The church finally says ABC is ok!! What would you all think of that??

[Debora123]

Just to clairfy, you honestly believe that God, after thousands of years of saying “NO” to contraception, is okay with you using contraception?

No offense, intended, but that seems rather arrogant to me.

None taken.

 

[Bookcat]

Lets speak of some fictional persons…but use a different moral issue (though still a grave matter like Contraception) Sometimes this helps …and though they are fictional…and hopefully more far fetched then real (though given our world it is possible) …I hope they will help.

Leo and Sally are married…they are engaged in adultery with others…and are very unhappy. They have a conversion …and repent of their deeds and set out to follow Christ faithfully and to be faithful to each other. The find this really also helps their marriage. And they find that they have new life in him here…and look forward to being with him…happy they are not longer living in a way that would send them to hell but are following he who is life. Many like couples experience the same and objectively they are doing good.

Sam and Sue are married. Their marriage is troubled. They are always fighting about Sam’s unhappiness about Sue not want sexual relations so often. They are terribly unhappy. Sam prays about it…and decides that God will understand if he finds a companion on the side for the sake of his family…heck men have done so in all ages. Sam decides to have an affair on the side. The fighting practically goes away entirely…the affair continues for years and years…and they report their marriage is now happy. Sam in a discussion with a friend with similar problems…suggests he get a girl on the side…for this has* saved their marriage and they are now happy*…and he is not bothered by his conscience cause he knows this is bringing them peace. Sam is not even bothered when he goes to Church each week with his happy family…thinking God will understand my situation…I had to save my family…

So it can be said that some find that adultery is helpful to their marital happiness…

Does that make it “good”?

No.

Can there be spiritual consequences to such…yes …of the most grave kind.

The ends do not justify the means.

Adultery and other gravely evil proposals are always and everywhere evil …they are contrary to God…and even if someone experiences some “temporal” happiness or even says their conscience is ok with it…does not make it good or ok. Some have deadened in fact their conscience…for they get used to doing such…many do not see the truth due to their emotions or even their will …they just think “this will help my marriage”…or “this is good for such and such”…“I need to do such and such otherwise such and such will happen”…

It is the age old thing that the Bible talks about…the choosing of some temporal or “apparent” happiness…over God and true happiness…true life.

Now is it possible that they have a really erroneious conscience that God will take into account?..it is possible…is it possible for some other things to reduce the culpability?..yes it is…but I would not count on either…for often we can be at least guilty along the way in getting there… and these are very dangerous waters…to say the least…and we have a duty to correct a conscience in error…

Many rationalize things away…and think in terms of the temporal good…“this helps my marriage” …“I need to do what the Church thinks is wrong but it is the Church that is wrong” (misunderstanding the nature of the Church and her authority etc)…or “If I do not do X …Y will happen and Y will be bad for me or for my family”…etc…

Jesus is very clear though: what does it profit for a man to gain the whole world…and loose his soul…? ( see Mark 8:36)

 

[LaSainte]

You keep saying this and to be honest, I don’t understand how it would be accomplished. I’ve been married 17 years, have 6 children with 1 on the way, and just have no idea . I probably don’t WANT to know what you mean though…

Well, not every sperm would make it of course, but I bet you could make sure at least half of it ended up there…about a billion more than it takes to get pregnant anyway

 

[joclucsylv]

Honestly, in my opinion, I find them selfish, if only because you’ve admitted that you “forced” your husband to get sterilized simply because of what you “want”. I don’t mean for that be attacking, it’s only my opinion and only of your reasons, not of you.

I don’t think you’re thread is absurd, though perhaps a unusual, but any way to get at learning the truth is important, as I’ve said before, it took me nearly 8 years, after conversion and 6 years of marriage before I really began understanding this teaching. And I wouldn’t necessarily call you selfish, I don’t know you, you could be extremely generous and charitable with nearly everything else.

I understand the hesitation behind wanting to actively trying to pursue more children, but to say “never, ever, ever”, when, I’m guessing, you’re probably younger than I am and I know I have many more years of fertility down the road, seems short-sighted. What happens if, 5 years from now, God places a desire in your heart to have another child? It’s not always about what we want, but it should always be about what God wants for us.

I hope that makes sense, and it does not come off being mean.

It is what it is. I am 38. NOPE! Kids aren’t my thing. I love my 2. Why do you NFPers judge we women who are comfortable with 2. I am so happy you enjoy being Mother Hubbard, but that’s not who I wanna be. You don’t know anything about my life anyway, except what I was wiling to share. There is only one judge.

 

[zach_dunn]

I believe that I am doing nothing wrong.

I’m sure many a couple who opts for an abortion think they are doing nothing wrong, too.

What you believes doesn’t matter, what the Christian faith teaches about sexuality and contraception does matter. You are clearly going against the teaching of the Church, therefore I believe you are doing something wrong.

 

[Corki]

You really don’t get it? The “I don’t know” shrug.

You claim to be a college graduate so you must have some basic level of education and inelligence.

You claim to be Catholic.

You owe assent of faith to Catholic teaching. One of those teachings is that contraception is gravely sinful.

You promised, not even a year ago, to lovingly welcome children into your marriage. But you are willfully acting in a way that not only prevents conception but uses an immoral means to do so.

What part of this is not wrong? Seriously.

 

[Debora123]

These here are a couple of the posts I’ve made on this thread where I’ve opened up about a couple of things:

All my life I’ve fully intended on using NFP, even though I didn’t understand it or agree with it. While I was engaged, my husband and I paid for NFP classes and spent $500 on an NFP machine for the extra assistance. We did everything right. We dated for 4 years before getting married, we saved ourselves for marriage, and we followed all the rules. We prayed the rosary together, went to Church weekly together, etc etc.

We tried NFP, and it ended up causing a lot of problems for us, for reasons I will not get into (though I’m sure people will speculate and accuse me of things that aren’t even true). After much prayer, discernment, and even our priest’s blessing, we decided to go ahead and use condoms. It has helped us tremendously and solved the problems we were having before. NFP simply did not work for us and hurt our marriage.

They taught us the sympto-thermal method in the classes I took. We bought the NFP machine to help with charting. raxmedical.com/ladycomp.php

I truly was determined to make this work.

I’m not someone who just got lazy or who never tried or didn’t care about Church teaching.

People will continue to accuse me of being selfish, arrogant, delusional… of being the type of person who does what I want, of being “proud” to use ABC…

I don’t know why they say those things. Their harshness and name calling won’t help convert me to using NFP. Maybe they don’t know that, and their intentions are good. Or maybe they DO know that, but they don’t care because their goal isn’t to convert me, but to bring themselves up by putting others down. Maybe lecturing others gives them a certain sense of power or pride.

Whatever the case may be, that’s all ok. They don’t know me, and people who do know me would never say those things about me and know that I’m not that type of person.

God knows me and my heart. And that’s all that matters.

 

[Jennifer_J]

These here are a couple of the posts I’ve made on this thread where I’ve opened up about a couple of things:

People will continue to accuse me of being selfish, arrogant, delusional… of being the type of person who does what I want, of being “proud” to use ABC…

I don’t know why they say those things. Their harshness and name calling won’t help convert me to using NFP. Maybe they don’t know that, and their intentions are good. Or maybe they DO know that, but they don’t care because their goal isn’t to convert me, but to bring themselves up by putting others down. Maybe lecturing others gives them a certain sense of power or pride.

Whatever the case may be, that’s all ok. They don’t know me, and people who do know me would never say those things about me and know that I’m not that type of person.

God knows me and my heart. And that’s all that matters.

I know people can be harsh. I’ve certainly tried not to be. You 2 have been married less than a year, right? I’m not sure what kind of trouble NFP gave you, since you won’t elaborate, I can only guess, which may get me into trouble, but anyway. I’ll share my story and maybe it will help.

My husband and I are converts. We converted 2 years into our marriage. I used the pill and it made me very ill all the time. When NFP was presented to us as a licit way of spacing births, I was thrilled. When I learned what the pill did I was horrified that I could have aborted many babies in 2 years. Yikes. We went to CCLI classes and learned the method prior to Easter and realized we had been waiting to start our family for no really good reason. So, off we went. A little less than a year later, we concieved. We were not well off. DH was a grad student and I was a music teacher at a Catholic school. We were not rolling in the dough. Thankfully, dh and I could split childcare and we didn’t have to do daycare with our first. My cycles tend to be really long. 36-60 days. That means phase 2 can be exceedingly long. So we abstained when we had to. What helped is dh was on board with NFP for spacing but also NFP and the Church had softened our hearts to having more than 2.4 children. When we were contracepting the idea of having more than 2 children was never even an issue. Each time we have added to our family, it has never been a surprise–we knew when we were not following the rules and we were okay with that. We dealt with the long phase 2. Sometimes it WAS hard. No one should ever claim that NFP is an easy thing to do. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s not. But, usually, no kind of fasting is easy. It’s not supposed to be. We should be growing in faith during those times of fasting, whether it’s from food or sex, or tv or chocolate or whatever.

I also wanted to add, that there are other forms of NFP that might be better suited to you:
ccli.org which is the sympto-thermal method
boma-usa.com which is mucous only
creightonmodel.com which is a medical model of mucous only
nfp.marquette.edu/ this is various fertility signs along with the fertility monitor (they have a forum as well)
Some women find STM too complicated or not suited to their personality. There are other options out there.

You are newly married. I hope that you continue to pray and seek the truth about this, that you don’t stop growing in faith over this matter, because some priest said it was okay to use condoms. There is more to the teaching than this forum can provide. If you need further references or information, please don’t hesitate to ask–maybe privately.

 

[Corki]

You really don’t get it? The “I don’t know” shrug.

You claim to be a college graduate so you must have some basic level of education and inelligence.

You claim to be Catholic.

You owe assent of faith to Catholic teaching. One of those teachings is that contraception is gravely sinful.

You promised, not even a year ago, to lovingly welcome children into your marriage. But you are willfully acting in a way that not only prevents conception but uses an immoral means to do so.

What part of this is not wrong? Seriously.

I ran out of time to edit so I am just adding on.

It is one thing to say 'I know it’s wrong but I am doing what I think is best". That’s honest.

OR “I know it’s wrong but I think God will forgive me” That’s presumptive but also honest.

OR “I know it’s wrong but my personal circumstances are so grave that it must be only a venial, not a mortal, sin” That’s understandable.

But it is not honest or even logical to say “I’m Catholic, I know what I am doing is disobeying the Church and breaking my wedding promises but there’s nothing wrong with that (for me).”

 

[Debora123]

You really don’t get it? The “I don’t know” shrug.

That wasn’t an “I don’t get” shrug. It was an “I don’t know how to respond to such unnecessary hostility” shrug.

 

[Corki]

That wasn’t an “I don’t get” shrug. It was an “I don’t know how to respond to such unnecessary hostility” shrug.

Believe me, I am not being hostile, let alone “unnecessarily” so.

 

[Debora123]

I ran out of time to edit so I am just adding on.

It is one thing to say 'I know it’s wrong but I am doing what I think is best". That’s honest.

OR “I know it’s wrong but I think God will forgive me” That’s presumptive but also honest.

OR “I know it’s wrong but my personal circumstances are so grave that it must be only a venial, not a mortal, sin” That’s understandable.

But it is not honest or even logical to say “I’m Catholic, I know what I am doing is disobeying the Church and breaking my wedding promises but there’s nothing wrong with that (for me).”

As I have stated earlier, I believe the Church to be in error on this matter.

I did not break any wedding promises.

 

[Debora123]

Believe me, I am not being hostile, let alone “unnecessarily” so.

I guess I’d have to disagree with you here - about being hostile, and about the necessary part.

I am not being rude to anyone… neither am I making assumptions and false accusations of anyone. I am only sharing my views in my life, and not talking about anyone else. Therefore the hostility is quite unnecessary.

 

[Debora123]

I know people can be harsh. I’ve certainly tried not to be. You 2 have been married less than a year, right? I’m not sure what kind of trouble NFP gave you, since you won’t elaborate, I can only guess, which may get me into trouble, but anyway. I’ll share my story and maybe it will help.

My husband and I are converts. We converted 2 years into our marriage. I used the pill and it made me very ill all the time. When NFP was presented to us as a licit way of spacing births, I was thrilled. When I learned what the pill did I was horrified that I could have aborted many babies in 2 years. Yikes. We went to CCLI classes and learned the method prior to Easter and realized we had been waiting to start our family for no really good reason. So, off we went. A little less than a year later, we concieved. We were not well off. DH was a grad student and I was a music teacher at a Catholic school. We were not rolling in the dough. Thankfully, dh and I could split childcare and we didn’t have to do daycare with our first. My cycles tend to be really long. 36-60 days. That means phase 2 can be exceedingly long. So we abstained when we had to. What helped is dh was on board with NFP for spacing but also NFP and the Church had softened our hearts to having more than 2.4 children. When we were contracepting the idea of having more than 2 children was never even an issue. Each time we have added to our family, it has never been a surprise–we knew when we were not following the rules and we were okay with that. We dealt with the long phase 2. Sometimes it WAS hard. No one should ever claim that NFP is an easy thing to do. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s not. But, usually, no kind of fasting is easy. It’s not supposed to be. We should be growing in faith during those times of fasting, whether it’s from food or sex, or tv or chocolate or whatever.

I also wanted to add, that there are other forms of NFP that might be better suited to you:
ccli.org which is the sympto-thermal method
boma-usa.com which is mucous only
creightonmodel.com which is a medical model of mucous only
nfp.marquette.edu/ this is various fertility signs along with the fertility monitor (they have a forum as well)
Some women find STM too complicated or not suited to their personality. There are other options out there.

You are newly married. I hope that you continue to pray and seek the truth about this, that you don’t stop growing in faith over this matter, because some priest said it was okay to use condoms. There is more to the teaching than this forum can provide. If you need further references or information, please don’t hesitate to ask–maybe privately.

Thank you for being kind and for sharing your story with me. Glad to hear it all worked out. If I need further reference or information, I will definitely take you up on the offer. Thanks again, God bless. :hug3:

 

[Debora123]

I’m sure many a couple who opts for an abortion think they are doing nothing wrong, too.

I find it very hard to believe that any devout Catholic who prayed, followed the faith, talked to a priest, and spent an ample amount of time discerning could ever think murder is not wrong.

What you believes doesn’t matter, what the Christian faith teaches about sexuality and contraception does matter. You are clearly going against the teaching of the Church, therefore I believe you are doing something wrong.

I understand that.

 

[Catholic41506]

As I have stated earlier, I believe the Church to be in error on this matter.

I did not break any wedding promises.

The Church can’t be in error, you are. Yes, you did break your wedding vows.

 

[GEddie]

As I have stated earlier, I believe the Church to be in error on this matter…

Believe all you want. The Church has the keys to Heaven, you don’t.

In Purgatory, we will all learn the truth about our errors.

 

[Catholic41506]

I find it very hard to believe that any devout Catholic who prayed, followed the faith, talked to a priest, and spent an ample amount of time discerning could ever think murder is not wrong.

I understand that.

Could you post the name and parish of the priest who told you that condoms are okay for a Catholic couple. I would like to speak with him and his bishop. I am sure the Holy Father would love to know his priests are teaching error and placing souls in danger of hellfire.

 

[joclucsylv]

That wasn’t an “I don’t get” shrug. It was an “I don’t know how to respond to such unnecessary hostility” shrug.

Debora…I like you!

 

[joclucsylv]

I understand, I do. I really do. My husband and I got married three months after we graduated from college. I started working at a job making less than $20,000 a year and my husband was going to grad school. We got pregnant (completely unintentionally, because back then the only reason I wasn’t on birth control was because I had never been to OBGYN before) 6 weeks after we got married. I cried, for three days.

But a stroke of a good luck came and my husband began working full time at his grad school as an admission associate and later as the director of instructional technology. I didn’t like the idea of leaving my child with babysitters either, but I found a good day care that I trusted, and when I had the opportunity, I went to work for that company. At that point I was only working for the insurance (insurance through my husband’s job was astronomically unreasonable) and because I was working for the day-care, it gave me the best of three worlds: I could see my child, I got discounted child-care, and I was helping bring home some money while also maintaining our health insurance.

The point of all this is, that I understand wanting to “do it right”, but if I learned nothing else in that first year that my husband and I were married (and actually I keep learning this all the time), it’s that God really does provide when you let go of what you “want” and trust in what HE wants.

Does God provide for you or does the state?? Just askin…

I don’t understand this God will provide mentality. God helps those who help themselves. Oh…and I don’t think that applies to the starving people of Ethiopia.