In this section, I will let the Popes do the talkin’, so to speak. I will let them explain for themselves why the Church teaches what She does regarding family planning issues. When I decided actually to read the documents myself, I was very surprised as to what She does say.
Pope John Paul II had this to say about Natural Family Planning in a 1996 speech to NFP instructors:
The moment has come for every parish and every structure of consultation and assistance to the family and to the defence of life to have personnel available who can teach married couples how to use the natural methods. For this reason I particularly recommend that Bishops, parish priests and those responsible for pastoral care welcome and promote this valuable service.
The question then, must be, why? Why is it so important? Pope Paul VI states in the introductory paragraph to Humane Vitae (HV) that
[t]he transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships. . .The Church cannot ignore these questions, for they concern matters intimately connected with the life and happiness of human beings (h.v.1). (emphasis mine)
So from the beginning, Pope Paul VI states that this is not just about sex and kids. It is about our happiness.
Pope Paul notes that we cannot talk about family planning without first understanding the nature of marriage itself, because it is the nature of marriage that determines whether a method of family planning is moral or immoral. Specifically, he answers whether every sexual act has to be open to life (h.v.3).
Nature of Marriage
Marriage, then, is far from being the effect of chance or the result of the blind evolution of natural forces. It is in reality the wise and provident institution of God the Creator, whose purpose was to effect in man His loving design. As a consequence, husband and wife, through that mutual gift of themselves, which is specific and exclusive to them alone, develop that union of two persons in which they perfect one another, cooperating with God in the generation and rearing of new lives.
The marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition, invested with the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the union of Christ and His Church (h.v.8)
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The Pope continues by quoting the Second Vatican Council’s statement on marriage that “Finally, this love is fecund. It is not confined wholly to the loving interchange of husband and wife; it also contrives to go beyond this to bring new life into being. ‘Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the procreation and education of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute in the highest degree to their parents’ welfare (h.v.9).'”
Everything else we talk about HAS to be connected to this reality. If we do not acknowledge it ,we will never understand the Church’s teaching on family planning.
So, the Church says that children are the best part of what marriage is about. They are the concrete example of parents love for each other. Frankly, in my discussions with people who use birth control, they really feel that they are living up to the Church’s teaching in this area. Many Catholics believe that if they are planning on having children within the marriage then it is not a big deal to sterilize themselves via contraception throughout the marriage. They feel they can do both.
The Church says that sterilizing some sexual acts within the marriage does NOT follow God plan at all. The Church believes that every sexual act is holy and sacred and MUST be faithful to the nature that God gave it.
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 (h.v 12)
The Church claims then, that our sexuality is part of our NATURE as man and woman. Wow! This is not something we can escape from or cannot change; it is a matter of who we are. Most people I know who reject the birth control teaching, reject this paragraph. They believe our sexuality is not inherent to we are, but rather something apart from ourselves that we can control. In a way, it is a form of gnosticism, the belief that body and soul are split. The Church says our sexuality is a part of who we are as a people and therefore, we do NOT have the right to usurp God’s law and do what we want. “But she affirms that this must be done within the limits of the order of reality established by God (h.v.16).” As Christians we are not masters of our own destiny, so to speak, but rather, we respect the power and authority God has even in our own lives. However,
If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained. (20)
Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the latter they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love. (h.v.16).
The Holy Father says, therefore, that EVEN thought the results are the same, i.e. no children, the means by avoiding are inherently different. In NFP the couple chooses not to have sex if they are avoiding, which means they are not manipulating their sexuality at all in order to not have children. But birth control of any form changes the very nature of the sexual act itself. He even says that to use birth control is not “authentic love.”
There is a movement within the Church that rejects NFP as contrary to God’s law. They make the mistake to equate NFP with artificial methods. The Church CLEARLY rejects this argument. Pope John Paul II wrote in Familiaris Consortio (quoting H.V. itself) that “When, instead, by means of recourse to periods of infertility, the couple respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of human sexuality, they are acting as “ministers” of God’s plan and they “benefit from” their sexuality according to the original dynamism of “total” self-giving, without manipulation or alteration (F.C.32) Pope John Paul II goes on to say that there is a HUGE moral difference between the methods, even though the results are the same. He says
theological reflection is able to perceive and is called to study further the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle: It is a difference which is much wider and deeper than is usually thought, one which involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality. The choice of the natural rhythms involves accepting the cycle of the person, that is, the woman, and thereby accepting dialogue, reciprocal respect, shared responsibility and self-control.To accept the cycle and to enter into dialogue means to recognize both the spiritual and corporal character of conjugal communion and to live personal love with its requirement of fidelity. In this context the couple comes to experience how conjugal communion is enriched with those values of tenderness and affection which constitute the inner soul of human sexuality in its physical dimension also. In this way sexuality is respected and promoted in its truly and fully human dimension and is never “used” as an “object” that, by breaking the personal unity of soul and body, strikes at God’s creation itself at the level of the deepest interaction of nature and person (F.C32).
The question then is under what circumstances should couples use NFP. Pope Paul VI clearly stated that if couples have “reasonable reasons” to abstain, then do so. According to the Catechism of the Church, the Church does not define “reasonable.” She leaves that up to the husband and wife and their prayer time for discernment. “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 (CCC#2368).
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