If you note, I made no reference to anyone posting here. I am referring to people I have met personally.
And I would point out that the comment which you refer to says that NFP can only be used for “grave” necessity; that is not what the Church teaches, and lines up all too well with what Schaijik is saying.
Yes; those people believe that God gave them choices and expects them to exercise those choices.
And waht makes you thing that the sacrifice called for in the practice of NFP is not about the striving for virute and holiness; or are you defining that only as having more children?
Despite the many views of many priests, the Church has made it clear that it should be used in grave circumstances. A lot of prayer and spiritual direction might be helpful in deciding if you really need to use it. I can tell you from experience that, while it’s tiring for a little while, having kids close together can be a blessing. Most of my kids are spaced 2 years of less quite naturally and they are very close.Hello all, I’m a new member here but have been a regular reader of this forum for some time.
My wife and I got married about 12months ago and six weeks ago became parents of our first child. It’s not until you experience the full birth of a child you can appreciate what a miracle every birth is.
Question: My wife and i know at least one couple who have had 12 children in their 13 year marriage (ultra traditional Catholics); we feel that spacing our children at least 18months apart would be appropriate given our circumstances and that’s where natural family planning comes in.
We have received contradicting information from a number of priests in regards to natural family planning, some are traditional SSPX priests and others are NO priests. I just wanted to pick some of your brains for thoughts on this matter.
Cheers-
The terms I have seen used in encyclicals are “just” and “well grounded” reasons; “grave” sounds so “life and death”, which is not the case.
The sacrifice of NFP can be a good thing just as the sacrifice of offering up pain due to an injury can be a good thing. In Nature’s design, the man and the woman desire each other and come together as one. Sometimes, circumstances prevent that and the couple must offer up the inability to act as they are inclined. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the optimal situation would be to NOT use NFP, but to allow the “family” to develop through the design of God the Father in Nature. Sometimes we can’t make it to Mass due to difficult circumstances, but we don’t adopt an attitude of not being able to make Mass on a regular basis in order to “offer it up.”
Your analogy between using NFP and missing Mass is misleading and plain wrong. Your assumption that simply leaving births up to “God the Father in nature” is optimum is your mindset - not that of the Church. Speak for yourself when you say that NFP does not enhance a marriage; the discipline and self-denial involved increase marital communication and respect for one another, as thousands upon thousands of NFP couples will attest.
I just had to quote this, because I think it is so profound.
What, specifically, bothers you about NFP? Your perception that NFP couples aren’t “just leaving it in God’s hands?”
NFP is bothersome for me personally. I suggest you read more carefully.
This would be good to tattoo on my forehead I think. How wise you are!
Paradox,Question: My wife and i know at least one couple who have had 12 children in their 13 year marriage (ultra traditional Catholics); we feel that spacing our children at least 18months apart would be appropriate given our circumstances and that’s where natural family planning comes in.
Cheers-
NFP is a concession to human frailty. The ideal is to have sex only when you are happy to have children.
My wife’s full-time breastfeeding resulted in 6 mo. of infertility.We have already been told that breastfeeding works, but some other’s report mixed results??
I would call that article a mixed bag. It is right to try to correct what she calls the theoretical providentialists, but I don’t think the article gives enough consideration to ironing out what truly serious reasons might be. Sure, the Church says the factors could be economic, emotional, and physical, but simply listing a broad range of things does not show us when such considerations become serious. I would say roughly half of the things she seemed to be condemning her hypothetical providentialists for condemning were things I would also think don’t meet muster, or at least would be a questionable category that would have to be looked at more specifically.
I think this is perfectly true, but I’m not sure that’s the real issue at stake in this debate. After all, arguing what constitutes sufficient reason for using NFP is actually about establishing the bare minimum. It’s not “You can use NFP but if you really want to step things up it should only be for these reasons” but “using NFP for any but these reasons is actually illicit.”
I don’t fundamentally disagree with that. Ultimately, the decision to use NFP is one of what we tend to call “prudential judgment” (though all judgment should involve prudence
) and this means that it is the individual’s evaluation, in line with a well-formed conscience, that will bind him, and not the advice of a friend or confessor who may disagree. I think the great danger we see with touting conscience in this regard, though, is that it can be very hard to properly form a conscience in a culture with such radically different views about family than our own. A lot of people most likely make honest decisions about whether to use NFP without, however, really stopping to think and dig into Church teaching as to whether reason X is really serious or just conventional wisdom.Pius XII certainly conditioned the use of NFP on grave reasons: