NFP for "Spacing"

[Benedicta00]

ok so its contraception. what we need to worry about is if its ok to nfp for certain reasons in Gods eyes.. i think if you really really cant afford/raise another kid, God doesnt want married folks to stop doing it

The deal is this, the actual act itself must be unitve and procreative. You can not do anything to the act itself to cause either one of those things to be compromised. If the act takes place during a time of infertility then you are not doing anything to remove it yourself. It is God who made us the way He did, we really can’t argue with that. But if you on purpose yourself remove any aspect of the act itself then it is immoral. If you determine now is not the time to have more children due to legitimate objective reasons then you reframe from the act. There is no act-taking place so there is no contraception being done. Now if you simple have made up your mind that you will not have children and you are not willing to have them under any circumstance and you use NFP for that purpose them, this is a matter of your heart- not the body, then it is wrong. The person who is not open to life commits no sin with their body but the sin in in the heart and mind.

 

[Ampmonster]

ok, my wife and i live in a cardboard box, and we already have 2 kids who are barely making it. can we NFP and do it with no immediate plans to have another baby?
or we have a modest living with ...say...4 kids...etc

 

[Benedicta00]

ok, my wife and i live in a cardboard box, and we already have 2 kids who are barely making it. can we NFP and do it with no immediate plans to have another baby?
or we have a modest living with ...say...4 kids...etc

If you feel this is God’s will for you. You need to be seeking His will, that's the main issue here.

 

[Ampmonster]

so does Gods will ever entail s - e - x without chance of conception? or is that on a case by case basis?

 

[Benedicta00]

so does Gods will ever entail s - e - x without chance of conception? or is that on a case by case basis?

If you feel you are not just closing yourself off to new life but are using judgement and prudence and common sense, acting reasonably and responsibly, forming your conscious based on the morality of the Church then you are not contracepting and you may have S E X when you can not conceive but if you are avoiding S E X soley because you refuse to have kids then you are committing a sin in your heart, not in your body.

 

[Ampmonster]

ahhhh im pretty sure i got it now.

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

The deal is this, the actual act itself must be unitve and procreative. You can not do anything to the act itself to cause either one of those things to be compromised. If the act takes place during a time of infertility then you are not doing anything to remove it yourself. It is God who made us the way He did, we really can’t argue with that. But if you on purpose yourself remove any aspect of the act itself then it is immoral. If you determine now is not the time to have more children due to legitimate objective reasons then you reframe from the act. There is no act-taking place so there is no contraception being done. Now if you simple have made up your mind that you will not have children and you are not willing to have them under any circumstance and you use NFP for that purpose them, this is a matter of your heart- not the body, then it is wrong. The person who is not open to life commits no sin with their body but the sin in in the heart and mind.

This is such a great explanantion!!!

 

[geocajun]

great discussion!

 

[Ampmonster]

i sure am learning a lot

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

That said, the difference between natural and unnatural birth control is blurred when one uses the natural method with the intention of making the procreative aspect impossible. If this is done, it is immoral.

Yeah, I know. You hate me, you hate my views on this subject, you hate that fact that I'm here.

Now that we have that out of the way. Here's, your shot: enlighten me, please.

How, exactly, do you use NFP correctly in a way that does not make procreation immpossible ?

 

[PeterPaul]

Yeah, I know. You hate me, you hate my views on this subject, you hate that fact that I'm here.

Now that we have that out of the way. Here's, your shot: enlighten me, please.

We reap what we sow.

 

[Caedmon]

I know that the church says that NFP is OK, but it still seems wrong to me. Maybe it is wrong for just me. Anyway, if my future spouse and I have enough money for babies and she is in good health, I definitely do not want to use it. I see it as a last resort and a state of mourning. It would cause me a lot of heartache if I had to stop having babies, cuz I love family, and family is the main thing that brought me to the church, Hallelujah.

 

[Debi1967]

The Billings Ovulation Method teaches a woman to interpret her natural signs of fertility through all her changing life stages from puberty to menopause. It is not the Rhythm method nor the Calendar method. It does not involve temperature taking. The Billings Ovulation Method is easy to learn and is highly successful when used by a couple wishing to conceive or wishing to space or postpone pregnancies.

This method of natural family planning engenders co-operation and respect between the woman and man. It develops love and concern for each other and for the child, thus enriching their relationship.

http://www.billings-centre.ab.ca/general/index.html
This is from one of the many sites online about NFP. Notice that the method is used for many things but it does not say contraception....only to postpone. The reason for this is that in using the NFP method even if you were to use it for contraceptive purposes you would in a lot of cases get pregnant. Almost all doctors will tell you that if your ultimate goal is to not get pregnant to not use this method for birth control. It is though effective for spacing and for figuring out when you might be more apt to become pregnant.
Just for general information purposes and to maybe dispell some of the things going around here that people actually believe that this an effective form of birth control if us3ed for that purpose which it is not.
In Christ
Debi

 

[nyj]

I know that the church says that NFP is OK, but it still seems wrong to me.

The Church says that NFP is acceptable if used properly.

 

[RhetorTheo]

This reminds me of the "catholic condom" on the Phil Hendrie show:

"rudy, a devout catholic, was on to talk about his agreement with markpro pharmaceutical to manufacture a special "catholic" condom that doesn't violate the church's ban on contraception. rudy has designed the condoms so that every 12th one will fail. this mirrors the 12 apostles of jesus and the one apostle that betrayed him, judas. he will be releasing the condoms in time for christmas and, in addition to drugstores, he will try to sell them at church festivals."

http://www.fhwrdh.net/philhendrie/guests.php?g=rudycanoza

 

[Caedmon]

This reminds me of the "catholic condom" on the Phil Hendrie show:

"rudy, a devout catholic, was on to talk about his agreement with markpro pharmaceutical to manufacture a special "catholic" condom that doesn't violate the church's ban on contraception. rudy has designed the condoms so that every 12th one will fail. this mirrors the 12 apostles of jesus and the one apostle that betrayed him, judas. he will be releasing the condoms in time for christmas and, in addition to drugstores, he will try to sell them at church festivals."

http://www.fhwrdh.net/philhendrie/guests.php?g=rudycanoza

Oh man, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!

 

[geocajun]

Yeah, I know. You hate me, you hate my views on this subject, you hate that fact that I'm here.

Now that we have that out of the way. Here's, your shot: enlighten me, please.

Charlie, I don't hate you at all - I think your caught up in the post humanae vitae confusion that has been the downfall of many theologians who insist on teaching what is contrary to the magesterial teaching - because the magesterium does not agree with their personal theology on this matter.
I realize that it can be confusing for us laypeople to know who to follow when we have so many supposed 'authorities' out there which seem to team something different than the magesterium.
by the way, wWe do not have the moral perogative to simply ignore magesterial teachings that we do not fully understand - so for one to use artificial contraception because the Church's authoritative teaching is not clear to them is wrong, and they know better.

How, exactly, do you use NFP correctly in a way that does not make procreation immpossible ?

I suppose I should have used the terminology that it seeks to render procreation impossible - as that is the object of contraceptives which is why they are intrinsically wrong.

NFP on the other hand, used properly does not seek to make procreation impossible as the couple having sex is still 'open to life' but they are cooperating WITH God's grace by allowing every sexual act to be open to life - and not having sex at all when they are wanting to space it.

Therefore, the act of sex with contraception is intrinsically wrong because the contraceptive seeks to render the procreative aspect of sex impossible -directly working against the potential for God to create life.

The act of sex with NFP respects both the procreative and unitive aspects of sex with each sexual act permitting God to be a part of the action.
If the NFP couple does not want children at a particular time, they are not having sex which is respecting the natural function of sex.

Charlie, I realize you and I have been down this road before and not made any progress. I hope this round will be more fruitful that it has been in the past.

 

[Papist]

Wow, you make me value where I live. Things aren’t nearly that bad around my parts and now from what I recently learned there really is no excuse to believe you can’t afford the medical cost of giving birth or the first year of feeding the child. I don’t know what is happening in other states but the Medicaid program as extended so drastically here that even if you area two income family that owns property, cars, has money on hand, and even medical insurance, the state will pay for what the insurance doesn’t. The qualifying income level is upper middle class. I was really shocked at this because this is all new and it supposedly is because women even if they can afford it are neglecting proper medical care for themselves and the baby. It is a sad society we live in when there is no excuse and you still care so little about having a healthy baby.

The problem here is that we have a half-baked socialist government. Half-baked, because they take so much in taxes, but store up huge budget surpluses by not funding anything from taxes. We even pay GST on our local property tax -- ridiculous. Energy prices have gone up 20% in the last two years. Incomes are not rising to match the increase in living costs.

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

We reap what we sow.

If you plant ice you will harvest wind

This is fun, got anymore quotes you want to dual with ?

 

[Cosmic Charlie]

Charlie, I don't hate you at all - I think your caught up in the post humanae vitae confusion that has been the downfall of many theologians who insist on teaching what is contrary to the magesterial teaching - because the magesterium does not agree with their personal theology on this matter.

Its nice of you to get all the boiler plate stuff out of the way in the first round. Maybe we've been at this too long.

I realize that it can be confusing for us laypeople to know who to follow when we have so many supposed 'authorities' out there which seem to team something different than the magesterium.
by the way, wWe do not have the moral perogative to simply ignore magesterial teachings that we do not fully understand - so for one to use artificial contraception because the Church's authoritative teaching is not clear to them is wrong, and they know better.

Now this is a different debate entirely. And still the only one I ever quote church teaching on. (We should discuss not throw quotes around, but that a different debate too, isn't it ? Well back to the first debate now...)

NFP on the other hand, used properly does not seek to make procreation impossible as the couple having sex is still 'open to life' but they are cooperating WITH God's grace by allowing every sexual act to be open to life - and not having sex at all when they are wanting to space it.

This is really the heart of the matter: I don't get this statement. Really. How is a sexual act that you know is not going to result in conception because of monitoring of the menstral cycle of the female considered "open to life" ?
How is knowingly avoiding sex during fertile times not breaking the unity/procreative bond ? (And so we're clear: the bond IMO is broken during the non-fertile times not the fertile times so please, no foregoing sex is good posts)

In good faith, this make no sense to me .

Therefore, the act of sex with contraception is intrinsically wrong because the contraceptive seeks to render the procreative aspect of sex impossible -directly working against the potential for God to create life.

The act of sex with NFP respects both the procreative and unitive aspects of sex with each sexual act permitting God to be a part of the action.
If the NFP couple does not want children at a particular time, they are not having sex which is respecting the natural function of sex.

People have been TELLING me this for 10 years. Now one can SHOW me how NFP is operationally different from any other non-abortive contraceptive method.

Charlie, I realize you and I have been down this road before and not made any progress. I hope this round will be more fruitful that it has been in the past.

Kind thoughts from a worthy advisary.