality, high pop growth rates.
3. Industrial urban societies: low fertility, very low mortality, very low to no pop growth rates.

The study of this theory includes data that goes back to the early industrial revolution and a few demographers have specifically looked at prospering urban populations that predate the modern condom. I don’t read like a scholar and take notes where I read what, but you should be able to find it. For purposes of this discussion, “middle class” are those who are educated beyond basic literacy, and rarely need to seriously worry about their ability to feed and shelter their families. Urban, you don’t need me to define.

Humans really aren’t that much dumber than other animals when they apply themselves. You CAN learn to detect when fertility is present. I suspect that we moderns think rather too highly of ourselves and assume too often that our forebears were dumb since they lacked iphones and hybrid cars. They weren’t. I suspect that if they had a good reason not to have more kids, they had the ability to achieve that. Some no doubt used primitive contraception in spite of it being universally condemned in Christianity at the time. Others more likely did other things during the fertile time. Just because your OB says that the pill is the only reliable way to avoid pregnancy doesn’t make it true…

 

[Picky_Picky]

A lot of it comes from reading the white papers that typically accompany the UN population projections, available at the UN website. You have to dig a little, but there is actually quite a bit of supporting studies published almost as appendices. More widely, demographers almost universally recognize the “demographic transition theory” which posits three major phases of demographic change rates:

1. Primitive rural societies: high fertility, high mortality, low pop growth rates.
2. Transitional societies: high fertility, much reduced mortality, high pop growth rates.
3. Industrial urban societies: low fertility, very low mortality, very low to no pop growth rates.

The study of this theory includes data that goes back to the early industrial revolution and a few demographers have specifically looked at prospering urban populations that predate the modern condom. I don’t read like a scholar and take notes where I read what, but you should be able to find it. For purposes of this discussion, “middle class” are those who are educated beyond basic literacy, and rarely need to seriously worry about their ability to feed and shelter their families. Urban, you don’t need me to define.

Humans really aren’t that much dumber than other animals when they apply themselves. You CAN learn to detect when fertility is present. I suspect that we moderns think rather too highly of ourselves and assume too often that our forebears were dumb since they lacked iphones and hybrid cars. They weren’t. I suspect that if they had a good reason not to have more kids, they had the ability to achieve that. Some no doubt used primitive contraception in spite of it being universally condemned in Christianity at the time. Others more likely did other things during the fertile time. Just because your OB says that the pill is the only reliable way to avoid pregnancy doesn’t make it true…

Interesting. Thank you.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

And every single act PER SE must be ordered to procreation.

Where do you get this from? I think it’s rubbish frankly.

And if you’re going to appeal to tradition, here’s a bit on slavery and Church tradition.

badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gaa_slavery.htm

Church Fathers instructed the faithful not to let slaves get above themselves, and the Church endorsed Saint Augustine’s view that slavery was ordained by God as a punishment for sin3. Augustine called on the free to give thanks because Christ and his Church did not make slaves free, but rather made bad slaves into good slaves. St. Augustine teaching that the institution of slavery derives from God and is beneficial to both slaves and masters would be cited by many later Popes as evidence, indeed proof, of the acceptability of slavery. It was an integral part of the Christian “Tradition” one of the main sources of authority in the Church.

In 362 AD a Church Council at Gangra in Asia Minor excommunicated anyone encouraging a slave to despise his master or to withdraw from his service. This would in time be incorporated into Church Law, where it would remain from the 13th to the 20th century.

Soon the Church would become the largest slave owner in the Roman Empire. Bishops themselves owned slaves and accepted the usual conventions. So did other churchmen. Slave collars dating from around AD 500 have been found in Sardinia, stamped with the sign of the cross. One mentions the name "Felix the Archdeacon"4. “I am a slave of Felix the archdeacon: hold me lest I run away”. Some 40 collars (or slave pendants) survive from antiquity, almost all of them from the fourth century, from Rome, Africa and Sardinia. Many of the collars feature Christian symbols such the chi-rho christogram or a Christian cross, showing that the slave owners were Christians. We know of other slave owning Christians in various ways, for example one, Ausonius ,recorded having tattooed his recaptured runaway slave on the forehead 5 (the significance seems to have been guilt about tattooing, because tattooing was banned by the bible)

Going to endorse slavery because it was once part of Church tradition?

 

[ffg]

From the CCC -

2399 The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).

So the question is - why is not having sex moral vs human effort using artificial means to have as much sex as one wants not moral?

I think that can be answered here in the CCC…

2395 Chastity means the integration of sexuality within the person. It includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery.

Are we to be slaves to our desires, or are our desires to be controlled by us?

Just as in many things like money and material things, sex becomes a cheap commodity that only builds selfishness in the person when used outside of it’s intended way and purposes.

There are bigger picture reasons for the truth (to the benefit of all of us), it’s not just about telling someone ‘don’t do that’.

 

[rjg99a]

Hi Tommy - ok, so I’m just going to respond without having read any the other responses. So I apologize if all of this has been covered already or the conversation has steered another way by now, but:

I was also raised Protestant and taught that birth control (within marriage of course) was totally fine. I married at age 24, but went off birth control for good at 27 in order to become an egg donor (though I of course was on a slew of other hormones other than BC for the donations, but that’s a different story). I did a couple donations before my husband I began TTC on our own right when I turned 28. We tried for 2 years before finally conceiving my daughter. My husband also had male infertility and had surgery to help (I wonder if he had the same issue as you? He had varicocele repair surgery). So we seem to have similar backgrounds.

Interestingly, over all those years of being an egg donor and then trying unsuccessfully to conceive myself, I became incredibly knowledgeable about human reproduction and ended up coming to a conclusion very similar to the Catholic view of birth control and natural family planning (NFP) all on my own. It was actually kind of the door into Catholicism for me! I know that a lot of people don’t understand Catholic teaching on it - but I first understood the reasons behind it, and then later learned that that’s what Catholics taught too.

So, to sum it up (also, I should note that I’m not actually a Catholic yet, though I just started RCIA so I likely will be converting soon) - Catholics place an extremely high value on human life, even moreso than my protestant upbringing seemed to. As part of this, the miraculous ability for humans to create new life through the act of sex is also highly esteemed. (and I’ll freely admit that before I carried and gave birth to my own child that I did not fully understand the full beauty of our ability to create life in this way. I mean, LIFE. It’s a pretty big freakin deal!) So Catholics believe that new life should always be given a chance and that the reason that humans are able to experience and enjoy sex is because a large part of the act of sex is the ability of it potentially bring forth new life. It’s both a heavy responsibility and awesome privilege.

And then - on top of that - sex also exists to form a bond between married spouses. And since marriage is also highly regarded in the Catholic church, the act of sex becomes two-fold: both to bring couples together, and to potentially create life.

Now, there’s a whole slough of questions that people typically raise at this point (what is a couple is infertile? what about masturbation? etc?), and those can be answered separately, but basically, the Catholic Church teaches that sex should serve the following two purposes:

1. brings the couple together and
2. should have the potential to be life-giving.

Then means that:
a) artificial birth control should not be used because it takes away the possibility of life (not counting NFP, which isn’t actual birth control, but agreed upon mutual abstinence during fertile periods).
b) sexual foreplay is ok, but it should always end with the male ejaculating into the woman (i.e. no ejaculation by masturbation).

I know I answered a bit more than you asked, but I think it’s important to understand the whole picture about the Catholic view of birth control.

Also, as a side note, and apart from Catholic teaching, I’m now personally very much against hormonal birth control. Now that I’ve learned so much more about my body, I realize how dangerous hormonal birth control can be for women and how horribly unnatural it is. And ugh, as an egg donor, I was pumped so full of hormones, I don’t even want to go into it. But basically, I now understand how artificial hormones mess with a female’s body and I just wish more girls/women were aware of it instead of everyone just going on birth control pills like it’s nothing.

 

[rjg99a]

Yep, you nailed it, Bob. That is exactly what I had – a variococle.

I’m just now reading through the rest of the replies. But yeah, I see you did have a varicocele just like my husband did. (See my above post). I also had out first child when I was 30 and second at 33. Ha, our lives seem quite similar!

 

[Tommy999]

I’m just now reading through the rest of the replies. But yeah, I see you did have a varicocele just like my husband did. (See my above post). I also had out first child when I was 30 and second at 33. Ha, our lives seem quite similar!

Yes, rjg99a. Our lives do appear to be quite similar in that regard .

For my wife and I, our two boys (now fine young men) have turned out to be the biggest blessings in our lives outside of our relationship with God and each other and we thank the Lord often for them.

On a slightly separate topic, I wonder what the Catholic position is on drugs that treat erectile dysfunction? Are those deemed permissible for Catholic men even if their wives are past childbearing age of or is there a more natural method to help with that sort of thing? Just curious.

 

[CarmelJerome]

My understanding is that Catholics are opposed to birth control but I am unaware of the reason. Forgive me because I don’t know many Catholics. Is it because it is artificially preventing conception and the timing of conception is for God to decide? Can someone summarize the Catholic position on it for me in layman’s terms?

My story:
My wife and I married right out of college at age 22. We decided to wait about 5 years to have kids because we wanted to establish ourselves in our careers, save up money to buy a house, do some traveling, and otherwise enjoy each other’s company for a few years before we settled down because we realized that having a family requires a lot of effort and dedication to the children.

My wife took birth control from age 22 until she was 27, then we started trying to have kids. At first, we couldn’t conceive right away. We were both tested and I was found to have a low sperm count. After what one buddy of mine called my “Roto-Rooter job”, we had our first child when my wife was 29 and our second at 33.

Did we sin for having taken birth control? If so, was it a serious sin? We didn’t mean any disrespect to God by doing so and we were unaware it was wrong.

On the other hand, we both have been against abortion all along because we feel it is the taking of an innocent life,

Since you weren't aware that doing so was wrong, you were not sinning. Had you been taught that it was wrong but just decided to ignore it or discount it as some old - fashioned nonsense, you would have. 
To see the fullness of the teaching, you might delve into St. John Paul II ' s 'The Gospel of Life'. 
 In the simplest terms, we assail the image of God within us, and the basic joining of Creation  with & through procreation. It cuts the gift of intercourse from receiving into one's care & one's love the intended recipient of the good of the sexual act, which is the child who receives his very being, receives an immortal soul made to share in the life of God, from the Union of the parents. It elevates pleasure into the end & immediately reduces the partners to means to achieve pleasure, while the openness to life coming about makes the persons the end.

 

[Tommy999]

Since you weren’t aware that doing so was wrong, you were not sinning. Had you been taught that it was wrong but just decided to ignore it or discount it as some old - fashioned nonsense, you would have.
To see the fullness of the teaching, you might delve into St. John Paul II ’ s ‘The Gospel of Life’.
In the simplest terms, we assail the image of God within us, and the basic joining of Creation with & through procreation. It cuts the gift of intercourse from receiving into one’s care & one’s love the intended recipient of the good of the sexual act, which is the child who receives his very being, receives an immortal soul made to share in the life of God, from the Union of the parents. It elevates pleasure into the end & immediately reduces the partners to means to achieve pleasure, while the openness to life coming about makes the persons the end.

Thanks for the info and your perspective on the subject, CarmelJerome. I highly respected Pope John Paul II so I may read it.

 

[manualman]

On a slightly separate topic, I wonder what the Catholic position is on drugs that treat erectile dysfunction? Are those deemed permissible for Catholic men even if their wives are past childbearing age of or is there a more natural method to help with that sort of thing? Just curious.

In general, Catholicism doesn’t conflict with the idea of using science and medicine to heal or restore something in the body that has malfunctioned or has broken. We do tend to look askance at medical or chemical applications which purposely break bodily functions that are otherwise working exactly as designed.

 

[Tommy999]

In general, Catholicism doesn’t conflict with the idea of using science and medicine to heal or restore something in the body that has malfunctioned or has broken. We do tend to look askance at medical or chemical applications which purposely break bodily functions that are otherwise working exactly as designed.

Got it. Makes sense, manualman. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[johnnyc176]

My story:
My wife and I married right out of college at age 22. We decided to wait about 5 years to have kids because we wanted to establish ourselves in our careers, save up money to buy a house, do some traveling, and otherwise enjoy each other’s company for a few years before we settled down because we realized that having a family requires a lot of effort and dedication to the children.

Recently a caller to CAL had a question about NFP. Leading up to her question she said her and her husband got married but were not ready to have children because they…and then went on to mention all the reasons you did. But they wanted to follow Church teaching and use NFP. Big surprise lol…the guest Fr. Fessio told her straight up that if she and her husband wanted to follow Church teaching they would not have gotten married until they were ready to have children.

 

[Tommy999]

Recently a caller to CAL had a question about NFP. Leading up to her question she said her and her husband got married but were not ready to have children because they…and then went on to mention all the reasons you did. But they wanted to follow Church teaching and use NFP. Big surprise lol…the guest Fr. Fessio told her straight up that if she and her husband wanted to follow Church teaching they would not have gotten married until they were ready to have children.

Hi johnnyc176,
I’m a little confused by Fr. Fessio’s answer. I thought NFP was the officially sanctioned Catholic way to try to delay having children. Is that not correct?

 

[johnnyc176]

Hi johnnyc176,
I’m a little confused by Fr. Fessio’s answer. I thought NFP was the officially sanctioned Catholic way to try to delay having children. Is that not correct?

I’m not an expert but I think he meant the mentality of going into a marriage not open to having children. Here is an article that may explain it better…

lifesitenews.com/news/for-catholic-marriage-to-be-valid-couples-must-be-open-to-children-reaffirm

 

[ffg]

Hi johnnyc176,
I’m a little confused by Fr. Fessio’s answer. I thought NFP was the officially sanctioned Catholic way to try to delay having children. Is that not correct?

I think some of this can be answered here in the CCC…

1604 God who created man out of love also calls him to love—the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love.90 Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator’s eyes. And this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: “And God blessed them, and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.’”91 (355)

This combined with the CCC quotes in post 83 may help us understand.

What we have to do is look at the right order and purpose of things. So before we look at NFP, we have to consider the purpose of marriage. Is it’s purpose simply to reduce or eliminate scandal?

Therefore, do we marry and live for purposes that can be lived for when we are not married?

There has to be a higher purpose to marriage, which is building family ( having kids).

So if we go into marriage with this understanding, we can then look at the CCC in post 83 and determine ‘legitimate reasons’ to not have kids ( and apply NFP). In first world counties, no matter how small an apartment for a young couple, we have third world countries as examples to see that a small place to live doesn’t necessarily fall under a ‘legitimate reason’, perhaps combined with no income? Have to talk to a priest.

Travel I think is obvious. We don’t need to be married to do so. Company? Well we’re in for the long haul, we’ll get plenty of it.

So I think what father was focussing on was the lack of focus for the purpose of marriage by the questioning person.

Now each situation is different, and though we know marriages key purpose, there absolutely could be reasons a couple marries but should not have kids.

But the key is in the marriage discernment process is understanding that’s when ‘I’m ready to start a family’ should be affirmed.

 

[AtDawn]

PS- Most birth control pills are also an abortifacient.

Birth Control Pill is deemed as an Abortificient to Catholics. We deem life to begin when the sperm penetrates the egg. It takes about a week for the egg to travel down the fillopean tube and implant to the utterious. While the impregnated egg travels down to the uterious, it sends a message to the mothers brain to cease menustration.

Politics has redefined life to begin when the impregnated egg attaches to the utterious. This allows the chemicals in the birth control pills to block communications from the impregnated egg to the woman; allowing menustration to flush the impregnated egg out with menistrating. So, you may have flushed a baby or two down the toilet.

You are describing the mini pill. They are not that common, are they? Or perhaps they are the standard in the US?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progestogen-only_pill
The combined pills (with two hormones, not just one) prevents ovulation, and so no egg meet no sperm.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_oral_contraceptive_pill

(Then contraception pills can be questioned because of side effects. Plenty of women complain about affected mood etc. but that’s another issue)

 

[White_Peony]

here is my video on contraception