The Magisterium has stated that contraception must be the intent for it to be sinful.
The use of Natural Family Planning with a contraceptive intent is a sin. The use of NFP with a good intention is not a sin. If contraception were only sinful when used with a contraceptive intent, then it would be no different than NFP.
The Magisterium teaches that there are three fonts of morality: (1) intention, (2) moral object, (3) circumstances.
Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The morality of human acts depends on: the object chosen; the end in view or the intention; the circumstances of the action. The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the ‘sources,’ or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts.”
Compendium of the Catechism: “The morality of human acts depends on three sources: the object chosen, either a true or apparent good; the intention of the subject who acts, that is, the purpose for which the subject performs the act; and the circumstances of the act, which include its consequences.”
USCCB Catechism: “Every moral act consists of three elements: the objective act (what we do), the subjective goal or intention (why we do the act), and the concrete situation or circumstances in which we perform the act… All three aspects must be good – the objective act, the subjective intention, and the circumstances – in order to have a morally good act.”
When an act has an evil moral object, that act is intrinsically evil and always immoral, regardless of intention or circumstances.
Pope John Paul II: “But the negative moral precepts, those prohibiting certain concrete actions or kinds of behaviour as intrinsically evil, do not allow for any legitimate exception. They do not leave room, in any morally acceptable way, for the “creativity” of any contrary determination whatsoever. Once the moral species of an action prohibited by a universal rule is concretely recognized, the only morally good act is that of obeying the moral law and of refraining from the action which it forbids.” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 67.)
Pope John Paul II: “If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove it. They remain “irremediably” evil acts; per se and in themselves they are not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person… Consequently, circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act “subjectively” good or defensible as a choice.” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 81.)
Is contraception only immoral with a contraceptive intent? No. The Magisterium teaches that contraception is intrinsically evil, meaning that the act itself is inherently wrong due to an evil moral object. Intention and circumstances cannot justify an intrinsically evil act.
Compendium of the Catechism: “What are immoral means of birth control? Every action – for example, direct sterilization or contraception – is intrinsically immoral which (either in anticipation of the conjugal act, in its accomplishment or in the development of its natural consequences) proposes, as an end or as a means, to hinder procreation.” (Compendium, n. 498)
Contraception is condemned both as an end (when the intended end is contraception) and as a means to some other end, even to a good end.
Can a good intention justify contraception? The CCC says it cannot:
“Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).” (CCC, n. 2399).
The reason that magisterial documents describe contraception as deliberate or intentional is that, in choosing any intrinsically evil act, the human person is intentionally choosing not only the exterior action, but also its essential moral nature, as determined by its moral object. The choice to use contraception is the intentional choice of an act that, by its very nature, renders sexual acts unfruitful, independent of the purpose (intended end) for which the act was chosen, and independent of circumstances.
Abortion must be procured for it to be sinful.
Abortion is a grave sin for the person who procures the abortion, for the person who performs the abortion, for the person who assists in the performing of the abortion, for the person who pays for the abortion, and for the person who takes any action that is directed at accomplishing the abortion, even if that action is only formal cooperation with abortion, and not the procurement of abortion itself.
In fact, not only the person who procures the abortion, but also necessary accomplices, are excommunicated: “The Church’s canonical discipline, from the earliest centuries, has inflicted penal sanctions on those guilty of abortion. This practice, with more or less severe penalties, has been confirmed in various periods of history. The 1917 Code of Canon Law punished abortion with excommunication. The revised canonical legislation continues this tradition when it decrees that “a person who actually procures an abortion incurs automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication”. The excommunication affects all those who commit this crime with knowledge of the penalty attached, and thus includes those accomplices without whose help the crime would not have been committed. By this reiterated sanction, the Church makes clear that abortion is a most serious and dangerous crime, thereby encouraging those who commit it to seek without delay the path of conversion. In the Church the purpose of the penalty of excommunication is to make an individual fully aware of the gravity of a certain sin and then to foster genuine conversion and repentance.” (Evangelium Vitae, 62.)
“Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense.” (CCC, n. 2272)
