Everything you need to know
about this critical topic you can learn by reading from these four sources:
1.
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church
2.
The Code of Canon
Law
3.
The Holy Bible
4.
The Apostolic
Constitution: Gaudium et Spes
I say this for two reasons:
1) In the hopes that you will
in fact study more deeply what the Church teaches on this topic (luckily all of
these are found in the form of user friendly search engines on the internet –
free of charge)
2) To affirm that what I will
be speaking about tonight is not simply my opinion and more over if someone
tells you that what I am teaching is NOT what the Church teaches, you can rest
assured that that person is either misinformed or worse yet lying to you.
It can be argued that, because of the objective way it touches so many important parts of humanity and in such an insidious way, there is no greater evil in the world
today than the mentality of contraception.
It is not only evil, but it is used
by many to spread evil through confusion.
I say this because there are
many misconceptions in the Church today about this subject. In fact, the fact
that there are so many misconceptions about such an important topic, and one
that is so clearly spelled out for us, is very problematic in its own right.
To begin with we need to
remember that, in discussions like this, words matter. Every word of what the
Church teaches needs to be understood in its entirety and not taken out of
context. This requires study and reflection.
Once the truth is understood,
it then requires faith and forbearance to simply obey. Being a Catholic is not
like belonging to a club or a company or a society. We are organically bound to
our mother the Church. We are members (like fingers are members) of the
mystical body of Christ. While Christ is the head of that body, the Pope is the
vicar of the mystical body of Christ.
On this subject the Church
teaches us in her Catechism, (CCC85)
"The
task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its
written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living
teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised
in the name of Jesus Christ."
This means that the task of
interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the
successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.” On the subject of Peter, the Church
teaches us (CCC553)
“Jesus
entrusted a specific authority to Peter: "I will give you the keys of the
kingdom of heaven… " The "power of the keys" designates
authority to govern the house of God, which is the Church. Jesus, the Good
Shepherd, confirmed this mandate after his Resurrection: "Feed my
sheep." The power to "bind and loose" connotes the authority to
absolve sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgments, and to make disciplinary
decisions in the Church. Jesus entrusted this authority to the Church through
the ministry of the apostles and in particular through the ministry of Peter,
the only one to whom he specifically entrusted the keys of the kingdom.”
We begin this article in this way to relieve you of the temptation to question the authority of the Church in
such intimate matters as what goes in on in a couple’s bedroom. We don’t have
to worry about that – it’s clear, our membership in the Church is mystical and
it is total.
On the subject of marriage,
the Church makes clear that two points stand above all. Marriage is
indissoluble and marriage has fecundity.
Now I think indissolubility
is a pretty simple concept, and one that we all know to be true. Marriage is
permanent and can not be broken, except by the death of one of the spouses.
The second point is more
easily misunderstood (fecundity), because, to begin with, it’s not a word we
use in every day language. But the word also deals with very complex criteria; it
involves so many factors – emotional, physiological, psychological, economic,
societal….
Fecundity, in 21st
century American English, means “fertility”. So the Church teaches us that
Marriage is permanent and it is fertile. This kind of fertility is not metaphorical in nature. This fertility speaks directly of the natural consequence of sexual union between a married man and woman.
The Church states that:
(CCC2366) " Fecundity is a gift an end of marriage, for conjugal love (the sexual act) naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment."
So it should be understood that understand children are the "natural fulfillment of marriage".
The Catechism goes on to say:
“So the Church, which is "on the side of
life"150 teaches that "it is necessary that each and every
marriage act (that’s the sexual act) remain ordered, per se to the
procreation of human life."151
Now understand that when the Church uses the words “per se”, it is meaning to direct us to the
individual act itself, every time the act occurs. Now those “words” are very,
very important. So every time a couple are together sexually, that ACT itself, has
to be “ordered” towards having another child.
Keep in mind; this is quite different than simply being an act that is not ordered against having a child, which is how many in the Church profess the right order of NFP to be.
In other words there is a propensity towards children the
Church wishes us to be aware of, every time the sexual act is carried out correctly.
The Church continues:
"This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous
occasions by the Magisterium (which is the teaching office 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 sexual act)."152
BOTH are equally important. I say this
because there is a tendency in our culture – even our Catholic culture – to
emphasize the positive aspects of the unitive dimension of lovemaking while minimizing
as even harmful, the procreative aspects of the exact same act.
Therefore, we should know that this mentality which opposes this truth is embedded, deep
within the psyche of man – and it’s called Hedonism. This is the mentality that
views all pleasure as a good, and something to gravitate towards, and all
suffering as an evil, which is to be avoided at all costs.
Thus, sexual gratification becomes synonymous
with pleasure (and is considered good) – and children become synonymous with suffering
(and are considered bad). This mentality
is not only evil – it is condemned by the Holy Church and is NEVER to be
confused with what is good. This mentality is what JPII referred to as the
“culture of death”.
Let’s discuss how the Church
really feels about marriage, in general. The following several passages are
from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
(CCC1660) The
marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate
communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special
laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the
couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord
raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament (cf. CIC,
can. 1055 § 1; cf. GS 48 § 1).
(CCC 2201) The
conjugal community (the sexual relationship) is established upon the consent of
the spouses. Marriage and the family are ordered to the good of the spouses and
to the procreation and education of children. The love of the spouses and the
begetting of children create among members of the same family personal
relationships and primordial responsibilities.
(CCC 2202) A
man and a woman united in marriage, together with their children, form a
family. This institution is prior to any recognition by public authority, which
has an obligation to recognize it. It should be considered the normal reference
point by which the different forms of family relationship are to be evaluated.
(CCC 1666) The
Christian home is the place where children receive the first proclamation of
the faith. For this reason the family home is rightly called "the domestic
church," a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues and of
Christian charity.
(CCC 2228) Parents'
respect and affection are expressed by the care and attention they devote to
bringing up their young children and providing for their physical and
spiritual needs. As the children grow up, the same respect and devotion
lead parents to educate them in the right use of their reason and freedom.
It is natural – it is organic
and it’s easy to see that children (or at least an openness and gravitation
towards children) can not be separated from marriage.
Openness to Life:
(CCC 2367)
Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God.154
"Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to
transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that
they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and
are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty
with a sense of human and Christian responsibility."155
(CCC 2368)
A
particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of
procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the
births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is
not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity
appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their
behavior to the objective criteria of morality:
Now,
understand, the objective criteria of morality means it is not open to
interpretation or feelings – it is an object that is real and undeniable.
NOTE:
“Responsible Parenthood was the word most of us heard in our marriage preparation
classes as justification for us to greatly limit the number of children we
produce. I was told “Responsible Parenthood” means have two kids so you can
have enough money to give them what they want.”
Let’s
re-read the sentence. “It is their duty to make certain that their desire
is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity
appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their
behavior to the objective criteria of morality”
The
key word is generosity. The Church is actually saying the exact opposite of
what we were told. The Church is saying your responsibility, your mission, your
duty - is to be open to life – open to the possibilities of more children. The Church does not say we should
“close-up-shop” after two kids – as so many of us have been told to do.
The
Church goes on to say
(CCC 2368) “When it is a question of
harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the
morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of
motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn
from the nature of the person and his actions; criteria that respect the total
meaning of mutual self-giving (NOT SELF-GETTING) and human procreation in the
context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity
is practiced with sincerity of heart. “
The objective importance of this point can not be overstated.
Married
Chastity speaks of approaching sexuality for what it really is and what it is
not.
What
it really is - is a beautiful harmonizing of love between two real lovers,
united to one another and to God for life. As they come together, they
generously take care of one another and are open to the reality of love that proceeds
in the form of a baby – not a set number of babies – but always making sure
that each and every sexual act MAY bring another baby.
If
they just can’t have a baby right now, then they respect one
another in tenderness and fidelity by lovingly abstaining from the sexual act,
during fertile periods. But they leave it in God’s hands. The Church says time
and again that the unitive and procreative aspects of lovemaking must both be
present. Every time the couple is together sexually.
What
the Church does NOT say is that unity is MORE important than
procreativity.
They
are absolutely equal.
(CCC 2369) "By safeguarding both these
essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act (sex in
marriage) preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its
orientation toward man's exalted vocation to parenthood."157
Now what I’m about to read to you is among the most
important messages the Church can ever give you.
(CCC 2370) Periodic continence (which is the
refraining from sexual intercourse), that is, the methods of birth regulation
based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, (NFP) is in
conformity with the objective criteria of morality.158 These methods
respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor
the education of an authentic freedom (freedom rightly understood is not
the ability to what ever we wish but rather to do whatever is good).
In
contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal
act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural
consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation
impossible" is intrinsically evil”:159
NOTE:
On the subject of intrinsically evil acts, the Church specifically states that
these acts are always and per se - evil.
In other words; they can not be good sometimes and evil at others.
They
are evil to the core – they have no good in them – ever.
Anyone
who tells you otherwise is telling you a lie!
The
Church goes on to say:
(CCC 2370) ”Thus the innate language
that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is
overlaid (distorted or disrupted), through contraception, by an objectively
contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally
to the other.”
What
the Church means by this is very important. When we intentionally stand in the
path of God giving us a child (for a selfish reason), we are saying “Lord,
Lord, I give you my prayers, I give you my work, I go to Mass on Sunday, I send
my kids to Catholic school, I belong to the Knights of Columbus, I participate
in CYO – I give my time and money and effort – I give you everything - but my
body.
My
body is MINE!
“This leads not only to a positive
refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of
conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.
. . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between
contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle. . . involves
in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of
human sexuality.160
(CCC 2371) "Let all be convinced
that human life and the duty of transmitting it are not limited by the
horizons of this life only: their true evaluation and full significance can be
understood only in reference to man's eternal destiny."161
This is
heady and powerful stuff!
We can not
take lovemaking lightly – and you can not remove children from the equation of
lovemaking either.
The Church
clearly states that in Gaudium et Spes – which by the way is an Apostolic
Constitution of the second Vatican Council.
(Gaudium
et Spes 50) “Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the
begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of
marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents. The
God Himself Who said, "it is not good for man to be alone" (Gen.
2:18) and "Who made man from the beginning male and female" (Matt. 19:4),
wishing to share with man a certain special participation in His own creative
work, blessed male and female, saying: "Increase and multiply" (Gen.
1:28).
Hence,
while not making the other purposes of matrimony of less account, the true
practice of conjugal love, and the whole meaning of the family life which
results from it, have this aim: that the couple be ready with stout hearts to
cooperate with the love of the Creator and the Savior. Who through them will
enlarge and enrich His own family day by day.
Parents
should regard as their proper mission the task of transmitting human
life and educating those to whom it has been transmitted. They should realize
that they are thereby cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are, so
to speak, the interpreters of that love.
Thus
they will fulfill their task with human and Christian responsibility, and, with
docile reverence toward God, will make decisions by common counsel and effort.
Let them thoughtfully take into account both their own welfare and that of
their children, those already born and those which the future may bring. For
this accounting they need to reckon with both the material and the spiritual
conditions of the times as well as of their state in life.”
Remember, the Church is not just speaking to speaking to sub-Saharan Africans, it is speaking to you
and me; 21st century American Catholics. The Church is NOT saying
you should space your children so that you can buy a new car, or afford a
vacation to Disneyworld every year or keep your girly figure… The Church is
saying that if you can have another child, and ONLY you know if you can, then
you should. The Church is on the side of
life. Your children NEED little brothers and sisters.
There is
more to being pro-life than just being anti-abortion.
The Church goes on to say:
“(GS
50) Finally, they should consult the interests of the family group, of temporal
society, and of the Church herself.
So let’s
take each of these three criteria:
*
Right now,
those who are married in the Catholic Church and who practice some form of
artificial contraception, have a divorce rate of over 50%. So in other words more than half of those
marriages will end in divorce. Even the
most liberal in our society admit to the enormous damage divorce does to
children.
On the other
hand - The divorce rate for Catholics who practice NFP AND are open to life is
1.8%. Guys, 98.2% is a virtual guaranty of sustainability. Then factor in the
happy, fruitful growing families you have know in your life – Love in a family
does not divide every time a new baby comes home – it multiplies.
These are
the kinds of facts the Church is speaking about in the last sentence I read –
I’ll re-read it for you. “They should consult the interests of the family
group.”.
*
Another
point: In order for a civilization to replace it’s number (to not die from
within), every adult female must produce an average of 2.4 children.
Remember,
many women can’t have children, many men can’t produce children, many women
don’t get married at all – all these factors influence this 2.4 number.
Italy,
Spain, and Japan, all produce below 1.5 babies per female. Great Britain and
Germany below 2.0 - Their societies are dying.
The US,
because of the heavy influence of Hispanic immigrants still produce around 2.3
children per woman.
The Muslim nations,
on the other hand, are producing an average of 6.5 children per female. In the
next 10 years, the four largest cities in the Netherlands (for example) will
all have a Muslim majority.
Of the 10
nations with the highest birthrate on the planet, 8 of them are Muslim – all 10
of them are either in Africa or South America.
There is a
disturbing trend towards social, violent upheaval in France and England as the
Muslim population is beginning to swell.
These are
the kinds of facts the Church is speaking about in the last sentence I read –
I’ll re-read it for you. “They should consult the interests of the family
group, of temporal society.”
*
Now -
lastly, the single biggest reason for the shortage of priests in our society is
the two-child Catholic home. 75 years ago when so many families were large,
there was not the intense interest by parents in passing on the family name,
micro-managing the child’s academic and then early professional career and an
intense concentration and longing for
grandchildren. Because there were lots of kids to worry about, children were
more able and apt to find the voice of God calling them to a priestly or
religious vocation.
These are
the kinds of facts the Church is speaking about in the last sentence I read –
I’ll re-read it for you again. “They should consult the interests of the family
group, of temporal society, and of the Church herself.”
The Church
goes on to teach:
(GS
50)“The parents themselves and no one else should ultimately make this judgment
in the sight of God. But in their manner of acting, spouses should be
aware that they cannot proceed arbitrarily, but must always be governed
according to a conscience dutifully conformed to the divine law itself, and
should be submissive toward the Church's teaching office, which
authentically interprets that law in the light of the Gospel.”
The
following paragraph is one of the most profound things I’ve ever read from the
Church – and one that stands completely contrary to what most people in the
Church taught me as I was growing up and even as an adult.
“That divine law reveals and protects the integral meaning
of conjugal love, and impels it toward a truly human fulfillment.
What truly
human fulfillment does the Church say the sexual act in marriage is impelled
towards?
Having
babies!
Thus, trusting in divine Providence and refining the spirit
of sacrifice, married Christians glorify the Creator and strive toward
fulfillment in Christ when, with a generous, human and Christian sense of
responsibility, they (fulfill) the duty to procreate.
So the
Church does “not” say you just have to NOT use artificial contraception. The
Church says you have a DUTY to procreate.
Among the couples who fulfill their God-given task in this
way, those merit special mention who with a gallant heart and with wise and
common deliberation, undertake to bring up suitably even a relatively large
family.”
Now guys this is not some obscure, dusty old Church Cannon from the middle ages. This is from the supposedly radically progressive Vatican II. As such, it is a Dogma of the Church. We are required to believe and obey this instruction and it has NEVER changed.
Part II: WHY the Church teaches what it does about contraception.
The Sacramental nature of
the sexual act in marriage:
So fine – we’ve determined what the Church teaches about contraception. But it's more important to know WHY. We do not just obey the Church, we obey our rightly formed conscience. The nuts and bolts of WHY is among the most important lessons a person will learn in his lifetime.
In a very real way, the answer to WHY is where God meets man; where philosophy meets theology; where faith meets reason - where the individual meets his eternal destiny.
Why is this sexual act, which
is designed by the good God to be so fun; why is it so necessary to ensure that
each and every time we do it – is should be ordered towards having a child?
We really do live in historic
times.
There is a school of thought,
fresh to the Church, developed out of the tremendous intellect of the Pope John
Paul II which is referred to as the Theology of the Body. From the time he was a
young priest in Poland, JPII honed his understanding of relationships and their
sexual nature. He was able to take the Thomistic view of creation and develop
something truly unique and fresh.
Where as Thomas Aquinas gave us an ordered view of creation, of matter and form, of the hierarchical relationship between God and all things (including his highest creation – man) JPII was able to take this work a step further to explain how man was created as a friend to God and was created in His image and likeness.
So, what’s
the big deal about being faithful to your wife, never wandering from her
sexually, enjoying the unitive aspects of sexuality with her and not
being open to the legitimate burden of more children? What would be so
wrong with that?
You will hear
all kinds of answers. Everything from the Church has a hang-up about sex, to
the Church is just about numbers and money and the collection plate, to the
Church wants to tell you what to do in your bedroom, to the Church has a power
complex… I’ve heard ‘em all.
Again, it can be argued that all the social evils in the world today,
from terrorism, to pornography, to materialism, to abortion, to divorce, to
rampant homosexuality… all can trace their origins back to a contraceptive
mentality.
How? –
because we have harnessed the most primordial function in humanity and in doing
so have re-written the language of the value of human life and human sexuality.
No decision
about the transmission of life should ever be made in an effort to facilitate a
material possession or idea.
This is why it’s such a big deal.
The Language of the Body:
Catholic
crosses always have a corpus affixed to them. There is a reason for this.
Because the Catholic faith teaches that without Christ’s passion and death, His
resurrection has NO MEANING.
Now, we are
called to join Christ on his throne as the King of Kings. His throne is not a
plush seat of velvet but rather the cross upon which he hangs.
We are
called to share in his redemptive suffering. Through our baptism, we unite with
Jesus on the cross, in expiation through our sacrifice and suffering to share
in His priestly, prophetical, and kingly
functions.
Marriage finds it’s crowing achievement in the
glorious struggle towards salvation. One day at a time, one challenge at a
time, walking the walk of life with your life’s partner. Therein lies the
majesty and mystery of married love.
This relationship of marriage is intended to be like no other
relationship on earth or in your lifetime. It is indissoluble, it is
sacramental, it is unitive and procreative and it lasts until you die.
Of course lovemaking is perhaps it’s most unique
attribute.
Consider the following ideas about lovemaking itself.
When you and your wife become amorous, and she is
fertile, the image of a little soul should appear, waiting to come into the
world. This little soul could be your son or daughter. It could be the first
American Pope or the inventor of a vaccine for Cancer. He or she might in fact
deserve to be here. More importantly it might be that they are SUPPOSED to be
here.
The decision to allow this soul to unite to his or her
body, can not be made frivolously or with undo attention to our desires or
appetites or our material comfort.
That is what the Church teaches.
Consider the imagery of the sexual act, in
relationship to Christ himself.
No where else in this world can we so closely imitate
Christ, opening his arms in humble and self-sacrificing love, as when our wives
open themselves to our manly approach. The vulnerability of her posture and the
tenderness of our advancement, knowing another child may form in her womb as a
result of your union, emulates Christ laying down his life for others, with
little regard to himself, his comfort or his sustaining life.
In this way, the altar of the Church, where the
sacrifice of Christ is repeated over and over again, is duplicated in the altar
of the domestic Church which is the marital bed.
It can be seen that when the married couple unite,
knowing the act of love-making may in fact produce another child, even though
now might not be the best time, is an act of selfless surrender to God’s will
for the good of the family, the good of the Church and the good of society.
This is exactly what Gaudium et Spes refers to as the “total reciprocal self-giving”,
experienced in lovemaking, carried out in chaste abandonment for the good of
others.
I know of no better correlation to Christ laying out
his life, in abject humility, stumbling under the weight of HIs cross, for the
love of His children, than the image of a mother of a large family, with her
heart beating on the floor, trying to make sense of it all, trying to
understand how she’s ever going to make it to the finish line – THAT is the
love of Jesus Christ.
*
Consider the
Holy Trinity. The Church teaches that the Holy Trinity can be seen as God the
Father and Jesus God the Son who love each other so much that what proceeds
from them both is another whole person – the Holy Spirit.
Nowhere else
in our world, does this phenomenon touch us so directly as when we lovingly
embrace our beloved wife in the marital bed and from our love proceeds from us
both a whole new person. God does not create human on his own. WE are
co-creators with HIM. As such we have a tremendous responsibility to be open to
HIS children.
*
Another
image; the hypostatic union, which is the mystery of Christ’s humanity and
divinity united in one person, is near-perfectly imitated in the human and
divine unity which exists at the moment of conception. This carnal being,
infused with an immortal soul is unlike any experience on earth, and it happens
every time a couple is open to life and co-create a baby with God.
Consider
next the words of Christ in the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John:
[48] I am the bread of life.
[49] Your fathers ate the manna
in the wilderness, and they died.
[50] This is the bread which
comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.
[51] I am the living bread which
came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever;
and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."
[52] The Jews then disputed
among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to
eat?"
[53] So Jesus said to them,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man
and drink his blood, you have no life in you;
[54] he who eats my flesh and
drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
[55] For my flesh is food
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
[56] He who eats my flesh and
drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
[57] As the living Father sent
me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of
me.
[58] This is the bread which
came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this
bread will live for ever."
[59] This he said in the
synagogue, as he taught at Caper'na-um.
[60] Many of his disciples, when
they heard it, said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"
[61] But Jesus, knowing in
himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, "Do you take
offense at this?
[62] Then what if you were to
see the Son of man ascending where he was before?
[63] It is the spirit that gives
life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit
and life.
[64] But there are some of you
that do not believe." For Jesus knew from the first who those were that
did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.
[65] And he said, "This is
why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the
Father."
[66] After this many of his
disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.
Likewise,
the one-flesh union, which JPII speaks about again and again, (which by the way
comes from the quote in Genesis 2:24 – a man will leave his father and his
mother and unite with his wife, and they shall be one flesh). This image of a
one-flesh union which is fully present in the faithful lovemaking of married
couples, open to life; where we join with our wives in this beautiful and fleshy
encounter, in the marital bed, is a mere representation of the fleshy encounter
we have with Christ at the moment we consume his body and blood, soul and
divinity in the Eucharist.
The sexual
act in marriage is Eucharistic in nature. We can not desecrate this Eucharist.
As described
above this is a difficult teaching, especially since we live in a world and
time which has conveniently convinced us that we can have “as few children as
possible”, and still be “open to life”.
That is NOT
what the Church teaches.
When you
think of the “one flesh union” embodied in the sexual act between a husband and
wife, and consider its Eucharistic relevance, how can we ever cheapen its
outcome by being selfish towards children again?
***
So lastly, the question has
to be answered, is NFP contraception? While it is not artificial and it does
not impose a device or treatment to render procreation impossible, it does
exercise our will over the immediate procreation of children in marriage.
So how can the Church say
that NFP is moral, when it really does such a similar thing to artificial
contraception? To be more exact, how can
NFP be good when contraception is bad, when they both set out to achieve
the same thing? But they don’t set out to achieve the same thing, if NFP is
done as it was intended.
However, even if a couple
used NFP in the wrong way, to close the wellsprings of life out of selfish
desires, permanently in their mind; NFP is different enough than contraception
in the mere fact that no artificial impediment stands in the way of the
transmission of life during the sexual act. NFP does not allow the unitive
pleasure of the sexual act to occur without at least the possibility of the
procreative aspect as well.
NFP, like drinking alcohol,
is morally neutral. However, getting drunk is gravely evil as would be using
NFP in a selfish or irresponsible or even permanent way, if there were no
continual reflection on whether or not the couple could accept another child.
While it may not be the mortal sin of contraception, to use NFP in this way, per
se, it might be the mortal sin of injustice or selfishness or even despair.
NFP should be used to periodically
space children, according to the greater needs (not wants) of the family. To
use NFP in order to “close up shop”, without the presence of a serious reason,
would be and is always gravely immoral.
Pope Pius XII, answered
this question just eight months before he died. He addressed a crowd gathered
in Rome with the following words:
“In this matter, everything depends on the intention. You can multiply laws and make the penalties heavier; you can give irrefutable proofs of the stupidity of birth control theories and of the harm that comes from putting them into practice; but as long as there is no sincere determination to let the Creator carry on His work as He chooses, then human selfishness will always find new sophistries and excuses to still the voice of conscience (to the extent it can), and to carry on abuses.
Now the value of the testimony offered by the parents of large families lies not only in their unequivocal and forceful rejection of any deliberate compromise between the law of God and human selfishness, but also in their readiness to accept joyfully and gratefully these priceless gifts of God their children -- in whatever number it may please Him to send them. “