Author Topic: Church Teaching Regarding Children (Read 3826 times)

Tiffany · « **Reply #10 on:** July 03, 2013, 08:32:53 AM »

Quote from: JohnGrey

Quote from: Napoli
I agree with John grey

If a couple abstains coconsensually, it's a form of NFP, which is evil.

I don't agree that it's an objective evil but I can conceive really of only a very few cases in which such a thing would be licit. The circuмstance which I consider to have the greatest probability of licitness is in the case where there is sufficient biological or genetic disorder on behalf of the parents that the reasonable probability that any prospective child could be carried to sufficient maturity to receive baptism is virtually nil. In such a case, preventing souls from unnecessarily being condemned to limbo should, I believe, be construed as moral good. That said, in such a case, so as to cultivate temperance and absolute trust in Divine Providence, I would argue that it would behoove the couple in question to practice as chaste a marriage as possible.

wife is under going chemotherapy
wife was just discharged from the hospital due to a severe infection
upcoming surgery
severe congestive heart failure
stage 4 cancer

JohnGrey · « **Reply #11 on:** July 03, 2013, 09:25:25 AM »

Quote from: Tiffany

Quote from: JohnGrey
Quote from: Napoli
I agree with John grey

If a couple abstains coconsensually, it's a form of NFP, which is evil.

I don't agree that it's an objective evil but I can conceive really of only a very few cases in which such a thing would be licit. The circuмstance which I consider to have the greatest probability of licitness is in the case where there is sufficient biological or genetic disorder on behalf of the parents that the reasonable probability that any prospective child could be carried to sufficient maturity to receive baptism is virtually nil. In such a case, preventing souls from unnecessarily being condemned to limbo should, I believe, be construed as moral good. That said, in such a case, so as to cultivate temperance and absolute trust in Divine Providence, I would argue that it would behoove the couple in question to practice as chaste a marriage as possible.

wife is under going chemotherapy
wife was just discharged from the hospital due to a severe infection
upcoming surgery
severe congestive heart failure
stage 4 cancer

:smile: All of those fall under biological complications that seriously retard the fecundity of marriage, either temporarily or permanently. In any of those cases, it achieves the double good of increasing the survivability of the mother as well as preventing another soul from being damned to limbo.

Napoli · « **Reply #12 on:** July 03, 2013, 12:00:52 PM »

I was not judging. I am sure there are good reasons to abstain. But, they are the exception not the norm.

songbird · « **Reply #13 on:** July 03, 2013, 12:10:53 PM »

What God has made and designed is not evil. It is the attitude and reasoning behind it that is judged. There is nothing evil in postponing with grave reason.

d15 · « **Reply #14 on:** July 03, 2013, 02:10:25 PM »

Thank you for all of the answers thus far. I wasn't terribly clear in my original post, but what I was really getting at was the third point I made, not the first two.

If a married couple is doing nothing to avoid having a child, and has a "normal" life when it comes to the frequency of the marital act, but the wife does not get pregnant, am I correct in believing that the couple commits no sin by simply continuing to live as they are? In other words, married couples are under no obligation to make a concerted effort to have more (or any) children, whether that means engaging in the marital act more often, around the time the wife is most fertile, etc.