www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Natural Family Planning or Contraception?

I still take issue with the idea that the best person to do or assist with virtually any job is necessarily a man.

Certainly in Thomas Aquinas' time, women had little opportunity to do much except cook, clean, do heavy fieldwork, have children and die young. The situation is similar in too many parts of the world today. That's not a matter of the inherent ability, aspiration or capacity of women - it's about power.

Sharon

Latin Trad, you make continual reference to St. Thomas Aquinas to back up your opinions. May I suggest that just because Aquinas wrote it, does not mean that we as Eastern Catholics are obliged to accept it? He is neither the author of any works of divine revelation, nor is he one of our Eastern Fathers. Rather, he writes from a western scholasitc/legalistic point of view that is entirely contrary to our Eastern theology. Don

My main points about contraception have nothing to do with St. Thomas Aquinas.

Read St. John Chrysostom's condemnation of Onanism--it is quite forceful and unapologetic.

LT

Or read the Didache, the Fathers, the Popes, and for that matter, the Reformers. Read any Christian who commented on it until this century. NFP can be an acceptable method because nothing is done to violate the nature of the act. It is like losing weight by dieting as opposed to making yourself throw up after eating. I join LT in being bewildered that this is so controversial on a forum full of people who profess fealty to the ancient traditions of the Church; or does that only refer to aesthetic matters?

Iconophile,

I'm with you.

Question: I hadn't heard of the "Remedy for Concupiscience". Is this from Aquinas?

My wife and I taught an introduction to NFP to engaged couples in our parish. That was a challenge!

I don't have my copy of Humana Vitae available. I am troubled that this document wasn't refered to or quoted from by any posters.

Humana Vitae is the accumulation of the constant teaching of the Church on contraception. There is nothing new in it, however Pope Paul VI wrote in a way that we 20th-21st Christians can understand in the world we live in.

I don't know if any of you have read Humana Vitae.

If you haven't, I can't accept your view as the church's orthodox teaching on contraception.

Peace to you in Christ and our Blessed Mother,

Paul, your imperfect brother

Humanae Vitae certainly bears rereading; it was a prophetic document and Paul VI predicted many of the woes of our time.
But why do you say that you cannot accept someone's view on the immorality of contraception if they haven't read it? As you said, the encyclical reiterates traditional teaching.

I'm not sure if I understand what this thread is about or what exactly is the difference of opinion is about.

The traditional Christian view on contraception is ably well put forth by a priest of the OCA:

http://www.paratheke.net/stephanos/

Some interesting articles there about NFP.

Dear Iconophile,

I share your view that Pope Paul's encyclical Humana Vitae was/is prophetic, amazingly so.

Yes, I may have went overboard with my statement. I said it because, for a layperson, Humana Vitae is the easiest way to get the church teaching on artificial contraception.

Digging through the Fathers, doctors and saints is too difficult for most people, including myself. I believe HV is annotated so one may look up the references if they need to.

I hope that makes sense.

In our Lord,

Paul

Dear DTBrown, Thanks so much for posting the link to that site, it is a valuable resource.
I would note that this site is from a group of Orthodox who are resisting the drift of the mainstream Orthodox Churches and calling them to return to traditional prohibitions against artificial contraceptives.
This thread, and the debate herein, is precisely about the immorality of contraceptives in the tradition of the Apostolic Churches, and the argument is between those of us who hold to this tradition and a] those who deny, contrary to the evidence, that the mainstream Orthodox permit contraception, and b] those who hold that it is licit to use artificial contraception. There is also a subargument about whether NFP- periodic abstinence- is the moral equivalent of contraception.

I would agree here.

NFP, unlike ABC is, works IN CONJUCTION with God's plan for fertility, as opposed to it.

God created cycles of fertility and infertility with in a woman. NFP works within this plan,
Artifical Birth Control (ABC) is a rejection of God's design.

The marital act is an act of pure unity and love. To use ABC is to reject one aspect of your spouse, namely their fertility. The marital act without ABC (even with NFP) is a full acceptance of your spouse, including their fertility, cycles and all.

God does not demand that each use of a couple's Sacrament result in life. In fact, He even designed against this.

What He does ask is that a couple be open and accepting of the life he does grant them, NFP or not.


-the other Brendan.

Dave,

at the risk of incurring all kinds of heat, I do not agree that the primary (read first, paramount, foundational) purpose of marriage is procreation. Certainly, we are to be open to life.

In the Mystery of Crowning, the priestly prayer recalls the marriages of Abraham and Sara, Isaac and Rebeka, Jacob and Rachel, Joseph and Aseneth, Zachary and Elizabeth, hardly examples of marriages with large procreativity. Yet their marriages were based upon love and companionship even when children were absent, for some of these couples, children did not come until later in their lives, but I would hardly say their marriages were somehow validated by childbirth. This at a time when childlessness was considered (by the community, certainly not by God) as a "curse".

As to the Orthodox position on contraception, Tony mentioned on the now closed thread, that there is no offial position in Orthodoxy akin to Humanae Vitae. As Catholics, IMHO, I think we must respect that position.

Well, can we agree that whatever the ranking, procreation is an integral dimension of marriage?
And insofar as the Orthodox have "...no official position...akin to Humanae Vitae" they permit it. I join with the Orthodox of the Stephanos Project in calling them to return to the traditional moral norms of the ancient Church.
I would note here that as I stated in the other thread, ROCOR does forbid artificial contraception, and there are probably other small Orthodox bodies who join them in this.

Much blood was already shed on this issue in a previous thread.

(Latin Trad and I "had it out." )

While we largely agree that NFP is acceptable and ABC not acceptable, I was willing, like many Orthodox Christians, to accept extremely rare exceptions for the use of ABC in order to, for example, (A) prevent the spread of infectious disease from one spouse to the other or (B) allow continued sexual intercourse in cases where conception could lead to the death of the mother.

While I agree that in both exceptions abstinence would be the "model" of the proper response to the situation, introducing into the equation the temptation of one partner to an even worse sin, adultery, leads me and others to accept the abovenamed exceptions as less than preferable, but still within the realm of Christian married life.

Let me add that procreation should not be viewed as the primary aim of marriage. If it were, then couples seeking to get married who know in advance that they are unable to conceive children would rightly be denied the sacrament.

A Christian couple needs only to have a desire for children.

Procreation is the usual result of married life, not the aim. The result of creating woman, who can bear a child, is that children can be born, but that is not the aim of her creation.

The aim of creating man and woman and children (and of marriage) is community, for he saw that it was not good for man to be alone. As HE is a (Trinitarian) community, so are we to be in community, in his image and likeness.

With love in Christ,
Andrew

Dear Fr Deacon John,

Union of husband and wife AND procreation are the TWO meanings of the conjugal act:

Humanae Vitae
Encyclical Letter on the Regulation of Birth
His Holiness Pope Paul VI
July 25, 1968
To the venerable patriarchs, archbishops and bishops and other local ordinaries in peace and communion with the Apostolic See; to priests, the faithful and to all men of goodwill.

Two Inseparable Aspects: Union and Procreation
12. That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man's most high calling to parenthood. We believe that the men of our day are particularly capable of seizing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental principle.

For full text click on:

http://www.sainthenry.org/library/pa06hv.htm


In Christ,

Paul

Does NFP violate natural law ? Absolutely not. The act is in complete comformance with natural law, and if children result, they will be taken and loved. I don't think in any way this can be considered contraception, as it is done with the natural cycle of the woman and involves no injury or perversion to the marital act.

Does artificial contraception violate natural law? Absolutely.

Therefore the two are not only dissimilar, but in opposition to each other. One cooperates, the other opposes.

I don't remember seeing the use of the term "grave" in either the Roman CCC or the text of Humane Vitae when used to describe the conditions of permissibility of NFP. Perhaps I missed something.

Andrew, great points, and did I detect a hint of "economia" in your post above ?

I thought the ultimate "goal" of any relationship was to attain salvation.