St. Catherine of Siena was part of a HUGE family. Were her parents wicked?
Not wicked, but her mother was vain, obsessed with making St. Catherine dye her hair and attract a mate, and she even encouraged St. Catherine's married sister, who died shortly thereafter, to inspire vanity in St. Catherine.
this is Puritanism with a Catholic veneer. You can always recognize it by the primary idea: that sex is something bad, something dirty, something to be avoided for its own sake.
However, coitus "for its own sake" is lust and a sign of the contraceptive mentality; within marriage, such coitus is at least a venial sin.
Procreation certainly is good, but coitus is this post-lapsarian world is always accompanied by concupiscence, which is evil and which must be excused by the marriage goods; see St. Thomas's article "
Whether certain blessings are necessary in order to excuse marriage?"
Next, the OP sounds like a Manichean! The Manicheans argued exactly as the OP did, claiming the flesh evil, and therefore the marital union to be a great evil, enslaving souls to the destitution of the flesh. But this is an error that was overcome nearly two thousand years ago by St. Augustine.
St. Augustine wrote about concupiscence in coitus (quotes from
here):
So let good spouses use the evil of concupiscence well, just as a wise man uses an imprudent servant for good tasks.
I hold that to use lust is not always a sin, because to use evil well is not a sin.
As for the warfare experienced by chaste persons, whether celibate or married, we assert that there could have been no such thing [as lust] in paradise before sin. Marriage is still the same, but in begetting children nothing evil would then have been used; now the evil of concupiscence is used well.
This evil is used well by faithful spouses.
As to children being a hindrance to the spiritual life, the world is a hindrance to the spiritual life.
And marriage is a tie to the world; therefore, it is a hindrance to the spiritual life. St. Thomas writes (
Whether, in this life, perfection consists in the observance of the commandments or of the counsels?):
the counsels are directed to the removal of things that hinder the act of charity, and yet are not contrary to charity, such as marriage, the occupation of worldly business, and so forth.
How do you understand 1 Cor. 7:33: "he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world: how he may please his wife. And he is divided."?
God also taught, "Be fruitful and multiply."
But that is no longer binding under the New Law; cf. St. Thomas: "
Whether matrimony still comes under a precept?" Nowhere do you see in the New Testament God saying that people should have children; He concedes that they may marry lest they fall into greater evils (1 Cor. 7:9: "For it is better to marry than to be burnt.").
Who's being a Puritan here? 
The Puritans are called that because they thought they were pure from papolatry.
Topic: Why aren't Catholics ashamed of having large families? (Read 4509 times)