A RESPONSE TO AN ATTEMPT TO DEFINE THE "SERIOUS REASONS" OF PIUS XII

In this post, a Catholic blogger attempts to define the "serious reasons" which allow for the use of periodic continence (NFP) within marriage. 

You can only use NFP for serious reasons…What are these reasons?

by Dr Taylor Marshall

My comment follows:

Because the "Church" never defined "serious reasons", it was left to us to fill in the blank, and apparently this is an attempt to fill in the blank. And even with this attempt, the author implies that our attempt to fill in said blanks will fall short without the guidance of a "solid spiritual director versed in these matters." Well good luck finding one of those. But beyond that, let's examine a few things:

The author says that artificial contraception is "intrinsically evil because they (condoms, pills) intervene in the natural process", but periodic continence is "morally neutral." I would argue that condoms and pills are not intrinsically evil things because they are things. Their use becomes problematic when they are employed with an evil intent: to prevent conception. 

Likewise, periodic continence becomes problematic when it is employed with an evil intent: to prevent conception without "serious reason.". In fact, periodic continence, since it is an act of the will (I will not have sex with my spouse), is NEVER morally neutral. It can be morally good or morally evil, but it is never neutral.

I also find it curious that the central moral dilemma of modern man - the control of procreation (let's face it) was addressed by our Church via a pope in what appears to be a sidebar to an already obscure address to an even more obscure group (Italian midwives). 

One could argue that the moral application of periodic continence had been addressed earlier in more prominent addresses by Pius XI (Casti Connubii) and later by Paul VI (Humanae Vitae), but both encyclicals do not enumerate the "reasons", as does Pius XII,  who in fact provides the grounds for the morality of the method. 

JPII gets into it in his Theology of the Body, but TOB is way down there on the scale of authoritative pronouncements. 

Thus, we are apparently left with a scramble to unpack the four reasons left us by Pius XII in a tiny address that carries relatively little magisterial weight. 

Actually, the Catechism rescues us by its use of the word "just" as in "just cause". However, I've yet to read or hear any attempt to unpack this, so let me give it a go. 

When the Church uses "just" relative to moral issues it generally does not mean "just figure it out for yourself". The best parallel would be the use of the word "just" in defining "just war". 

There are several key provisions which must be in place for a war effort to be considered "just" and therefore morally "inbounds". One of the key provisions for a Just War is "proportionality": the benefits must equal the damage.

Denying God souls to love (children) - by whatever means - is serious business and demands proportionate (just) cause. And when it comes to marital relations the discernment of that cause cannot be reliant on a list, or anyone's attempt to define that list - which is probably why no pope ever has. 

Personal holiness is your only aid in this regard. Total submission to the Holy Spirit and union with God in and through his sacraments is all there is. Throw away your charts and get out your rosaries. 

Disclaimer: Father of eleven who thought one was enough and is so glad things did not go as I planned.

MARRIAGE: GOD'S LOVE MADE VISIBLE

This is the text of a talk given by Tim Rohr on 3/8/13 at the St. Therese Chapel in Hagatna, Guam.

For the first seven years of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II used the occasion of his weekly audiences to speak and teach about marriage. These addresses were compiled into a single work which is now called Theology of the Body.

That the Pope spent seven years, every week, teaching about marriage, should tell us that as our Supreme Pastor, he saw that the fundamental problem with the church and the world was a problem with marriage, and more specifically, a problem with our fundamental understanding of who we are as men and women, male and female.

This should not surprise us. When John Paul II first began this series of talks, it was 1979. The sexual revolution had been raging for nearly a decade, and in its wake were millions of aborted children, rampant divorce, destroyed families, and otherwise very damaged people - in short, the Culture of Death, as the Pope would later famously call it.

Pope John Paul recognized that the fundamental problem was that we had been lied to by the world and we had believed the lie. We had been told “if it feels good, do it.” We had been told that “all you need is this pill and you can enjoy consequence-free sex forever.” We had been told that no-fault divorce was the answer to painful marriages and the key to self-fulfillment.

John Paul II, at the dawn of his pontificate, wanted to beat back that lie and chose to do it in the same way that Jesus did 2000 years earlier, by restoring marriage, and thus what it means to be male and female, to its original innocence and dignity.

In Matthew 19, Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees for his teaching on marriage as follows:

Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?” He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no man must separate.” They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss [her]?” He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

John Paul II uses these words “from the beginning it was not so”, to construct the whole of his Theology of the Body which has as its goal, the same goal as Jesus at this moment in Scripture: to restore marriage to its origins, to God’s original design.

Jesus refers to God’s original plan for marriage when he says: “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’...?” The reference is to Genesis 1:27 which says: “God created man in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

But let’s put this verse in context beginning with Gen 1:26 through 28:

Then God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth. God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female* he created them. God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.

Now before we go on, let us remind ourselves that Pope John Paul spent nearly seven years developing this one passage. And here’s why. Man is the pinnacle of creation, and all creation is made subject to him. Thus when man falls, all creation falls with him. The whole world is wounded because of man’s disobedience.

God became man to restore man to God, but also to restore the whole of creation to its original order. But for that to happen, man, to whom all creation remains subject, must first be restored. Yet, though the saving work of Christ had given man the means of salvation, it was still up to man, having free will, to return on his own to his original image.

Thus John Paul asks us first to examine the words: “let Us make Man in Our image.” Notice first that this is God, himself, speaking. Notice next, that God, speaks in the first person plural: “let US make man in OUR image.” Who is he talking to? The angels? No, the angels, being created beings themselves, cannot create. Only God can. Thus he can only be speaking to the other persons of the Blessed Trinity.

Right at the beginning of Scripture, at the dawn of creation, we clearly see that God is not a single person, but a community of persons: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, the Trinity. Thus when God makes man “in OUR image”, man too is a community of persons, or at least he is designed to be, because only in this way can man fully image the Trinity.

Next, the scripture tells us that man is made male and female: “male and female he created them”. In short, in this version of creation (there is another) man is made a couple from the beginning, a married couple, but  to fully image the Trinity, to fully image God, there must be a third. Thus God continues with the words “be fertile and multiply.”

I wrestled with how to explain this because it is important to know that the command to be fertile is not a separate act, some sort of afterthought to creation. It is part of the same creative act. Man is made, at the moment of his creation, a single, inseparable, life-giving community of persons which, because man exists in time, a child will follow, but because God does not exist in time, the child is already “now”.

So just as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, a third person, a child, proceeds from the man and the woman, completing the trinity of persons and thus imaging God. This is not only “God’s Love Made Visible”, this is God, who IS LOVE, made visible.

NATURAL STERILITY AND CELIBACY

Now, before we go on, allow me to make a point about natural sterility. As married persons, we only have control over the procreative act, not procreation. In other words, we cannot bring about new life. We can only engage in an act which has the capacity to produce new life. However,  the creation of that new life is ultimately up to God, not us.

Thus the conjugal act is no less meaningful for a naturally sterile couple than it is for a fertile couple, since neither has control over anything other than the marital act itself.

Also, a point about celibacy. Celibacy, whether it is voluntary, such as that which is embraced by those who enter religious life, or involuntary, such as that which must be lived by those who find themselves single, either as the result of the death or illness of a spouse, or simply never having married despite a desire to, ultimately, celibacy anticipates the state to which we all are destined, heaven, where we will finally be joined to our only true spouse, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus the Book of Revelation reveals heaven as the eternal Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Marriage on earth only prefigures and images that which we will experience in heaven. This is important because, for most of us, even those of us who are currently married, will, as mentioned, through death, illness, or something otherwise, find ourselves at some point, single, and will need to embrace celibacy not as a loss or a curse, but as a preparation for heaven.

NOW, BACK TO MARRIAGE

I left off by saying that the conjugal act is how we most closely image God because the creation of man as male and female and the command to be fruitful and multiply, is all a single act. There is no separation of the unitive and procreative aspects of marriage. There is no “first the couple” and “then the children”. This is why the marriage ceremony, with the public exchange of vows and rings means nothing until the couple privately exchanges their vows and bodies in the act which has the capacity to produce a child, i.e. “consummate the marriage.”

And herein lies the problem. Many couples opt to put off having children UNTIL - until they finish their education, until they have enough money to buy a house, until they’re ready (whatever that means). The reality is, the intent to NOT allow their union to be fruitful, by whatever means (extreme circumstances notwithstanding), essentially violates and negates their vows. They are simply NOT married.

This is not the “mean-old church” coming up with some medieval rule to saddle a young couple with children, this is the Church keeping to God’s original design as set forth in Genesis 1: “male and female he created them...be fertile and multiply.”

This is not to say that at some point in the marriage it may be necessary to space or limit children for grave reasons through natural means as per the teaching of the popes, but the Church does say that if we do not intend to be fruitful from the outset, then we do not have a valid marriage.

There is a gray area here that I don’t pretend to have an answer to. As just mentioned, spacing children through natural means is considered by the Church to be moral when, as the Catechism says, “just cause” is present. However, the context of this teaching, especially as it appears in Humanae Vitae and the Catechism, is always in the context of an existing marriage, not a marriage-to-be.

In other words, because married partners are already sacramentally bound to each other under the unitive aspect of marriage, their bodies belong to each other. So in the case where “just cause” is present, married people are in conformity with the moral law when they intentionally engage in the conjugal act exclusively during the infertile periods.

Couples who intend to be married are not thus bound, and if “just cause” to avoid children is already present before the marriage, then it calls into question whether or not the couple is actually ready to marry.

Yet, I would venture to guess that natural family planning, or periodic abstinence, is taught to many pre-cana couples, not as a way to deal with difficult circumstances down the road, but as a way to start their marriage. Natural or not. Starting a marriage with the intent not to conceive from the outset calls into question the validity of the marriage and it certainly does not image our Trinitarian God.

At this point though, I would advise anyone who thinks differently to consult your pastor on the matter. Ultimately, your soul is in his care, not mine. I am only objectively restating the purpose of the marriage covenant as I have received it and as I see it.

However, I bring this up because marriage, at least God’s design for it to be a fertile, life-giving union, as found in Genesis 1, has never more been endangered. As we speak the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments for same-sex marriage, and by June there will be a ruling that may very well make same-sex marriage the law of the land as Roe v Wade did with abortion.

However, same-sex marriage never would have made it this far had not heterosexuals already gravely weakened the institution . We hear much about the tragic rate of divorce, but to bring this closer to home, did you know that Guam has the highest divorce rate in the world? According to the Guam Statistical Year Book there are 5.5 divorces per 1000 people in 2011. (1) According to the United Nations Demographic Yearbook, the nation with the highest divorce rate is Russia which has a divorce rate  of  5.0 divorces per 1000 population. Guam is not considered a nation so we are not ranked by the U.N., but our divorce rate is a full half a point higher than Russia, making our divorce rate the highest in the world.

Did you also know that thanks to certain lawmakers whom we elect, Guam is the second easiest place in the world to get a divorce, requiring only a 7 day stay, and that as recently as 2005, Guam was the mail order divorce capitol of the world, and we were  averaging a staggering 9.5 divorces per working day.

You may say that most of those divorces are outsiders, and maybe they are. But what does that say about us, an 85% Catholic island which has willingly allowed our Catholic homeland to become a divorce mecca? Just google the words Guam and divorce and you’ll see what I mean.

And while we can blame some of our divorce rate on our scandalous divorce tourism policy, we can’t blame our child abuse rate on anyone but ourselves. Child abuse is an indicator of family fragmentation and thus marital collapse, and the Guam Statistical Yearbook shows that in 2011 a total of 3294 children were abused or neglected. This is equal to a rate of 72.94 child abuse cases per 1000 child population. By contrast the national average is 10.22. What? We, our 85% Catholic island abuses and neglects its children at 7 times the rate of the rest of the nation?

(The Guam data for the above can be sourced here.)

But you don’t need these statistics to tell you this is true. Just read the daily police blotter in the PDN: family violence, family violence, terrorizing, family violence, family violence...

And of course the worst violence is the unborn children we allow to be put to death at the rate of one child every 1.3 days, where one child is aborted out of every 10 who are born, where 62% of those children are aborted by mothers who are Catholic or who most likely come from Catholic families, and where abortion regulation is the most liberal in the nation because of the obstinate opposition to pro-life legislation by certain lawmakers who were educated in our Catholic schools, but more so because most of use, by not examining the people we vote for, allow this situation to continue.

(See Guam abortion reports here.)

MARRIAGE AS SPIRITUAL WARFARE

Now, enough of the bad news and time for the solution, and the solution, as John Paul II illustrated in his first talk on marriage, is found in the words of Jesus: “in the beginning it was not so.” Married people should meditate every day, or at least mull over, Genesis 1:26-28: “Let us make man in our image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them...be fertile and multiply...” This is God’s plan.

But let me conclude by addressing two stumbling blocks to returning to God’s plan, one temporal and one spiritual. The temporal reality is that for the most part we who are still in our childbearing years, limit our fertility or at least our willingness to multiply, by our checkbook. To be blunt, money determines our openness to life. We excuse ourselves from the responsibility to procreate because we believe that it is more expensive to live today. Let’s talk straight about this.

Indeed while the consumer price index does show a ten-fold increase in the cost of living since 1960, the Social Security Administration also shows a ten-fold increase in average incomes. Thus it is no more expensive to live today than it was in 1960. So why does it feel like it? Because we want more.

Today we spend 10 times more on sports than we did in 1960, 37 times more on travel, 43 times more on games, 54 times more on hair care and cosmetics, 60 times more on pets, and 178 times more on our “phone” bill - which of course is not our “phone” bill, but the cost of assuaging our incessant need to be permanently connected to the rest of the world through an ever expanding array of gadgets that we just have to have.

True,  the cost of housing is 72 times more than it was in 1960, which, when compared to only a ten-fold increase in wages, represents a significant financial burden.  However, some of that is our own doing. While family size has nearly halved since 1960, the average square footage per home over the same period has more than doubled. In other words, we demand bigger homes for smaller families.

And of course there is healthcare, which today costs 30 times more than it did 50 years ago. However, the real “elephant in the room” is the cost of education, specifically “higher education”.

Today we spend 146 times more per family on education than we did in 1960. And since 1985, college costs have exploded, increasing a staggering 498.49%. By comparison, healthcare costs have grown at less than half that rate.

(The cost of living data for the above can be sourced here.)

While there is probably little we can do about the cost of health care except take better care of ourselves, there is much we can do to reduce the cost of everything else including education. Larger families like mine are increasingly pursuing homeschooling options for everything from pre-k through college. But we can talk about that another day. The fact is that most of our monetary obstacles to obeying the command to “be fertile and multiply” are of our own choosing. Sadly, in the end, our children are all that we have, and all that we can take to heaven. We must ask: Where is our treasure?

MARRIAGE AS WARFARE

Lastly, let me address perhaps the biggest obstacle of all to Marriage as God’s Love Made Visible, and the one which we are least prepared for. Once we understand that we, as married people, are the image of God, that we are “God’s love made visible”, then we must also understand that our marriage is ground zero for the Evil One.

Satan hates God, but cannot attack him directly. So he attacks the next closest thing: us, married people. We image God. Satan hates God. Satan attacks his image. Once we understand this we can begin to fight back against the powers and principalities which sleep not in their efforts to make our marriages a living hell and eventually to drag our souls into an eternal hell.

In the book HOW TO ACT RIGHT WHEN YOUR SPOUSE ACTS WRONG, the author’s central point is to understand that your spouse is not your enemy, the devil is. This understanding will save your marriage when nothing else can.

In the Revelation, Chapter 12 we read, beginning at Verse 7:

Then war broke out in heaven; Michael* and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to...where... (the) earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

For some reason, many of us modern Catholics believe that the Devil and his evil angels are chained up in hell. They are not. In fact, as in the vision of Pope Leo XIII and expressed in the prayer he composed to St. Michael, “Satan and all the evil spirits prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.”

Continuing on in Revelation, we read:

But woe to you, earth and sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great fury, for he knows he has but a short time.

Then after giving an account of Satan’s attack on “the woman and her offspring”, who we can assume to be Mary and Jesus, it says:

“Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus.”

Let’s repeat that. Satan, the dragon, goes “off to wage war against...those who keep God’s commandments...” That would be us. And the closer we adhere to the commandments, the sacraments, and the One Holy Catholic Church, the more we can expect to be attacked.

And married people, particularly sacramentally married people, who, scripture tells us are the very image of God on earth, wonder why their marriage has become a battleground. The great tragedy, is that due to lack of preparation for marriage as spiritual warfare, the couple, who should be on the same side warring together with Michael and his angels against the forces of hell, have been tricked into warring against each other.

Sadly, almost all teaching about marriage today centers around communication skills and compatibility exercises and little to nothing about the cosmic war that will rage round about a married couple the minute they engage in the sacramental embrace. Satan must laugh at the hell he can create with the subtle jabs and pokes of small words, wrong looks, and perceived attitudes. We succumb to these tricks so quickly first because we are most vulnerable to the person we are married to, but second, because we have had no warning, no training, no weapons, and no strategy to not only fight back, but to even recognize the enemy.

The Church teaches that marriage is a path to heaven. It is also a path to hell. The good news is that through the sacrament of marriage, and the continued reception of the sacraments of penance and the eucharist, we have all we need to win the war against hell and win heaven for our families, our spouses, and ourselves.

And here is where the Church is needed. Given the dramatic failure rate of Catholic marriages and the increasing collapse of Catholic families, pastors need to seriously review what it is we are doing or not doing in regards to everything relative to marriage and family, for the numbers - the divorces, the abortions, the child abuse cases, the out-of-wedlock pregnancies, the cohabitation, the fragmentation of family after family -  tell us that either something is terribly missing or that we are doing something terribly wrong.

But meanwhile, we married people need to take control of our own destinies. We need to take our children back. We need to start teaching them and continue teaching them the truth at home instead of farming out their sacramental and moral formation to the classroom. “Drill this into your children” Deuteronomy says.

Empowering married people to take control of their destinies and return to God’s original plan for their marriage, to return to “the beginning” is why John Paul II did not simply put his thoughts into a book, but taught us publicly at his weekly audiences. Though he spent 7 years doing it and the collection of his addresses is now a tome, the whole  of the Theology of the Body can be found in the words “from the beginning it was not so.”

Lastly, I’d like to finish by exposing the error of an innocent story that is often told at many weddings. The story is told of a pig and a chicken getting together to have breakfast. The pig is to provide the bacon and the chicken the eggs. The pig complains that he has to contribute 100% to a successful breakfast and the chicken, not so much.

The story is used to illustrate that in order for marriage to succeed, the self-donation of the spouses cannot be 50/50 but 100/100. It sounds nice and everybody smiles, but in fact, it is not only incorrect, it may possibly set up expectations that will soon lead to disappointment and divorce.

The real success ratio for marriage is 100 to 0, because this in fact, is precisely what unconditional love is: the willingness to love fully and keep one’s commitment not only when there is nothing in return, but even when one’s giving is met with disdain, insults, and hostile rejection, and with no hope of that situation every changing.

And here is where I’d like to promote a couple of books to you. HOW TO ACT RIGHT WHEN YOUR SPOUSE ACTS WRONG is an excellent book to start. Most books try to address marital issues and propose solutions or communication techniques to solve those problems. This book takes the approach that reconciliation may never be possible, that marriage may continue to be painful, that perhaps you are being called to one long sacrifice. That may sound negative, but our call as Christians is to ACT RIGHT, to DO RIGHT, no matter what the challenge.

Also, for those who want to delve more deeply into marriage, the book that helped me the most in understanding marriage is COVENANTED HAPPINESS, by Msgr. Cormac Burke.

Lastly, rather than attempt to read one of the many interpretations of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body by popular authors, I would recommend you read the words of the Pope himself which you can do by either purchasing the whole collection in book form or reading the individual addresses for free online. Just go to ewtn.com and search for Theology of the Body. It will come up as the first item.

This is a good resource article for John Paul II's Theology of the Body and the challenge of same-sex marriage: IN DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE

HAPPY NFP AWARENESS WEEK

Published in the U Matuna, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Agana, Guam on 7/29/12


Oh, so you didn’t know it was Natural Family Planning Awareness Week? Well, if you had plans for it, you’ll need to wait till next year. It ends today (July 22-29).  


NFP, for those who may not be aware, is a non-contraceptive system of birth regulation considered moral by the Church if employed for “serious reason” (HV, 10).

NFP, which relies on the systematic observation of bodily indicators to identify a woman’s fertile period, has its advocates and detractors. And while I personally find the whole discussion of birth regulation fascinating and could spend several columns on it, I’d like to cut to the chase in this column and speak directly to the thing that, for most married couples, makes the regulation of births an issue in the first place: money.

For most of us married folk, when it comes to “making babies”, the big issue is not moral, theological or doctrinal, it’s financial. We don’t check the Catechism before we engage in a potentially procreative marital act, we check the bank account. We ask whether or not we can afford another child, and more often than not, the answer is “no”.

We say, sure, grandma had 12 kids and mom had 6, but times are different, it’s more expensive these days. It’s harder to earn a living. It’s not like it used to be, etc., etc., etc. And for the most part, pastoral mentors agree and give couples wide latitude to limit the size of their families (albeit via moral means).

But given that the Church allows only one method of birth regulation - and allows it for only “serious reason”, and given that most of us blame “the cost of living” as the reason to not have another child, we must ask ourselves if the cost of living is a “serious (enough) reason” for a sacramentally married couple to intentionally delay or avoid pregnancy.  In other words: Is it really more expensive today than it was a generation or two ago?

The answer is yes and no. Let’s start with the “no”. According to InflationData.com, the Consumer Price Index in 1960 was 29.6. At the end of 2011, it was 224.9. That means it is approximately 10 times more expensive to live today than it was in 1960.

However, wages, over the same period, have also seen a ten-fold increase. According  to the Social Security Administration, average wages in 1960 were $4007.12 and 41,673.83 in 2010

So, statistically speaking, it is NOT more expensive to live today than it was 50 years ago. It’s about the same. So why is it that we feel we cannot possibly afford another child? Here’s the “yes” part of the answer:

Today we spend 10 times more on our sports addictions than we did in 1960, 37 times more on travel, 43 times more on games, 54 times more on hair care and cosmetics, 60 times more on pets, and...wait for it...178 times more on our “phone” bill - which of course is not our “phone” bill, but the cost of assuaging our incessant need to be permanently connected to the rest of the world through an ever expanding array of gadgets that we just have to have.

True,  the cost of housing is 72 times more than it was in 1960, which, when compared to only a ten-fold increase in wages, represents a significant financial burden.  However, some of that is our own doing. While family size has nearly halved since 1960, the average square footage per home over the same period has more than doubled. In other words, increasingly smaller families are demanding increasingly larger  homes.

And of course there is healthcare, which today costs 30 times more than it did 50 years ago. However, the real “elephant in the room” is the cost of education, specifically “higher education”.

Today we spend 146 times more per family on education than we did in 1960. And since 1985, college costs have exploded, increasing a staggering 498.49%. By comparison, healthcare costs have grown at less than half that rate.

True, many more of our children are going to college these days, but the question which concerns us is whether or not the desire to send our children to college qualifies as the “serious reason” necessary to justify the moral use of NFP.

Of course, the same question could apply to everything from “Do you really need that data plan?” to “Do you really need that big of a house?”

However, the cost of education is so disproportionate to every other expense that there is little question that the specter of its cost probably has more to do with our increasing reluctance to “accept children willingly and lovingly from God” (as we promised), than any other factor. (More later.)

Should we make more money?

Published in the Umatuna, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Agana, Guam, August 28, 2011.


Some months ago I found myself in a conversation with the author of a new book about Natural Family Planning. I had written to thank him for writing the book. He replied and inquired about my family. I advised that my wife and I were blessed to have eleven children and shared a bit about the joys and challenges of a large family.

I was a bit amused at his next email in which he asked what I did for a living. I knew why he was asking. Today, most couples preset their family size to what they believe they can afford so its natural to think that larger families means a larger income.

He also shared that though he had just written a book about being open to life, he was struggling with doing what he had just written about. Like many Catholics, he had reached the maximum number of children he thought his paycheck could bear and had employed NFP to put off having more kids.

As most Catholics know, Church teaching allows recourse to periodic abstinence for the spacing or even suspension of child bearing for serious reasons. “Serious reasons” is the key to the morality of the method and financial considerations can be among those reasons.

My friend had arrived at what he believed to be his economic threshold with two children, but then, so had I. The difference was that with child number three I shifted career gears in order to provide for a family size that was in excess of my original plan - though my reason for the shift was not to afford more children, but to afford the children I already had with nice stuff: house, car, education, vacations, ballet lessons, comfort, gadgets, etc.

In hindsight, it seems to have been a “divine trick”. While I might have pursued a larger income for material reasons, a larger income made me less concerned about the prospects of a larger family, and a larger family we soon had. And while challenges remain, the bottom line was the more control we had over our income, the less concerned we were about another child.

In answer to my friend’s question, I replied that though I had begun my work life as a teacher, my growing family forced me to increase my income and I had moved to a career in sales. He commended my wife and me for our openness to life, shared that sales wasn’t for him, wished me the best, and I no longer heard from him.

I wanted to tell him that sales wasn’t for me either and that if I had my druthers I’d be conducting choral ensembles and not business presentations, but children had trumped my druthers.

Out of this little episode a question formed: If one is limiting the size of one’s family because of money, and one has the ability to make more money, does one then have the responsibility to make more money? After all, as Catholics we stood before God on our wedding day and promised to “accept children willingly and lovingly” from God.

This is a tough one. A desire for more money is often associated with greed and materialism. Yet lack of money is probably the main reason couples do not accept more children “willingly and lovingly” as they promised they would. What to do?

There are the obvious limitations such as illness and physical or mental incapacity. But beyond these, the question remains: Is it moral for Catholics to suspend the fount of life because of self-imposed fiscal limits? Is it moral to eschew a career change that could support a larger family simply because one finds the work uncomfortable?

I don’t have the answers, and in hindsight, I’m glad eleven children slipped into our lives before I even had the questions. Well, off to work.

NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING - IS IT REALLY AN ALTERNATIVE TO CONTRACEPTION?

The original document without the formatting can be found at:

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/morality/family/natural.htm

NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING

IS IT REALY AN ALTERNATIVE TO CONTRACEPTION?

By Father Gerard Rusak



A WARNING UNHEEDED,
On the 29th of October 1951, Pope Pius XII, in a famous allocution to midwives, warned them not to be "drawn into an unjust and unbecoming (616) 1 ' for the so-called "natural" methods of birth control. For the most part, this warning has gone unheeded. In fact, we are witnessing a proliferation of propaganda in favour of "Natural Family Planning", (NFP) originating from those who should know better. Today a large family is looked upon with disdain, as a sort of "social ill", as a kind of "irresponsible parenthood" if not as bad as, at least comparable to, the evils of abortion and artificial contraception. Can such a mentality be reconciled with the teaching of the Church? Is the indiscriminate use of NFP in accordance with what Catholic Tradition calls the "primary duty" of matrimony, namely the procreation and education of children? Is it licit "to use continually the faculty proper to matrimony and lawful only therein and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason"? No, declares Pius XII, to do so "would be a sin against the very nature of married life" (621).


NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING?
First of all, let us take note, terms such as "Natural Family Planning" and "natural" methods' of birth control are misnomers. There is nothing natural about birth control, even when drugs are not used. Rev. Father Lavaud, O.P. deciares: "We cannot see an adaptation to nature in something which is, in effect a trick to fustrate nature. "3 Another theologian remarks that this so-called "natural" way "requires the couple to make love by a calendar, so that charts, gadgets and graphs rule romance, not the loving desire of devoted partners. Some medical men assure us a wife 's desire for marital union is most vehement precisely during the fertile period ... Even Dr. Ogino, the originator of the rhythm method, viewed this method primarily as a means of having children. 'Rhythm in reverse,' having relations on fertile days just to have children" (Integrity, June 1948). In fact, it is the desire for children and their conception, which is truly natural. However, today, many persons are beginning to look upon pregnancy as a disease, or at least a "social ill", especially when it is repeated. On the 20th of January, 1958, at an audience for the Italian Association for Large Families, Pius XII castigated this error in the following terms:

"It is fitting to class among the most harmful aberrations of modern neo-pagan society the opinion of certain men who dare to term the fruitfulness of marriage a "social ill" from which the "infected" nations should endeavor by every means to be cured. Whence the propaganda of what is called "rational birth control"(planned parenthood), supported by individuals and associations, sometimes distinguished for other reasons, but in this one, unfortunately worthy, of blame" (763).

THE CHURCH LOVES LARGE FAMILIES.
Continuing to develop his thought, the Pope opposes "planned parenthood" with "the testimony of parents of large families" who

"reject outright in practice all intentional compromise between the law of God and the egotism of man" and accept, "with joy and gratitude, the inestimable gifts of God which children are, as many has He pleases to send" (765). 

Such an attitude

"frees the spouses from intolerable nightmares and remorse. This disposition of mind assures - and this is the opinion of competent medical authority - the most favorable physical premises for a wholesome development of the fruits proper to marriage, while it avoids, at the very origin of the new lives, that trouble and anxiety which become so many blemishes in the mother as also in the child "(765). 

For the Pope, it is not only the Catholic Church but popular good sense which

"has always and everywhere seen in large families the sign, the proof, and the source of physical health, while history makes no mistake when it sees in the tampering with marriage laws and the laws of procreation the first cause of the nation 's decadence. Large families, far from being a "social ill", are the guarantee of the physical and moral well-being of a people. In homes where there is always a cradle from which rise an infant's cries, virtue flourishes spontaneously and vice stays at a distance, as if driven away by childhood, which is renewed there like the fresh and life-giving breath of springtide" (766).

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH ON MATRIMONY
The "yes" of Pius XII to large families and the "no" to birth control and to the undiscriminated propaganda of periodic continence springs directly from the Doctrine of the Church on Matrimony. The Church teaches that the question of "birth control" or "contraception", before even being a question of means (labeled natural or artificial), is first a question of the end. "The mere fact that husband and wife do not offend the nature of the act [as they would, for example, if they used artificial contraceptives and are even ready to accept and bring up the child, who, notwithstanding their precautions, might be born, would not be, in itself, sufficient to guarantee the rectitude of their intention and the unobjectionable morality of their motives" (619). They must first respect the primary end of matrimony.


THE PRIMARY END OF MATRIMONY.
The primary end of matrimony is the procreation and the education of children. "The Creator of the human race Himself, who in His goodness has willed to use human beings as His ministers in the propagation of life, taught us this truth when, in instituting matrimony in the Garden of Eden, He bade our first parents, and through them all married persons who should come after them: 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth'. St. Augustine rightly draws the same conclusion from the words of the Apostle St. Paul to Timothy: The Apostle testifies that procreation is the purpose of matrimony when, having said,

'I will that younger women should marry', he adds immediately, as though he had been asked the reason, 'so that they may bear children and become mothers of families'" (Pius XI, Casti Connubii, 1930. 274). 

Pius XII, by a decree of the Holy Office, on March 30, 1944 repudiated 

"the opinion of some authors, who deny that the primary end of matrimony is the procreation and education of the offspring, or teach that the secondary ends are not essentially subordinated to the primary ends, but are parallel to them and independent" (note 634c). 

Note well, the Church does not deny that there are secondary ends to Matrimony, such as mutual support and the remedy against concupiscence. She simply states these ends must remain what they are, that is, secondary and always subordinated to the primary end, which is the procreation and education of children.


THE LAW 0F THlE MATRIMONIAL STATE.
Most couples, unlike the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, are not meant to keep perfect continence in matrimony. It is for these that: Pius XII stated:

"The matrimonial contract, which confers on the, married couple the right to satisfy the inclination of nature, constitutes them in a state of life, namely, the matrimonial state. Now, on married couples, who make use of the specific act of their state, nature and the Creator impose the function of providing for the preservation of mankind" (621). 

Indeed then,

Marriage confers certain rights, but only because it imposes very precise duties, the first of which is the procreation and the education of children: "The individual and society, the people and the State, the Church itself depend for their existence, in the order established by God, on fruitful marriages" (621). 

Therefore, children are not obstacles to avoid, nor mere accidents that happen, but the primary end and goal of matrimony it follows that if 

"according to a reasonable and equitable judgment" (622) "grave reasons or motives" (620,621) do not intervene. Spouses who use their matrimonial rights, cannot licitly shrink from the duty "which.' nature and the Creator impose" (621). 

Or, in the words of Pius XII: 

to embrace the matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper "to such a state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life" (621).

CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR TIHE LICIT USE OF PERIODIC CONTINENCE.
From what precedes, it is clear that NFP cannot be used indiscriminately. To make its use licit, there are three basic conditions, which must be fulfilled simultaneously:



A. The reason for its use must be grave and morally proportioned.

B. It should fall into one of the "indications" (see below) given by Pius XII.

C. It must be possible for the spouses to practice periodic continence without sin.

If one of these reasons is lacking NFP is illicit and sinful.


A. The reason must be grave and morally proportioned.
Pius XII, in his allocutions, speaks of the necessity of

• "sufficiently morally sure motives" (619)
  
• "grave motives or reasons" (620, 621)
  
• "serious motives" (622)
  
• "notable disadvantages" (790).
  

Clearly then, NFP may not be used for any reason whatsoever. What is more, these

"serious motives' must be "independent of the good will" of the spouses (620). 

Therefore, sufficient reasons are not those which are the fault of the couple themselves, or which they could dispel if they so willed; for example, a Father who does not want to work or a mother who does not want to have children.

Those who enter matrimony are obliged to accept the duties of this state and this under pain of sin. Moreover, the allotted reasons must not be "inseparable from the law itself, nor inherent in its fulfillment" (790). 

This important precision, made by Pius XII in 1958 eliminates as reasons the difficulties that accompany every pregnancy,

the risk of deformation in every conception, the duty which all Parents have to educate their children, the normal restrictions which every new mouth to feed will put on a family budget, etc.. All of these difficulties are inherent in the fulfillment of the law of matrimony. They should have been foreseen before entering into this state. Is then any motive sufficient as long as it is extraordinary? No, it must be a "motive of serious proportions (789) that is, a weighty motive. 

But what is the necessary gravity? The gravity is proportioned to the duty, which the spouses have to provide the human race with future citizens, and the Catholic Church with future believers. AND THIS IS A GRAVE DUTY, OBLIGING UNDER PAIN OF GRAVE SIN. "Therefore, the motive in question must be real and proven, not imaginary, supposed or improbable." Pope Pius XII, in his allocution to midwives already quoted, points to four sources, in which we may find truly grave motives, exempting husband and wife from their obligatory and positive debt for a long period, or even for the entire period of their matrimonial life. Since the Pope states that these four "indications" (622) arise "not rarely "(622), we shall take a special look at each of them.


B. The four "indications".
These four sources of exemption are "the so-called medical, eugenic, economic and social indications" (622), because, if one truly exists, "the general principle may be applied that a positive action may be omitted with grave motives [...] show that its performance is inopportune, or prove that it may not be claimed with equal right of the petitioner - in this case, mankind" (620). [It must be noted, however, that the sole existence of one of these four exemptions only makes periodic continence licit if the spouses are able to practice it without sin (See below: C).]


1. The Medical indication is a serious danger to the health or the life of the mother, diagnosed by a doctor, qualified either from a scientific point of view or from a moral point of view. In such a case the obligation "of providing for the preservation of mankind" (621) ceases, because a woman is not obliged. by the matrimonial contract, to expose herself to dangers or injury which are not ordinarily part of maternity (Courier de Rome, June 1991, p.2).
Rev. Fr. George Kelly, in The Catholic Marriage Manual, describes the medical indication:

"A doctor may advise a couple against having children. For example, a woman recovering from a serious operation might lack the strength to carry a child. A woman suffering from an incurable disease might face the likelihood of death soon after her baby is born." Likewise, "a husband's health might be so poor that he might not support a child" (Op.cit. p.56).

However the Manual adds a word of warning:

"It is important [...], however, not to accept the judgment of a single doctor as infallibly decreeing the death of the next pregnancy. Too many of us know of women so instructed who bore many children safely. A doctor can be wrong. The better the doctor, the less he is inclined to lay claim to infallibility in making these observations. [...] It should be remembered, too, that doctors, though men of science, are not always scientific in their practical determinations. Like anyone else, they may have a small-family mentality and are quick to convert their patients to this way of life (ibid)." 

The Manual goes on to recommend the consultation of a good Catholic obstetrician, if one can be found. The longer the spouses practice periodic continence, the graver the "medical indication" must be. According to specialists, "there are few maternal illnesses that absolutely counter-indicate procreation" and therefore authorize the perpetual practice of NFP. However, the deficient health of a mother, or a state of overwork, may suffice for the spouses to temporarily defer another pregnancy, by periodic or complete abstinence, awaiting the return of healthy equilibrium to the mother. The Church permits this spacing as long as it can be accomplished without sin.

It should be noted that breastfeeding, which is almost always a moral obligation [Pius XII, Allocution to Mothers, October 26, 1941, (Solesmes - The Woman) and June, Moral Theology. n 200) has also been shown to be a truly natural way of spacing children.

2. The Eugenic indication is the almost absolute certainty that one will bring into the world physically or psychologically deformed children. In such a case, with regard to the social good, the obligation to procreation ceases. However, it is necessary to remark "with regard to the personal good of the children, that it is better for these to exist than not." (V. Palazzini. Dictionnarium morale et canonicum see continentia periodica - Courrier de Rome, Loc. cit.). Since the existence of every human being, once conceived, is sacred, the abortion of any fetus known to be deformed is completely unjustified. It is very sad to note that today, through genetics and embryo farming, Godless science and government are leading us into a world of a new super-race into which even many like ourselves will be refused entry.



3. The Economic indication is a real concrete situation, which obliges the spouses to realize that their economic means are insufficient to assume the expenses joined to the arrival of another child. In such a case, the obligation to procreation ceases, although

the Church counsels to confide in the Providence of God, Who "does not refuse the means to live to those He calls to life" (Pius XII, Jan. 20, 1958). 

Concerning this economic indication, The Catholic Marriage Manual states:

"The obligation of parenthood does not require a couple to have as many children as is humanly possible, as some critics allege. However, they should have at many children as they can support reasonably. This does not mean that they must be deeply in debt to the loan companies before practicing periodic continence. Nor does it mean that rhythm is justified until they have sufficient savings to insure a college education for the child." (Op.cit. p.57). 

However, we can only too highly recommend generosity and confidence in Providence. Without these, we would not have had a St. Bernadette of Lourdes, born of a large family in extreme poverty, and a St. Catherine of Siena, a 23rd child.


4. The Social indication is made up of "serious reasons in the social order". Father Kelly gives the two following examples: poor housing conditions, which force a couple to live in such crowded quarters that an additional child would indeed create a great burden; a man who expects to be sent to work in a distant place for a number of years, incapacitating him to fulfill his responsibilities as a father (The Catholic Marriage Manual , p.57). Another example would be the social conditions during wartime.



Father Ceriani adds:

"A large family requires a number of conditions which are not always present; among these are found, not only the physical health of the mother, but also the spiritual capabilities [or psychological qualities (trans.)] of both partners: prudence, the capacity of making decisions, strength of character, nervous equilibrium, calm, etc.. "The primary end of matrimony is the procreation and the education of the offspring. The Church recognizes the value of education, especially of a Christian formation, which infinitely supersedes that of simple birth. "Catholic doctrine does not in any way adopt the theory of those extremists who are in favor of procreation; it could be that prudence at times may not advise births too close together, which put obstacles to education."On the other hand, we must not forget that a large family offers a special means for the acquisition and practice of the virtues: denial of self, love of work, poverty, mutual aid, fraternal correction, etc.. The family, with one or two children, does not facilite a Christian education. "There is a virtuous equilibrium that should be established (according to the physical condition of the spouses', as well as the circumstances in which modern anti-Christian society 'obliges' catholic families to live), keeping in view only the glory of God and the salvation of their souls and those of their children. Evidently in this, more than in other cases, the counsel of a priest is necessary (Jesus Christus, June-July 1992,p.8). 

One last word concerning the "social indication ". Some persons affirm that it would even be sinful to bring children into our present modern society. Despite its noble appearance, this is in reality a most cowardly and ridiculous assertion. In fact, it is because of the immensity of the evil forces that all Catholic parents are obliged to do all in their power to bring into this world and to educate good and Catholic children to counteract, if necessary by the blood of martyrdom, the evils of today. Catholic parents must take courage and fulfill their glorious role in forming the Christian soldiers of tomorrow.



Nor is it reasonable to say: "The world is overpopulated with children, no use our adding to the mess." Even if the world were overpopulated, it is not overpopulated with good and Catholic children, who, in principle, should not add to the mess but help clean it up.

"Christian parents must realize", states Pius XI, "that they are called not merely to propagate and preserve the human race on earth, nor even to procreate men who worship the true God in just any way, but to give children to the Church of God, to procreate fellow citizens of the saints and members of God's household (see Eph. 2. 19), so that the number of worshippers of God and of our Savior may be constantly increased."(Casti Connubii, Dec. 31. 1930, 276). 

It is not only the salvation of the children, which should encourage parents to generosity, but also their own salvation. Men should remember their duty, imposed upon Adam by the Creator (Gen. 3; 17-20), to work to support their family. In being faithful to duty, they will save their souls. "Women,", says St. Paul, "will be saved by childbearing, if they continue in faith and love and holiness with modesty" (1 Tim. 2;15). These words of Holy Scripture may not please the emancipation movement, but they remain the Revealed Word of God, and thus, worthy of serious meditation.



To summarize what we have seen concerning the 'four indications", we once again quote Fr. Ceriani:

"The will of God in the domain of procreation is manifested to the spouses by all of the events in their domestic life, which do not escape the plan of Divine Providence [...] According as such an event is translated by a difficulty [a serious difficulty, as we have amply seen, ed.] of a medical, eugenic, economic or social order, the spouses will recognize the will of God, permitting for them, in this case, as long as should last, periodic continence, compatible with the Law of God (Ibid, P.8-9).. 

Note well, the last condition that, even if one of the four "indications" is present, the periodic continence, as practiced by the spouses, must be "compatible with the law of God". This means that the practice of NFP must not place either of the spouses in a near occasion of mortal sin. Let us consider this important condition.



C. Periodic continence must be mutually agreed upon and possible for the spouses without sin.
Like Pope Pius XII, Paul VI spoke, in his encyclical "Humanae vitae" (n 10) of the possibility of practicing periodic continence "for serious reasons and in respect for the moral Law". It is this "respect for the moral law" that interests us here. The Catholic Marriage Manual quotes on this point, Father John A. Goodwine, of St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, N.Y.. Assuming that, in one particular case, circumstances of a medical, eugenic, social or economic nature justify periodic continence, Father Goodwine explains that there would already be sin if mutual agreement on its use was not present.

"Neither partner may insist on abstinence against the reasonable protest of the other. The reason for this is the marriage contract. By that contract each partner agrees to satisfy the reasonable and serious request of the other for marital relations; for one partner to default on this contract would be a serious violation of justice. Accordingly, the practice of periodic continence would be lawful when, and just as long as, it is mutually agreeable to the spouses (Op. cit.,p.57)." 

Father Goodwine continues:

"The second requisite is that both husband and wife must be able to practice continence during the so-called fertile days. The use of periodic continence demands no little self-control. When a couple attempts to restrict the use of marriage to the sterile period, there may arise occasions of serious sin. The attempt may lead to sins of self-abuse, to mutual fondling to the point of culpable pollution, and even to infidelity. These dangers are especially great in the case of men; but women are by no means exempt from them." 

TO WHAT EXTENT IS THE RHYTHM SINFUL, WHEN THE CONDITIONS ARE NOT FULFILLED?
The Catholic Marriage Manual continues:

"If the necessary conditions are not met in a particular case, would a couple sin in practicing periodic continence? If it is sinful, how serious is the sin?" 

Writing in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Father Goodwine has answered:

"If any one of the required conditions (that the parties be willing to abstain, that they be able to abstain without proximate danger of serious sin [...) is not met, recourse to periodic continence will be sinful. In certain cases, seriously sinful. For instance, if the first condition is not verified, and the practice of periodic continence is insisted on by one partner against the reasonable objections of the other, a sin of injustice would be committed. [...] So also, If the second condition is not met, and the practice of periodic continence becomes a proximate occasion of sins against chastity, there would be a serious sin." 

Would it also be a serious sin to practice NFP without grave motive, that is, without one of the four serious "indications" mentioned by Pope Pius XII? Fr. Ceriani answers, presenting two possibilities:

a) "If the use of matrimony is limited exclusively to the periods of natural sterility deliberately so as to perpetually avoid the conception of a child, without any other reason than to satisfy sensuality and egoism, wishing to enjoy marriage while rejecting its inherent duties, a mortal sin would be committed, from the very first conjugal act, realized with this intention. 

b) "When matrimony is used exclusively on infertile days, with the intention of avoiding only temporarily, the conception of a child, there will be mortal sin when two or three children are not born as a consequence of this practice." 27 

Other moralists say the use of this practice, for the space of a year, without a proportional reason would already constitute a mortal sin. Father Goodwine states bluntly:

"There is a tendency to limit the discussion of periodic continence to questions of strict morality, to concentrate almost exclusively on right and wrong, to attempt to draw the line between what may and what may not be done without committing sin. All too often, such discussions lose sight of the Christian ideal of family life. Hardly ever do we hear any mention of the ideal of parenthood or of family life as the ideal type of married Life. "God instituted marriage as the means for the propagation of the race. The fruitful marriage, therefore, and not the sterile marriage, is the marriage that falls in best with God's plan. Having children is the primary goal of marriage. The family, therefore, consisting in father, mother and children is the ideal for the Christian. "There is something amiss when a couple wishes to marry, yet does not want to have any children; or determines to postpone having children for one, two or more years; or intends to have only three or four or six children but no more. A priest friend of mine likens such people to a young man, seeking ordination to the priesthood, who makes the stipulation that he will never have to say Mass, administer the sacraments, preach, or take duty. Such a young man would be seeking to avoid the very purposes for which men are ordained to the priesthood. So, too, the married couple who, without sufficient reason, fail to fulfill their purpose in life. Even the couple, which has a sufficient reason for practicing rhythm, can be counseled to do more than is required by duty; to strive deliberately and consciously after the ideal."

RHYTHM, INADVISABLE FOR YOUNG COUPLES.
The Catholic Marriage Manual also states:

"Practicing rhythm is particularly inadvisable for young couples. During the early years of marriage, the emotional and physical needs for intercourse probably are at their greatest. Moreover, a young husband and wife who abstain during the fertile 'period have no way of knowing whether their marriage really will be fertile. And If they are not fertile, the best time to discover this condition is when they are young - and when cures for sterility have the best chance to succeed." 

If rhythm is not advisable for young couples, self-restraint is. Pius XI warns that the married should:

"use their matrimonial rights always in a Christian and sacred way, especially in the early days, so that, should circumstances subsequently require them to observe continence, their habit of self restraint will help them more easily to do so" (Casti Connubii, Dec. 31, 1930, 377).

COMPLETE ABSTINENCE.
It may indeed become absolutely necessary, especially because of the "medical indication", to avoid the conception of a child. It is then that the Church and ethical medical science recommend complete abstinence as the safest solution, providing it, too, can be kept without sin. "It will be objected, as it could be for periodic continence, "that such an abstention is impossible, that such heroism is asking too much." This, says Pius XII, is "a false conclusion." And to confirm his assertion the Pope quotes these words of the Council of Trent, taken from the works of St. Augustine:

"God does not command the impossible, but, while commanding, He warns thee to do what thou art able, and to pray for what thou art not able (to do), and He aids thee that thou mayest be able. (626). 

Pius XII explains:

"He who does not want to master himself is not able to do so, and he who wishes to master himself relying only upon his own powers, without sincerely and perseveringly seeking divine help, will be miserably deceived" (627).

THE HEDONISM OF TODAY.
Such ideas are indeed foreign to the society in which we live, in which there is little question of even entering into matrimony, never mind respecting its primary duty and also its sacred character. On the contrary, like Pius XII, we should deplore that the Christian dignity of matrimony has been smeared by a "Natural Family Planning" mentality, by this anti-Christian hedonism which inculcates the intense desire to ever increase the pleasure in the preparation and in the performance of the conjugal union; as if in matrimonial relations, the whole moral law were reduced to the normal performance of the act itself, and as all the rest, in whatever way it is done, were to be justified by the expression of mutual affection, sanctified by the Sacrament of Matrimony, worthy of praise and reward before God and conscience. There is no thought at all of the dignity of man and of the Christian - a dignity that restrains the excess of sensuality.

"No; the gravity and sanctity of the Christian moral law do not admit an unchecked satisfaction of the sexual instinct, tending only to pleasure and enjoyment,' they do not permit rational man to let himself be mastered to such an extent, neither as regards the substance nor the circumstances of the act. "There are some who would allege that happiness in marriage is in direct proportion to the reciprocal enjoyment in conjugal relations. It is not so indeed, happiness in marriage is in direct proportion to the mutual respect of the partners, even in their intimate relations,' not that they regard as immoral and refuse what nature offers and what the Creator has given, but because this respect, and the mutual esteem which it produces, is one of the strongest elements of a pure love, which, for this reason is more tender" (648,649,650).

THlE CATHOLIC ALTERNATIVE TO CONTRACEPTION.
The ideal of matrimony and its "sacrificial aspect" (770) preached by Pius XII (Message to the World congress of the Family, June 10, 1958) is at antipodes with contraception. One may well ask, is there, can there be a "Catholic alternative to contraception"? The answer is clearly no, if is sought another means to satisfy the passions, without assuming one's obligations. The answer is yes, if is sought the will of God. And what is this "alternative to contraception"? It could be, in some cases, we do not deny, periodic continence or, if necessary, perpetual abstinence. But it could also be a large family. Whatever it is, it will not be found without the Cross and sacrifice, for it is only by these that a Christian marriage will bring forth fruit. "Whosoever does not carry his Cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Lc. 14;27).
Footnote: (1) The numbers in parentheses found throughout this article after certain papal statements refer to the paragraph numbers in Papal teachings MATRIMONY, Selected and arranged by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes, St Paul Editions 1963.

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- CATHOLIC APOLOGETICS -

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