Your missing something in the full meaning of the marital act. Have you gotten the Christopher West or Theology of the body material to study yet? The act must be the one flesh union of persons. Full donation of the selves at that time. Holding nothing back inentionally of themselves at that time.Okay, let’s forget the whole ABC vs NFP debate. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that tangent, it’s not what this thread is about.
The thread is about sex being Procreative and Unitive.
To procreate is to produce offspring.
The Church teaches that every sex act performed between husband and wife must be open to life.
Using NFP not to avoid having children, is certainly not open to conception.
It avoids conception in a very real and effective way.
Thus, every sex act performed whilst using NFP for this intention is counter to the Churches stance that every sex act between husband and wife must be Procreative and Unitive.
Plain and simple.
Let’s put it this way:Okay, let’s forget the whole ABC vs NFP debate. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that tangent, it’s not what this thread is about.
The thread is about sex being Procreative and Unitive.
To procreate is to produce offspring.
The Church teaches that every sex act performed between husband and wife must be open to life.
Using NFP not to avoid having children, is certainly not open to conception.
It avoids conception in a very real and effective way.
Thus, every sex act performed whilst using NFP for this intention is counter to the Churches stance that every sex act between husband and wife must be Procreative and Unitive.
Plain and simple.
It seems you are saying that NFP is more expensive than using contraceptives! I doubt that view.Do we ask the destitute and uneducated (who cannot afford/do not have the resources to practice NFP) to simply abstain from sex if they do not want to raise more children? How do we explain this without explaining God and HIS plan for sex?
Mother Theresa taught NFP successfully to Indian women many who were not Christian at all. I don’t know how deep into our understanding of God’s plan for sex she got into but she seemed to have no problems.Who is poorer than those people? What resources other than education do you think they need to practice NFP ?Do we ask the destitute and uneducated (who cannot afford/do not have the resources to practice NFP) to simply abstain from sex if they do not want to raise more children? How do we explain this without explaining God and HIS plan for sex?
Sex is not procreative if you choose to have it when the woman is infertile.
The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse. God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws. The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life. (12)
vatican
I disagree that all sex should be procreative, kissing is sex but is allowed, so it’s illogical to ban sex just for unity. The only way to truly have all sex being “open to life” is to use NFP to find out when the woman is fertile then have sex then, or have sex not using NFP whenever the couple feel like it, but never kiss your wife at any other times. This would make a woman into a child-factory, maybe having 15 children during her marriage. Is that right?
This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.
The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called. We believe that our contemporaries are particularly capable of seeing that this teaching is in harmony with human reason.
The act is always unitive and procreative if the couple does not intentionally alter it. In the quote from Humanae Vitae it specfically addresses your point:But sex is not procreative if done when a woman is infertile.
That a couple be be subjectively infertile through no fault of their own does not mean their marital act is closed to life.every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.
Practicing NFP not to conceive is very much intentionally witholding fertility from the act and from the partner.Your missing something in the full meaning of the marital act. Have you gotten the Christopher West or Theology of the body material to study yet? The act must be the one flesh union of persons. Full donation of the selves at that time. Holding nothing back inentionally of themselves at that time.
NFP seems pretty intentional to me.The act is always unitive and procreative if the couple does not intentionally alter it.
Wrong, it’s not withholding from fertility, when the man ejaculates, there is a possibility of conception, the couple acknowledges this.Practicing NFP not to conceive is very much intentionally witholding fertility from the act and from the partner.
How is that different from ABC?Wrong, it’s not withholding from fertility, when the man ejaculates, there is a possibility of conception, the couple acknowledges this.
lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_04moraldifference.htmlHow is that different from ABC?
This debate will go around in circles for aeons…
I stick to the Church teachings, but it’s by no means clearly understandable for me and many otherrs.
From that article:
"But if contraception is contra-life (as the word indicates), isn’t NFP contra-life as well? Both have as their end the avoidance of a pregnancy.
We return to our couples, both of whom, we will assume, have a good reason not to have another child (at least temporarily). We will call the one couple “Couple C”, since they have chosen to avoid another pregnancy by contraceptive means, and the other couple “Couple N” (for NFP). The difference in the methods is a difference in the means, not the end. There is no moral problem, in this case, with the end (the avoidance of a baby); a couple is not required to have all the children that they are physically capable of having. The difference lies in the means chosen to realize that end.
Firstly, the couples consider having sex.
Table 3:
Couple C
- Consider the sex act.
- They project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse.
- They decide to have sex, and they choose to prevent that possible baby from becoming an actuality.
Actually, wouldn’t couple “N”'s actions be exactly the same as couple “C”, during the infertile times?Couple N
- Consider the sex act.
- They project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse.
- They choose not to have sex.
"
’From that article:
Actually, wouldn’t couple “N”'s actions be exactly the same as couple “C”, during the infertile times?
That’s the issue here. During the infertile times of the month, conception is not possible, hence:
“3. They decide to have sex, and they choose to prevent that possible baby from becoming an actuality.”
And Hence that act is not pro-creative.
Am I just totally alone and confused here, or do you see the point I’m trying to make?
In all fairness though there is a possibility of conception with ABC as well. Any one engaging in vaginal sexual relations whether contracepting or not should be acknowledging the possibility of conception. The only 100% birth control is to not have sex.Wrong, it’s not withholding from fertility, when the man ejaculates, there is a possibility of conception, the couple acknowledges this.
I think that’s his point honestly.’
No I don’t. If it’s an infertile time, then the woman is infertile, why would you need to use a condom during the infertile time if she is infertile to begin with.
No. 3 above is not the decision of Couple N but of Couple C. Couple N’s decision is not to have sex. Couple N is not preventing anything, while couple C is preventing the possible result of the life-giving act.From that article:
Actually, wouldn’t couple “N”'s actions be exactly the same as couple “C”, during the infertile times?
That’s the issue here. During the infertile times of the month, conception is not possible, hence:
“3. They decide to have sex, and they choose to prevent that possible baby from becoming an actuality.”
And Hence that act is not pro-creative.
Am I just totally alone and confused here, or do you see the point I’m trying to make?