Understanding the Truth in Regards to Contraception

[HeWhoMsntBeNamd]

Since it’s against the rules to have more than one topic per thread, I was asked to start another to get answers to my questions. We left off in the other thread with my statement:

AMEN! And merely telling people “these are the truths, accept them” is NOT proper teaching; it’s a cop-out.

In the end, I think what I’m ultimately doing here is crying out for somebody to please teach me, because I don’t understand, but am being told that I’m living a life of mortal sin. I can’t help but feel like most folks around here are just telling me to “shut up and color.” I have far too much God-given self-worth to be content with that.

I also have to add that I have been lurking on these forums for many months, and must say that it has contributed directly to my shrinking faith. I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school through 12th grade, but wanted to gain a better understanding, so I started looking here. It’s had the opposite effect.

So please, is there anybody that can kindly break this topic/teaching/truth down for me?

 

[Debora123]

Welcome to CAF. I cannot answer your question, but I’m sure someone will be here to help shortly. Best of luck to you.

 

[geekborj]

Since it’s against the rules to have more than one topic per thread, I was asked to start another to get answers to my questions. We left off in the other thread with my statement:

I also have to add that I have been lurking on these forums for many months, and must say that it has contributed directly to my shrinking faith. I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school through 12th grade, but wanted to gain a better understanding, so I started looking here. It’s had the opposite effect.

So please, is there anybody that can kindly break this topic/teaching/truth down for me?

It’s great to read that you hunger for truth as anyone (including myself) has in this forum. Just a few pieces of advice:

1. Don’t be blind by choosing not to look at the Truth; be blind by looking at the brightness of the Truth.
2. You want to know the Catholic Faith? Read the sources, not the transcripts: Catechism of the Catholic Church, Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Bible; then, read the responses of competent leaders in this forum. Read conversion stories of the founders of this website, the conversion stories of Scott Hahn did a great deal of clarity on my faith in relation to the true Faith.
3. Remember, the degree of truth in Faith does not reside on the messenger but on the Source. Look at the Saints that the Church has produced over the ages.

 

[stephe1987]

What do you want to know?

The Church is against contraception in marriages because contraception removes the possibility of life and takes God out of the marital act. You are, on the other hand, allowed to practice abstinence (natural family planning) in your marriage if you have reasons not to conceive (health/illness, spacing of children, finances–to an extent, etc.).

You can read more about this in the book “Sex Au Naturel” which can tell you a lot more about this subject than I can.

It is also interesting to note that couples who do not use contraception have a divorce rate of <1% to <2%, while otherwise marriages fail 40, 50, in some areas 70% of the time.

I don’t think this forum is enough space to explain such a teaching. We can tell you the basics, but if you want to learn more you’ll have to do the reasearch (read books and articles on the website catholic.com using the search bar).

 

[John21652]

Since it’s against the rules to have more than one topic per thread, I was asked to start another to get answers to my questions. We left off in the other thread with my statement:

I also have to add that I have been lurking on these forums for many months, and must say that it has contributed directly to my shrinking faith. I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school through 12th grade, but wanted to gain a better understanding, so I started looking here. It’s had the opposite effect.

So please, is there anybody that can kindly break this topic/teaching/truth down for me?

Have a read of this article - Birth Control.

It isn’t definitive, but it is a good starting point to other sources.

The article tells us -

Few realize that up until 1930, all Protestant denominations agreed with the Catholic Church’s teaching condemning contraception as sinful. At its 1930 Lambeth Conference, the Anglican church, swayed by growing social pressure, announced that contraception would be allowed in some circumstances. Soon the Anglican church completely caved in, allowing contraception across the board. Since then, all other Protestant denominations have followed suit. Today, the Catholic Church alone proclaims the historic Christian position on contraception.

Evidence that contraception is in conflict with God’s laws comes from a variety of sources that will be examined in this tract.

The Church also has affirmed that the illicitness of contraception is an infallible doctrine: “The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative.aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive.aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life” (Vademecum for Confessors 2:4, Feb. 12, 1997).

Natural Law philosophy, Apostolic tradition and a whole lot of history are behind the doctrine. An attempt at understanding what Natural Law is would be a good starting point. It was the ruling moral and ethical system of Christianity for millenia. Come to understand what it is and how it gives us a sensible moral code and you will be able to make sense of the Church’s position on contraception. The sad thing is, that the human race might have to learn all these things again - the hard way.

 

[thistle]

Since it’s against the rules to have more than one topic per thread, I was asked to start another to get answers to my questions. We left off in the other thread with my statement:

I also have to add that I have been lurking on these forums for many months, and must say that it has contributed directly to my shrinking faith. I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school through 12th grade, but wanted to gain a better understanding, so I started looking here. It’s had the opposite effect.

So please, is there anybody that can kindly break this topic/teaching/truth down for me?

catholic.com/tracts/birth-control

 

[ahs]

Also, the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the teaching…see paragraphs 2366-2379 for starters. In that, there will also be referenced some encyclicals that will shed much light on the teaching and go deeply into the “why”. Familiaris Consortio and Humanae Vitae, and Theology of the Body.

Obviously it won’t be an over-night or weekend reading exercise, but if you really want to understand this topic and put the effort into doing the research with these resources, you will understand much more and be able to then ask very specific questions for clarification.

Just my personal advice…if it were me looking for answers, I’d start with that article link that thistle posted and go from there. Articles (good ones, anyway) are easier to read and give you the main “meat” of the teachings. Then you can go to the encyclicals for better clarification, etc…

 

[1ke]

So, please start by giving us a summary of what you do not understand about the teaching, that would be helpful.

 

[HeWhoMsntBeNamd]

Well, I’ve started with the article posted by Thistle, and was able to gather this much:

1. The church, including Protestants, have always been against contraception, up until 1930
2. Luther and Calvin specifically condemned the use of contraception
3. The pope wrote a document explaining the Church’s view on contraception
4. The Church’s view on contraception dates back to the story of Onan in Genesis
5. Scripture does not repeat the teaching on contraception because it doesn’t need to, just like it doesn’t need to make an exhaustive list of types of theft.

My main beef with all of this starts with Onan, and (at least according to this article) that seems to be where the Church originally got its teaching on contraception. What I don’t understand about Onan, is how it can apply today. Yes, I know scripture shouldn’t have to repeat itself, but bear with me here - if MY brother died today, I would certainly not be expected to bear children with his widow. Not only because I don’t love my brother’s wife, but also because I’m married myself. To do so would be to commit adultery. Therefore, how can the Church today apply a lesson from a scenario that would be immoral today, and hold it up as an absolute moral, natural truth? Additionally, I don’t understand how the Church is able to come up with the lesson that it did from this story, when the story seems to be more about violating a law that, once again, would be a monstrosity today.

Also, no offense against the pope, but this whole paragraph:

“Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificially limiting the increase of children. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men—especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point—have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion”

…makes some pretty substantial assumptions. Having grown up post “sexual revolution” I can say that I was still able to decide between right and wrong with regards to my virginity despite the availability of contraception. For this I am grateful to my parents’ solid upbringing of their children. Secondly, just because a couple does not use contraception certainly does not make them any less susceptible to falling victim to selfish enjoyment.

Hopefully I don’t come off as offensive. These are the doubts that always run through my mind.

 

[Castello]

The Church’s view on contraception dates back to telling the first married couple to “be fruitful and multiply” and never resending that command.

 

[Jennifer_J]

Here’s another good article, or rather series of articles (they aren’t all that long):
catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0658.html
catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0659.html
catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0660.html
catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0661.html
catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0663.html
catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0664.html

 

[Debora123]

The Church’s view on contraception dates back to telling the first married couple to “be fruitful and multiply” and never resending that command.

I’m not sure this exactly applies, or would help the OP understand the teaching, IMHO.

You can be fruitful and multiply while using NFP to space out births just as easily as you can be fruitful and multiply while using a condom to space out births.

The above biblical passage would be better applied to the teaching that married couples must have children (unless they become physically incapable of it).

 

[Castello]

I’m not sure this exactly applies, or would help the OP understand the teaching, IMHO.

You can be fruitful and multiply while using NFP to space out births just as easily as you can be fruitful and multiply while using a condom to space out births.

The above biblical passage would be better applied to the teaching that married couples must have children (unless they become physically incapable of it).

The application is that the idea that somehow the Onan incident was the beginning of the Church teaching on married sexuality is not accurate.

 

[Debora123]

The application is that the idea that somehow the Onan incident was the beginning of the Church teaching on married sexuality is not accurate.

I understand Onan is not the beginning of the Church teaching on married sexuality. But it seems to be the beginning of the Church teaching regarding birth control specifically, which is what the OP needs help understanding.

 

[Castello]

I understand Onan is not the beginning of the Church teaching on married sexuality. But it seems to be the beginning of the Church teaching regarding birth control specifically, which is what the OP needs help understanding.

It is all the same teaching.

The one cannot understand algebra without understanding addition. One cannot understand the teaching on birth control without understanding married sexuality.

 

[Debora123]

It is all the same teaching.

The one cannot understand algebra without understanding addition. One cannot understand the teaching on birth control without understanding married sexuality.

I’m not completely convinced of that. There are plenty of good Catholics on this site who seem to understand marital sexuality but don’t quite grasp the teaching regarding birth control. I know several folks here who follow this teaching and agree with with the Church on it, but don’t necessarily understand it. I wouldn’t peg those people as not understanding married sexuality.

 

[ahs]

My main beef with all of this starts with Onan, and (at least according to this article) that seems to be where the Church originally got its teaching on contraception. What I don’t understand about Onan, is how it can apply today. Yes, I know scripture shouldn’t have to repeat itself, but bear with me here - if MY brother died today, I would certainly not be expected to bear children with his widow. Not only because I don’t love my brother’s wife, but also because I’m married myself. To do so would be to commit adultery. Therefore, how can the Church today apply a lesson from a scenario that would be immoral today, and hold it up as an absolute moral, natural truth? Additionally, I don’t understand how the Church is able to come up with the lesson that it did from this story, when the story seems to be more about violating a law that, once again, would be a monstrosity today.

I think the confusion may be with Onan’s punishment. In those days, if a man failed to bear children with his brothers widow, he was punished…but not with death. What makes Onan’s sin different was the spilling of his seed. It was the spilling of his seed that earned him the penalty of death. Had he simply refused to father a child with the widow, he would have been punished in the customary way and we’d have likely never heard his story.

The Church is able to come up with the lesson because the Church Fathers were living in a day and age, with those laws and traditions, where they could easily relate to that history which was not so distant to them…and passed down the information from generation to generation.

 

[twoangels]

Since it’s against the rules to have more than one topic per thread, I was asked to start another to get answers to my questions. We left off in the other thread with my statement:

I also have to add that I have been lurking on these forums for many months, and must say that it has contributed directly to my shrinking faith. I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school through 12th grade, but wanted to gain a better understanding, so I started looking here. It’s had the opposite effect.

So please, is there anybody that can kindly break this topic/teaching/truth down for me?

I really think you need to read actual Church sources or something official. We all here are mostly lay people. We’re all interpretting things we’ve read with our own incomplete understanding of them. I, for once, know that my understanding of why the Church teaches things has developed with time. Sometimes its because certain areas of the faith were emphasized in my Catechesis over other areas. Thus my understanding of the faith remained imbalanced with certain values weighing more heavily on my mind than others.

What it is for me is this. I can’t imagine myself using a barrier with my husband because I don’t want any barrier between us. The sexual embrace is more than a physical communion. It is a spiritual communion as well. Its not merely stimulation. I mean, when my husband has a cold, I don’t get some plastic wrap, put his over his lips and kiss him for the lip stimulation. I either kiss him and accept that I’ll probably get a cold. If he’s sick with something real serious like maybe mono, than I just won’t kiss him. Again, no plastic wrap. I can wait for him to get better.

But the other aspect is that pregnancy is not a disease. A child is a gift from God. Its beautiful to receive. So its not at all like getting mono or getting a cold. Its much more like acknowledging there are times in your life where say you’re injured or already sick and you’re told to take medicine, drunk lots of fluids and get rest. Its probably not a good idea to have sex when you’re that injured or sick. So in the same way, it just isn’t always the right time to get pregnant and thus it isn’t always the right time to have sex.

Then the issue with hormones. Why are we treating fertility as a disease? If I suffered from the sin of gluttony and was eating all the time, would the right response be to take medicine so that my body lost the ability to absorb nutrients. Afterall, then I could eat all I wanted and have the emotional satisfaction. There obviously is an issue of convinence here.

That said, the hard issue I have now is the hypothetical situations where NFP cannot be relied upon. My answer has always been total abstainence. But now there is a part of me that understands that a portion of my response before was due to a dismissive attitude I had to the importance of sex in a marriage. I frowned upon the entire sexual act, deminished the importance of the unitive aspect, etc. All I can say at this point is that I trust the Church and would think abstainence probably is still the answer, but with more of an understanding that “Gosh that’d be hard.” And in that serious of a case where its not about the couple so much rejecting the procreative aspect as it is about trying to perserve both their physical well being and the unity of their marriage – that’s where I can only acknowledge that the Church still has the teaching. But I can’t actually explain why this wouldn’t be an exception. So there are limits to the explaination and on that point I’m shaken but trusting. I’ve never seen anyone even truly attempt to answer hard cases like that. I hate it when people burry their heads in the sand and act like hard cases don’t exist.

But as my husband says, the exception does not make the rule.

As for

 

[Nate13]

I understand Onan is not the beginning of the Church teaching on married sexuality. But it seems to be the beginning of the Church teaching regarding birth control specifically, which is what the OP needs help understanding.

The beginning of the teaching on birth control is right where you would expect it to start in the beginning of the bible in Genesis.

Genesis 2:23-24
New International Version (NIV)
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

reiterated in the New Testament

Mark 10:6-8
New International Version (NIV)
6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’[a] 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,** 8 and the two will become one flesh.’[c] So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Matthew 19:5
New International Version (NIV)
5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[a]?

To the OP. This is the fundamental Scripture core of the teaching on birth control. Also add this:

Ephesians 5:22-30
New International Version (NIV)
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29** After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. **

If you want the simplest most down to Earth answer as to why contraception is wrong imagine the imagery above of how Christ treats his bride the Church. A husbands love for his wife and a wife’s love for her husband are supposed to use that as their guide. Christ and the Church are the standard.

Sex is the ultimate expression of love between spouses, correct?
What was Jesus’ ultimate expression of love for his Church? His suffering and crucifixion.

Now imagine Jesus adding the equivalent of a contraceptive act to his suffering and crucifixion. If you want to understand where Pope’s having been coming from, meditate on the verse from Ephesians and the verse from Genesis. Think of all the different meanings by which “one flesh” could be referring to.**

 

[Steven10]

Interesting comment two angels. Thank you.

Firstly, I must state that I totally agree with the Church’s teaching that using contraception is a sin. I find the reasoning in Humanae Vitae very sound.

However, it is the gravity of the sin that I speculate about. It would seem to me that contraception is likely to be more grave outside marriage where personal pleasure is the sole objective, or between a married couple with no kids and no health problems to prevent them using NFP. Does the gravity of the sin lessen when there is ignorance about NFP? Does it lessen between a married couple with a number of kids or where pregnancy can seriously harm the health of the woman or put her life at risk? I think such discernment is important because of the different ways the church treats mortal and venial sins.

I also used to think that abstinence would be the only option open to married couples who could not rely on NFP. I have seen very little pastoral guidance written about these situations either.

Abstinence has to be by mutual consent. So what if one spouse, for whom pregnancy is dangerous, does not want to abstain? What is the duty of the other spouse? I have seen an apologist on this site give advice that it would be better to separate from your spouse than put at risk your eternal soul by using contraception. But is this a pastoral response? especially when the Church has teachings on how to deal with sin? What about the children if you separated? Wouldn’t you be contributing to your spouse committing adultery if she remarried? It makes me think that apologists should not think themselves qualified to give pastoral guidance.

Again, the gravity of the sin is important. The Catechism teaches that the reception of the Eucharist forgives venial sins but a person who has committed a mortal sin should not receive Holy Communion. So it’s pretty important to discern the gravity of sin properly.

I read recently the following article about the importance of oxytocin and vasopressin in the study of monogamous animals:

christendom-awake.org/pages/mshivana/tobpaper.htm

This article suggests a deep biological importance inherent in sexual intercourse for monogamous species, including humans, which reinforces the teaching of the church about marriage but also stresses the importance of maintaining a sexual relationship within marriage.