Correct, Bellator.  Pius XII has had to answer for his NFP revolution.

Right.  Was just trying to use a term other than 'primary end'.  I agree wholeheartedly with you on this topic.

I know.   I wasn't trying to argue with you.  I just keyed on the "Openness to Life" terminology that the Novus Ordo has become so fond of.

I have been away from this forum for awhile, just out here lurking.

I am posting today, because a great source of sadness for me right now, at 50, is that, while a NO Catholic, my husband and I practiced NFP.  Before converting to Catholicism, we used other birth control methods. 

We have 7 children and I love them all dearly, but I wonder so many times how many are not here because of our practice of NFP.  

Once I decided that I wasn't going to do it anymore, my children started coming around 2 years apart.  I guess I can reasonably assume that my body worked that way.  But we didn't throw NFP away until after our 4th child was born...and she was born primarily because I felt unhappy doing all the checking and charting.

I did lose one child in a miscarriage, but before I converted to NO Catholicism.

Would we have had 9 or 10 children?  More?  

In those days of NO, I knew many women who gave up the NFP and just went to using pills or patches.  They reasoned it was all the same and not as gross.

I knew what we were doing when we were doing it.  And I felt unloved, because my husband only wanted me when I couldn't conceive.  

So I'm not going to argue about what constitutes grave reason or if it even exists.  I never had any health problems associated with pregnancy.  We did suffer the loss of a job or two during those years, but we always managed financially.  And eventually we did buy a 12 passenger van, but I never got to fill it up because I was too old.  It fit the 9 of us and our dog comfortably, but there was always room for one or two more.

Forgive me for being overly emotional.  I guess I mention it because sometimes one of the spouses in the NFP couple often feels guilty or uncertain, but they are often told they are just being scrupulous, like I was told.  

I'm glad we rejected it, but when a woman is 36 she doesn't really have that many child bearing years left. I was fortunate to have 3 more children, but a great many are not that blessed.

Please don't be too upset.  God uses even our bad and sinful decisions towards His will.  Those souls whom He willed to come into existence in your family have.  Now that you've repented, you are forgiven and all is as it should be.

Let's take the analogy of murder.  I go out and murder someone.  Now, it was in fact God's will that the person whom I murdered should have died that day.  But that still makes me guilty as if it had not been.  Now, once I repent and am forgiven by God, everything becomes as it should be.

Conversely, if I were to have fornicated and conceived a child out of wedlock, it is still God's will that the child came into existence ... despite His not having willed the sin (St. Augustine uses this example).  Same is true of the reverse.

So the guilt is distinguishable from the actual outcome.  I am held guilty ... until I repent ... AS IF I had prevented souls from coming into being, but everything in the end falls into line with God's will.

PS -- 2 years in between children is VERY common for those who nurse ... as nursing causes the woman's hormones to change so that there are fewer children.  We can't be scrupulous and, say, stop nursing, just so we can have MORE children.

Thank you for these comments.  I nursed all my children, so I am aware of how that naturally spaces births.  I never really thought about everything becoming as it should be.  This has been helpful.
My husband encourages me not to dwell on it, especially since we have 7.  Mostly, I don't dwell, but I do wonder sometimes and I do continue to feel sorrowful.  I don't weep and fret, but I do bear my sorrow within.  Probably my temperament.

I have been away from this forum for awhile, just out here lurking.

I am posting today, because a great source of sadness for me right now, at 50, is that, while a NO Catholic, my husband and I practiced NFP.  Before converting to Catholicism, we used other birth control methods.

We have 7 children and I love them all dearly, but I wonder so many times how many are not here because of our practice of NFP.  

Once I decided that I wasn't going to do it anymore, my children started coming around 2 years apart.  I guess I can reasonably assume that my body worked that way.  But we didn't throw NFP away until after our 4th child was born...and she was born primarily because I felt unhappy doing all the checking and charting.

I did lose one child in a miscarriage, but before I converted to NO Catholicism.

Would we have had 9 or 10 children?  More?  

In those days of NO, I knew many women who gave up the NFP and just went to using pills or patches.  They reasoned it was all the same and not as gross.

I knew what we were doing when we were doing it.  And I felt unloved, because my husband only wanted me when I couldn't conceive.  

So I'm not going to argue about what constitutes grave reason or if it even exists.  I never had any health problems associated with pregnancy.  We did suffer the loss of a job or two during those years, but we always managed financially.  And eventually we did buy a 12 passenger van, but I never got to fill it up because I was too old.  It fit the 9 of us and our dog comfortably, but there was always room for one or two more.

Forgive me for being overly emotional.  I guess I mention it because sometimes one of the spouses in the NFP couple often feels guilty or uncertain, but they are often told they are just being scrupulous, like I was told.  

I'm glad we rejected it, but when a woman is 36 she doesn't really have that many child bearing years left. I was fortunate to have 3 more children, but a great many are not that blessed.

Thank you for writing this - I agree totally with your sentiments.  
NFP may be based on a natural feature of our biology but it still involves the deliberate rejection of both the requirement to be open to children in marriage and the essential purpose of the marital act.
We have also practiced this sin and bitterly regret it and the loss of those children God might otherwise have given us had we trusted in him and submitted to his will.