T
Tantum_ergo
Guest
And thank you for those remarks which are gracious. I do hope my remarks at least were indeed offered with good intentions and apologize if in any way they erred with lack of charity.
I agree that a married relationship without children can be a blessing. Certainly many couples have not been able to have children and they are no less ‘married’ (provided of course they have been open to children) than couples with children.
I think that maybe part of the problem comes with the use of words like ‘compulsory.’ A Catholic is not exactly ‘forced’ into having children. Thing is, we can use ‘natural’ methods like NFP in cases where, for example, having a child at a particular time might cause harm to the mother and/or the child. . .these methods are usually more reliable than barriers or chemicals. So if, for example, a woman has a psychiatric disorder like depression which goes into an acute stage right after marriage, such that she needs to take psychotropic medications which would cause harm to a developing infant, certainly she is not under ‘compulsion’ to have a child NOW because “she’s married and it’s expected.” She can use NFP with her husband until the acute depression stage has been successfully treated with medication and therapy, until she is able to go off the medications and to be off long enough to attempt a successful pregnancy, and then if she engages in relations, be ‘open to life’. Now it could be that, through no fault of her own, she will be on medications throughout her entire fertile years. . .and have to use NFP throughout the time, not because she doesn’t particularly ‘want’ children but in order to assure her (and the potential child’s) safety. Obviously there is still a ‘chance’ (but then again, there is a ‘chance’ of pregnancy even with the most sophisticated artificial contraception too), but if pregnancy occurs, we always know God has a reason (even if it seems to defy our limited, human reasoning).
And of course, we can’t really ‘judge.’ If I see a married couple of several years’ standing (but they do not have children) I wouldn’t dream of thinking that they must be ‘contracepting’.
Even if they told me, “Yeah, we never want the little rugrats so we’ve taken steps”. . .I don’t know if before they die they will ‘regret and repent’ so I have no idea of their final ‘destination’. I also don’t know if by ‘we never want’ there could be issues that they don’t want to share which would mitigate the decision (perhaps one or both were molested as infants, perhaps there are serious psychological problems, who knows?) I can only say (if asked) that as Catholics there are certain specific Church teachings, that I can refer them to the Catechism, their priest, etc., and finally, that I will love and pray for them no matter what, and then that’s the end of the discussion unless they start to argue that their decision is RIGHT (according to Catholic teaching). IOW, if I can provide authoritative Catholic teaching, I’ll do that, and if somebody says something that contradicts that teaching, I’ll point out that they contradict it. . .but I certainly won’t presume to judge their souls on it.
