Last night I was reading a forum at Angelqueen on the subject and was frustrated with the responses. One guy who was defending NFP was asked for the "grave reasons" under which a priest might advocate its use. He didn't respond, and people assumed he had backed out of the fight. They also assumed that there were never any grave reasons for using NFP.
Well, here is an example of a grave reason. Imagine a woman named Betsy and her husband Tim who have had six or seven children -- or even three or four! Dear old Betsy is worn out and exhausted and inadvertently ignoring the needs of her husband, because she is busy with the kids. She comes on a traditional Catholic website for help and everyone tells her about their great-great-great-grandparents in Scotland who had 68 kids and lived in the sewer and were happy. Betsy is in despair, she's a terrible mother and terrible Catholic, etc. She determines to have more kids. This is because Betsy, despite her self-doubt, is a good Catholic trying to do what she is told.
Now, let's say the husband works at an aerospace company where his job is a bit precarious, because of the influx of youth. One such youth is Rachel the Redhead, 28 years old and fresh out of graduate school, who wears a fetching set of cat-eyed eyeglasses and nibbles ever so adorably on a pen when she works out her problems of engineering calculus. Rachel is not only pretty and young but she has the same interests as hubby. They've started to have lunch together. Tim can still smell her perfume when he drives home. What a team they would make! Rachel revitalizes him, she gives him ideas, she makes him want to work again! Tim has come alive!
Tim so far has fought the good fight and repressed his urges for Rachel. But he IS being tempted, and he IS only human. Then he comes home to Betsy, who is looking a little ragged, and who is also sinking into a slight depression. She spends most of her day on the couch staring off into space. There is a feeling of torpor about her. Yes, I know Catholics SHOULD never fall into depression, just as Catholics SHOULD never have eyes for anyone but their wife. But they do.
Tim now begins to lose his faith. He looks around at the kids and feels no pleasure in their existence. He is sick of the burdens that Catholicism is imposing on him, and wondering if life with Rachel wouldn't be more pleasant. Every time he thinks of Rachel he imagines romping about with her on a beach in the Bahamas, free of all cares, then retreating to a cabana at night to cuddle up and solve equations together in their pyjamas. In short, Tim is losing it, the devil has him right in his grip. A Mel Gibson-style fall is in the offing.
Tim makes one last valiant effort to rekindle his love for his wife. He tries to be romantic with her. Betsy, as we have seen is a good Catholic who wants to perform the main duty of a Catholic wife, which is child-bearing. So she says teasingly, "Ready for another?" and he has to admit to himself that he is not. At this point, he wants sex, plain and simple. And he doesn't want "Honey, angle yourself so the sperm has easier entry to the egg" sex. He wants to feel loved and comforted. He is scared that he is drifting away from his family and he needs his wife to help him without putting even more pressure on him than he already has.
It's all very well to say that Tim SHOULD want another kid at this moment but what if he DOESN'T? The marriage is in danger -- Tim is even saying he made a mistake and should never have had this many kids. Should Betsy refuse his request to satisfy his urges? Should she tell him, "No, dear, if we're not intending to have a kid, we should be celibate. That is what Jesus would want." Tim would be in Rachel the Redhead's bed the very next day. Betsy would be failing to protect her marriage, and failing to try to keep the father of her family in the family home and to avert his midlife crisis.
We must learn to differentiate the ideal from the real. Betsy is a better Catholic than Tim. But she is still not ideal. And her marriage is definitely not ideal. That's because no marriage is! The girls who are all adamantly opposed to NFP in any circuмstances, I suspect, are young and naive. I also suspect they have a nasty shock coming to them as repayment for their arrogance, when they see that even their SSPX-attending husband is not perfect. Or that they themselves are not perfect. ( I already know they're not, because if they were, they wouldn't say "una cuм" for Anti-Christ! :scared2: ) <-- I'm leaving this here as an example of breaking the rules. If you can't avoid the random sedevacantist jabs, I'll have to move your posts to the "Crisis" section.
I doubt there are many couples in the history of Christianity who haven't had relations from time to time without aiming at pregnancy. Back then the excuse would be "Oops, I slipped out." This is why the Church has always taught that couples are "not to be impeded" who have sex without procreation in mind. The problem with NFP is that it is vague, and if used incorrectly, could lead to onanism. Many people are confused about it and think it gives them license to have a childless, fruitless marriage. It doesn't.
This story of Tim and Betsy and Rachel the Redhead is an example of a grave condition. I could think of many more. But all catechisms before Vatican II talk about the satisfaction of the sɛҳuąƖ urge being one of the duties of a wife or husband. Therefore, even in the catechism, it clearly STATES, not just implies, that there are other reasons for sɛҳuąƖ relations in marriage than childbearing.
Childbearing is the PRIMARY reason for marriage. A couple who marry without the intent to have children, just to rub against each other enjoyably but fruitlessly for forty years, obviously do not understand Catholicism and are engaging in onanism. But sex is also there for the relief of urges and for intimacy. That is the SECONDARY reason. Where you slip into mortal sin is if you put the secondary reason where the primary reason should be. NFP should be something that is used in a crisis point of a marriage, as described above. As in all things, we must watch ourselves, weigh our own motives, and discuss everything with our sedevacantist priest.
The war against NFP is just another version of the Feeneyite controversy. It is an overreaction to the liberality of the Novus Ordo. I believe the word is "overscrupulosity." Or "fanaticism."
-- Michael de la Sota
Topic: A Natural Family Planning Thread. (Read 4585 times)