Reference please. Your opinion is not the same as Church law.
St Joseph refused to fulfill the marriage debt, by an act of his will.
Here: you can go argue with Fr Scott if you want past this. As he states: the Church only allows it for incredibly serious reasons. Many doctors these days tell women that another pregnancy will kill them and it’s totally unfounded and in reality many of these women don’t actually have serious reason. However he also stated that NFP comes from contraceptive mentalities whether the Church permits it in extreme cases or not. Were a couple to mutually decide to abstain (say for Lent) that’s a different story. The MOTIVE behind the abstinence is key here. Is it for resorting to prayer and fasting, as a penance or is it because oh gee we just don’t want another kid? We’ve lost the Catholic mentality of what a family is. Large Catholic families should be normal, but of course opening up to the world and allowing couples their “Catholic birth control” has stopped this from happening. Married couple have been given a sacrament! Religious sisters and brothers, third order members, confraternity members don’t get a special sacrament, but married couples do, and when they receive that from God, shouldn’t they return the favour by giving back to Him what he asks of them, ie, children to populate Heaven?
As it stands, I’m 28 years old, I’m been married for 5.5 years, and my 4th child was born less then three week ago. And I can tell you from experience that when you follow the laws that’s God has established for marriage, he rewards you tenfold what you give back. Don’t tell me “I can’t afford children” unless you are actually truly unable to hold a job. Catholics shouldn’t buy into worldly lies about marriage and family life.
Is a marriage valid if a couple agrees beforehand to limit the number of children by artificial birth control or Natural Family Planning?
The Church’s teaching is summarized in canon 1013 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which states that "the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children." The intention of having children, provided that this is possible, is consequently essential to the very substance of the matrimonial contract, which is for "acts which are in themselves capable of engendering children" (cf. canon 1081, 1917 Code of Canon Law).
The importance of children as the primary end of marriage was again stressed by the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII:
To the question: "Whether the views of certain recent writers can be admitted, who either deny that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children, or teach that the secondary ends are not necessarily subordinate to the primary end, but are equally principal and independent," the reply was: In the negative (quoted in Bouscaren & Ellis, Canon Law, p.400).
Yet the 1983 Code of Canon Law embraces the personalist conception condemned less than 40 years earlier by not only placing the two ends of marriage on an equal and independent level, but even listing first the secondary end (i.e., mutual support, or the personal good of the spouses):
The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered towards the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring (canon 1055, §1, 1983 Code of Canon Law).
It is ultimately this new concept of marriage, as being for the couple themselves, and not so much for children, which has resulted in the refusal of Catholics since Vatican II to have large families. Artificial birth control, which is the destruction of Catholic families, is no longer condemned as a mortal sin, for marriage is now considered in a selfish way, as being for the couple itself, rather than an outpouring of love desiring to participate in God’s work of creation and sanctification of His children. The so-called practice of Natural Family Planning (NFP), propagated in the post-Conciliar Church as a "Catholic" method of contraception, derives also from the same contraceptive mentality. Since marriage is considered primarily for the couple itself, they consider themselves free to determine the number of children and their spacing. This can be a mortal sin if NFP is employed without sufficient reason, as approved by the Church (e.g., serious eugenic, social, or medical reasons, such as danger to the life of the mother through additional children). Whether it be through artificial or natural means that the first purpose of marriage is frustrated, such couples who are not willing to accept all the children God sends them do indeed fail to live up to their marriage vows.
However, this does not mean the marriage vows with the condition of limiting children by artificial contraception or natural family planning are necessarily invalid. The exclusion of children is certainly a grounds for a declaration of nullity, but only when there is an explicit, provable, and positive act of the will to avoid children, that is, only when the obligation of having children, as being the fulfillment of the first purpose of marriage, is explicitly excluded. For this is an intention contrary to the substance of marriage itself. The difficulty in such cases is to determine whether it is the obligation of having children which is refused, or whether it is simply the fulfillment of this obligation (cf. Bouscaren, Canon Law Digest, I, pp. 532,533).
Those couples who accept the obligation of having children are certainly validly married, even if they do not always fulfill this obligation, e.g., by limiting the number of their children. This is the case of those selfish couples, without faith in Divine Providence, who are determined to limit the size of their family for reasons of convenience or simply because they prefer it that way. They commit a grave sin, even if it is by NFP that they presume to do this. They are truly married, but they will never be able to communicate to their children generosity, the spirit of sacrifice, the love of the Cross, of souls and the Church.
Moreover, even if a couple deliberately excludes all children, the Church always presumes, until proven otherwise, that it is the fulfillment of the duty that is excluded, and not the obligation of having children itself, and that consequently the marriage is valid. [Answered by Fr. Peter R. Scott]
Not to preach NFP, but I have to call you out on your error here. Periodic abstinence during fertile periods is NOT the same as contraception. Contraception is the deliberate frustration of the procreative aspect of the marriage act. It is separating the unitive and procreative aspects, by deliberately and artificially removing the procreative aspect out of the equation. That is, by using chemicals, barriers, etc. By contraception, the husband and wife don't give/receive all they should in the act -- they positively exclude the possibility of children.
That is not true when the act is done in a completely natural and normal manner, with no man-made artifices intervening.
You can be against NFP, but let's not exaggerate. We are bound by truth here. If sticking with the truth makes NFP seem or sound permissible -- then *gasp* maybe it is! It wouldn't be the end of the world. What's more important is to NEVER deny a single truth.
Matthew
And while the Church says there are times when it is permissible, Fr Scott still concludes that “Whether it be through artificial or natural means that the first purpose of marriage is frustrated, such couples who are not willing to accept all the children God sends them do indeed fail to live up to their marriage vows”
Accepting this isn’t denying truth or reality, it’s accepting a fact.