Struggling with contraception etc teachings.. a lot

[Methodi]

That’s it in a nutshell. Those are the only Catholic answers and options that are available. Unfortunately.

Most catholics are using artificial means of Birth control & the church is aware of it

 

[blue_skies_1]

Most catholics are using artificial means of Birth control & the church is aware of it

I know, that’s true, but it doesn’t answer my question, which is whether or not it can ever be right.

 

[blue_skies_1]

Hi,

Well, I’ve thought & prayed about this and I suppose the only conclusion I can come to is that we have to follow these teachings no matter what… I just feel very sorry for people in that situation, although I hope if it was me, my faith would be strong enough to get me through. Fortunately it’s something relatively rare I suppose.
PenitentMan, again, my prayers for you to find your way through this situation & make your peace with Church teaching.

I get a daily morning prayer sent to my email by a Fr Pat Umberger, and today’s meditation was about the parable of the seed falling on the different types of soil:

Jesus often spoke in parables in order to help people understand things thatwere difficult to understand. It is good for us to understand how easy it isfor us to hear the word of God, then have it snatched away from us by thedevil … anything that quickly distracts us from it and seems moreimportant. We can easily be distracted by temptations, anxieties, riches and the “pleasures” of life as well. But how wonderful it is when we hear God’sword and embrace it no matter what, that we may bear good fruit!

I think maybe God is trying to tell me something about not letting these hypothetical anxieties or temptations get in the way of letting His word take route. It seems like good timing anyway
Thanks everyone for the help… if anyone has more to add, please keep posting, I will be reading avidly!

 

[blue_skies_1]

Hi,

Well, I’ve thought & prayed about this and I suppose the only conclusion I can come to is that we have to follow these teachings no matter what… I just feel very sorry for people in that situation, although I hope if it was me, my faith would be strong enough to get me through. Fortunately it’s something relatively rare I suppose.
PenitentMan, again, my prayers for you to find your way through this situation & make your peace with Church teaching.

I get a daily morning prayer sent to my email by a Fr Pat Umberger, and today’s meditation was about the parable of the seed falling on the different types of soil:

Jesus often spoke in parables in order to help people understand things thatwere difficult to understand. It is good for us to understand how easy it isfor us to hear the word of God, then have it snatched away from us by thedevil … anything that quickly distracts us from it and seems moreimportant. We can easily be distracted by temptations, anxieties, riches and the “pleasures” of life as well. But how wonderful it is when we hear God’sword and embrace it no matter what, that we may bear good fruit!

I think maybe God is trying to tell me something about not letting these hypothetical anxieties or temptations get in the way of letting His word take root. It seems like good timing anyway
Thanks everyone for the help… if anyone has more to add, please keep posting, I will be reading avidly!

 

[blue_skies_1]

Hi,

Well, I’ve thought & prayed about this and I suppose the only conclusion I can come to is that we have to follow these teachings no matter what… I just feel very sorry for people in that situation, although I hope if it was me, my faith would be strong enough to get me through. Fortunately it’s something relatively rare I suppose.
PenitentMan, again, my prayers for you to find your way through this situation & make your peace with Church teaching.

I get a daily morning prayer sent to my email by a Fr Pat Umberger, and today’s meditation was about the parable of the seed falling on the different types of soil:

Jesus often spoke in parables in order to help people understand things thatwere difficult to understand. It is good for us to understand how easy it isfor us to hear the word of God, then have it snatched away from us by thedevil … anything that quickly distracts us from it and seems moreimportant. We can easily be distracted by temptations, anxieties, riches and the “pleasures” of life as well. But how wonderful it is when we hear God’sword and embrace it no matter what, that we may bear good fruit!

I think maybe God is trying to tell me something about not letting these hypothetical anxieties or temptations get in the way of letting His word take root. It seems like good timing anyway
Thanks everyone for the help… if anyone has more to add, please keep posting, I will be reading avidly!

 

[yellowbicycle]

I’ve been reading the CAF for a while now, but I’ve never posted.
I’m proud of you for posting, people can get really catty on this subject. After reading your post, and I can sense the sincerity in it, I thought I would share a little bit.

Interesting how few (in fact I can’t think of any) of them point to someone of their acquaintance who died because of their adherence to Church teaching on contraception - surely at least the anti-Catholics would do so if it were such a real risk?

Well, if you read this post, you won’t be able to say that after today.
My friend Janelle was told she should not have children. She had some very odd thing, I don’t remember what it was called, but she couldn’t process protein. She was 5 foot 8 and she weighed a hundred pounds…soaking wet with her winter clothes on. The protein problem led to all sorts of other problems, too, particularly frail bones. She was one of those ‘won’t live to see two years of age’ type of babies. She did live, though, graduated from college with me, was an engineer, married a fellow Catholic. Her doctor recommended that since she would now become sexually active, she should take the pill.
She refused, since it was against Catholic teaching.
She used NFP as best she could - she hadn’t had a real menstrual cycle in at least ten years, so I don’t even know how she tried - but she became pregnant about a year after they were married.
She carried the baby for four months before the stress of the pregnancy combined with her condition killed her and obviously the baby.
I am not sure how her husband is doing now. The house went into foreclosure, he stopped going to work, church, and no one, not his friends or family have heard or seen him since about a week after the funeral.
She and I had a long conversation about abstinence before she got married. Considering that any pregnancy would lead to her certain death, I said, maybe the pill wouldn’t even be the safe option anyway. She had tried so hard for so long to be just like everybody else, to get through her life without the sickness getting in the way. She just wanted the whole package, y’know? She wanted to have a full marriage, with all the trappings that come with it, so she said she wasn’t going to abstain entirely from sex when she was married.

To the OP - this is something I struggle with, too. My husband and I used contraceptives for seven years. Never had a single problem. Then, as I read more and more about Catholicism, I realized this was the one true church and I needed to be a part of it. I charted for 12 months (this was during the time that I was still deciding if I should be Catholic or not). Then we started using NFP. I became pregnant immediately.
So, let’s see…contraceptives 100% success rate
NFP…100% fail rate
After the pregnancy, I was, obviously, hesitant to go back to NFP, seeing as how it had been a colossal failure before. Eventually I thought we should - my husband disagrees vehemently, seeing as how he now works two jobs just so we can pay for our really awful one room apartment (where would our next babies sleep, the bathtub? )
So, we abstain completely from sex.
It’s miserable.
Absolutely, positively miserable.
For both of us.
Imagine that…the stress of raising multiples doesn’t break us, but NFP does. Who would have thought, eh?

I have three devoutly catholic friends who use NFP.
One became pregnant after using it correctly, or so she thought, for two months. It’s okay though, she’s happy, hubby’s happy, all is well. NFP just didn’t work.
The second one was using NFP for years and was giving me all sorts of tips on it. Very helpful. Then she tried to get pregnant. Turns out she’s infertile - has been forever, so NFP doesn’t really make a difference for her.
The third, well, she, like me, converted to Catholicism. Her husband is out of town working very often so she only sees him for two weeks out of the month and it just so happens to be the ‘maybe’ and ‘pregnancy likely’ days of the month that he’s home. It’s been like this for a year. Tough luck for that, eh?
He walked out on her last week, said that he gets more affection from their dog than her. She’s very affectionate, she just doesn’t get TOO affectionate, for fear they’ll start crossing some boundaries, y’know? And she really wanted to wait until he had a new job closer to home before they had children, wanting him to be around them and all.

Here’s the real clincher - I get it. I get why NFP matters. It’s just when I look at the destructive path it has left in its wake, in my life and my friends’ lives, I really, really struggle with it, too.
Sorry if this wasn’t very helpful, I guess I just wanted you to know that this boat you’re in…it’s larger than you think and there are others out there who are looking for answers, too.

 

[mark_a]

I’ve been reading the CAF for a while now, but I’ve never posted.
I’m proud of you for posting, people can get really catty on this subject. After reading your post, and I can sense the sincerity in it, I thought I would share a little bit.

Well, if you read this post, you won’t be able to say that after today.
My friend Janelle was told she should not have children. She had some very odd thing, I don’t remember what it was called, but she couldn’t process protein. She was 5 foot 8 and she weighed a hundred pounds…soaking wet with her winter clothes on. The protein problem led to all sorts of other problems, too, particularly frail bones. She was one of those ‘won’t live to see two years of age’ type of babies. She did live, though, graduated from college with me, was an engineer, married a fellow Catholic. Her doctor recommended that since she would now become sexually active, she should take the pill.
She refused, since it was against Catholic teaching.
She used NFP as best she could - she hadn’t had a real menstrual cycle in at least ten years, so I don’t even know how she tried - but she became pregnant about a year after they were married.
She carried the baby for four months before the stress of the pregnancy combined with her condition killed her and obviously the baby.
I am not sure how her husband is doing now. The house went into foreclosure, he stopped going to work, church, and no one, not his friends or family have heard or seen him since about a week after the funeral.
She and I had a long conversation about abstinence before she got married. Considering that any pregnancy would lead to her certain death, I said, maybe the pill wouldn’t even be the safe option anyway. She had tried so hard for so long to be just like everybody else, to get through her life without the sickness getting in the way. She just wanted the whole package, y’know? She wanted to have a full marriage, with all the trappings that come with it, so she said she wasn’t going to abstain entirely from sex when she was married.

To the OP - this is something I struggle with, too. My husband and I used contraceptives for seven years. Never had a single problem. Then, as I read more and more about Catholicism, I realized this was the one true church and I needed to be a part of it. I charted for 12 months (this was during the time that I was still deciding if I should be Catholic or not). Then we started using NFP. I became pregnant immediately.
So, let’s see…contraceptives 100% success rate
NFP…100% fail rate
After the pregnancy, I was, obviously, hesitant to go back to NFP, seeing as how it had been a colossal failure before. Eventually I thought we should - my husband disagrees vehemently, seeing as how he now works two jobs just so we can pay for our really awful one room apartment (where would our next babies sleep, the bathtub? )
So, we abstain completely from sex.
It’s miserable.
Absolutely, positively miserable.
For both of us.
Imagine that…the stress of raising multiples doesn’t break us, but NFP does. Who would have thought, eh?

I have three devoutly catholic friends who use NFP.
One became pregnant after using it correctly, or so she thought, for two months. It’s okay though, she’s happy, hubby’s happy, all is well. NFP just didn’t work.
The second one was using NFP for years and was giving me all sorts of tips on it. Very helpful. Then she tried to get pregnant. Turns out she’s infertile - has been forever, so NFP doesn’t really make a difference for her.
The third, well, she, like me, converted to Catholicism. Her husband is out of town working very often so she only sees him for two weeks out of the month and it just so happens to be the ‘maybe’ and ‘pregnancy likely’ days of the month that he’s home. It’s been like this for a year. Tough luck for that, eh?
He walked out on her last week, said that he gets more affection from their dog than her. She’s very affectionate, she just doesn’t get TOO affectionate, for fear they’ll start crossing some boundaries, y’know? And she really wanted to wait until he had a new job closer to home before they had children, wanting him to be around them and all.

Here’s the real clincher - I get it. I get why NFP matters. It’s just when I look at the destructive path it has left in its wake, in my life and my friends’ lives, I really, really struggle with it, too.
Sorry if this wasn’t very helpful, I guess I just wanted you to know that this boat you’re in…it’s larger than you think and there are others out there who are looking for answers, too.

Wow, that’s one heck of a post. You have my sympathy.

 

[LilyM]

Wow, that’s one heck of a post. You have my sympathy.

Absolutely - mine too. It is a massive cross to bear, for sure.

 

[Burdock]

to methodi i also struggle with the ban on contraception i dont think it is wrong. This puts me off becoming a catholic. Some suggest abstinance but that is ridiculous.

 

[EmBee]

to methodi i also struggle with the ban on contraception i dont think it is wrong. This puts me off becoming a catholic. Some suggest abstinance but that is ridiculous.

Why is abstinance a “ridiculous” suggestion?

–

 

[Methodi]

Why is abstinance a “ridiculous” suggestion?

–

Because its not practical in marriage, Husband & wife want to share, or why be married but everytime a man & woman have sex, they cant be expected to have one baby after another. We know most young married catholics are using ABC because they only have one or two kids & they will tell U straight out they arent having any more

 

[Methodi]

Because its not practical in marriage, Husband & wife want to share, or why be married but everytime a man & woman have sex, they cant be expected to have one baby after another. We know most young married catholics are using ABC because they only have one or two kids & they will tell U straight out they arent having any more

Most catholics ae hoping the Pope will lift this ban a nd a few others

 

[LilyM]

Most catholics ae hoping the Pope will lift this ban a nd a few others

And? The Church isn’t and never has been a democracy, and neither it nor Jesus govern by public consensus. AND public opinion doesn’t make immorality moral.

 

[jmcrae]

Ok Lily, I take your points. Although I still strongly disagree that people exist before conception. As far as I know, that goes against Catholic theology as well as common sense. God forms a whole new human soul at conception, I have never denied that, but I won’t put the date even earlier!
Anyway, you’ve given me a lot to think about and pray about, so thank you I’ve actually found this thread very helpful.
God bless!

In Psalm 139, we are told that God knew us when we were in the earth - not only before we were conceived, but before Adam, our first father, was ever even created. When God created Adam, all of the DNA that would one day, many thousands of years later, become you, was already present, and God already had you in mind, to create you.

 

[Methodi]

And? The Church isn’t and never has been a democracy, and neither it nor Jesus govern by public consensus. AND public opinion doesn’t make immorality moral.

For as much as the Church has changed over the years, I think someday they will lift the ban & also someday there will be women ordained priests, or the catholic church is going down the tubes.Catholic people are deciding for themselves what is right for them, The catholic Religion is a dellicatessen religion as well as most of the others.I am catholic & I Love My Church but a lot of the rules are impossible to live by, so thats why we have confession when we fail, & hardly any catholics want to do that

 

[jmcrae]

Most catholics ae hoping the Pope will lift this ban a nd a few others

It’s extremely unlikely, since the Pope is never likely to proclaim that God could possibly create someone by accident, and it’s up to us to stay His hand from making such a colossal blunder as to give us a child.

Maybe I’m a bit medieval, but if it were me, I’d rather go to Heaven with my unborn child at a young age, than go to Hell alone in my old age.

That having been said, I do feel terribly for the young man who lost his wife so tragically. I will pray for him.

 

[LilyM]

For as much as the Church has changed over the years, I think someday they will lift the ban & also someday there will be women ordained priests, or the catholic church is going down the tubes.Catholic people are deciding for themselves what is right for them, The catholic Religion is a dellicatessen religion as well as most of the others.I am catholic & I Love My Church but a lot of the rules are impossible to live by, so thats why we have confession when we fail, & hardly any catholics want to do that

Of course we fail, or at least fail to reach the perfection that Jesus calls us to, but we keep trying and improving. We certainly don’t just give up the very idea that sinful actions are wrong and call for a redefinition that states they are not sins (as if the Church can truly ‘unmake’ a sin on its own authority on such a critical issue as birth control).

Heck, even the 10 commandments are too hard, most of us sin against one or another of them - should the church do away with THEM because people can’t adhere to them?

 

[Methodi]

Of course we fail, or at least fail to reach the perfection that Jesus calls us to, but we keep trying and improving. We certainly don’t just give up the very idea that sinful actions are wrong and call for a redefinition that states they are not sins (as if the Church can truly ‘unmake’ a sin on its own authority on such a critical issue as birth control).

Heck, even the 10 commandments are too hard, most of us sin against one or another of them - should the church do away with THEM because people can’t adhere to them?

Yrs ago , if U divorced & remarried You were excommunicated, people stayed in terrible marriages for the sake of the Church, then here comes along the church with this annullment thing, which U can get an annullment for almost any ridiculous thing. Thats why I say the church will keep changing we might not see it in our lifetime but change will come, catholics dont want to be burdened with all these man made rules, not to say all catholics are bad , just that they are almost impossible to live by, I go to confession , but I personally think some of the things they call mortal sin are not But I do confess , because the church says they are, Things will change, there already have been many changes

 

[LilyM]

Yrs ago , if U divorced & remarried You were excommunicated, people stayed in terrible marriages for the sake of the Church, then here comes along the church with this annullment thing, which U can get an annullment for almost any ridiculous thing. Thats why I say the church will keep changing we might not see it in our lifetime but change will come, catholics dont want to be burdened with all these man made rules, not to say all catholics are bad , just that they are almost impossible to live by, I go to confession , but I personally think some of the things they call mortal sin are not But I do confess , because the church says they are, Things will change, there already have been many changes

A brief history lesson - Henry VIII contrary to popular opinion didn’t want a divorce from his first wife, he wanted an annulment, as he thought he had invalidly married his brother’s widow. If the widow’s cousin hadn’t at the time had the Pope of the day at his military mercy, the annulment quite possibly would’ve gone through.

This was nearly 500 years ago. Nearly 400 years before that, in the 1150s, a previous king of England, Henry II, married Eleanor of Aquitaine, who had had her first marriage to Louis VII of France annulled after having two daughters with him. Their son, King John, also had his first marriage annulled after falling in love with a twelve-year-old, which girl he proceeded to take as his second wife.

Annulments aren’t a new invention in the slightest, and in the past have been given (and possibly denied) on some pretty flimsy pretexts as well.

 

[LittleDeb]

Yellow Bicycle, my heart goes out to you.

I, however have the exact opposite circumstance. I’ve met the husband of the wife who had the blood clot and died from taking the Pill. My dearest friend became pregnant using multiple forms of contraception. The reality of leaving her lousy abusive, -wouldn’t abstain if you paid him- husband didn’t occur until after the birth of yet another precious child.

I watch my mentally ill friend stay on the pill because her dr says a pregnancy would devastate her health. Meanwhile her weight goes up, her libido goes down and her marriage gets flushed down the drain. (Not to mention that her depression gets worse since it is just a side effect of the Pill.) They haven’t had sex in 2 years and are now divorcing.

What we have here in both of our situations is a broken, confused society. The medical practice is just that, a practice. It is sad fact of life that beautiful mothers die. However her chances are so much higher of dying in a car accident than child-bearing. Your wonderful friend knew the risk. She believed she was called to marriage. She decided that God’s will would be hers. The tragedy is that her husband didn’t trust God as much as she did. My heart breaks for him. I will pray that he will find peace. If a case for canonization could be opened for her I would hope someone close would do so. A new saint for NFP would be a blessing.

With all that said, I still have to say it: NFP doesn’t fail. Natural Family Planning is just that, natural. A person who practices for only 2 months is a novice. A woman who learns her chart within a few months of marriage is going to have a harder time. NFP didn’t fail. The interpretaion of her chart was incorrect. Charting is not that hard, but there is a learning curve.

The fact that our broken society refuses to see the benefit of understanding our fertility is not to be blamed on the method. All the daughters of NFP moms have charted since they were 13. Their learning curve happens waaaaay back when. The fact that there are men who just refuse to show self control and walk out is not to be blamed on the method. The problem lies squarely on his shoulders. I would rather be abandoned by a man with no self control than be married to one.

Contraception could be 100%. It still breaks the marriage. Complete abstinence might be a dreadful cross to bear. The couple still gets to heaven together. Periodic continence is really not that bad. It is a terrible struggle sometimes and other times it is just simply something a couple does without worry. Either way, it draws us closer to God.

Welcome Yellow Bicycle. You have a mighty powerful testimony there. I hope your time here on CAF helps you, and all of us touched by your story, draw closer to Christ as His bride, The Church.