Contraception’s Sin? Catholic Truth Exposed!

Why does the Catholic Church call contraception a sin?Join Fr. Cristino and I for a heartfelt dive into Humanae Vitae’s wisdom, uncovering why contraception is seen as intrinsically evil and how Natural Family Planning (NFP) lights a faithful path for couples.

Transcript

Why does the church prohibit contraception? Well, I think put simply because it introduces something to the sacredness of the sexual act between a husband and wife that simply doesn't belong there. Uh if it was natural or envisioned, it wouldn't need to be introduced. Uh and so in some way it is something like a third party uh intruding into that most sacred manifestation of the one flesh union of husband and wife. And so uh the church and her wisdom for the sake of the well-being of her children and for the salvation of their souls reminds them that there is no circumstance in which it can be permissible. No circumstance. No, we refer to it as intrinsically evil, which means not that it is that it makes you as bad as a mass murderer because you've used it. It means that there is no circumstance for any good intention in which it can be justifiably used. It's what we refer to when we when we say that the ends don't justify the means. That means that there are some unjustifiable means and we refer to those as intrinsic evils. The reason why I I I'm going to bring this up again and ask you again because I know there has been people who watch our videos who have been counseledled by their pastor to get a vasectomy or to use contraception for and they've justified it for whatever reason.

What do you say to them? I I say I'm sorry that you have been misled by your pastor. I I am a pastor. We have no right to think we are doing someone a favor by easing their conscience and telling them that they can do something that is intrinsically evil. uh we have done them no favor and we have incurred judgment on our own soul that we will have to account for later. And some heroic priest who says I don't care and I'll I'll answer for that before God. This couple needs this for this reason. No, they don't. No one needs that. I appreciate that there are circumstances in which it would be truly heroic for a husband and wife to navigate around the complexities of why they may think they should not have any more children. But unfortunately or fortunately it is heroism that is called from us to become saints. And that's why we exist. We exist to become saints. We don't exist to have as much inconsequential sex as possible uh to be blunt. And so I think we need to really carefully examine uh what is being asked from us uh by virtue of our faith uh and then really reflect upon what is the beautiful opportunity that is being offered to those who decide to live by that truth. Um, someone might hear that and think, well, then what what am I supposed to do? Is the church saying that I have to have as many children as physically possible in our marriage? Well, for sure the church has never said that. Uh, and this is part of what falls under that category that you hear most frequently referred to as natural family planning. I'm I'm not sold on that name. I don't think that it actually captures the essence of what we're talking about here. Uh I think what we're talking about is uh responsibility and discernment uh in marriage between a husband and wife to carefully consider all of the factors that need to go into determining whether or not they feel that they are at a place in their married life where they're ready to introduce another child to their family. uh or if they believe that there is good reason. The the official teaching uh in human vite the encyclical from Pope Paul V 6th which reiterated our prohibition of contraception says for a grave reason which doesn't have to mean life or death but it has to mean that it's substantial. Uh it can't be that you want to go on holidays at this time next year so we better make sure we don't get pregnant. Uh there there needs to be some gravity to your discernment uh about why now is not the time for us to have a child and yet not introduce anything into your conjugal act which would show that you're going to do everything in your power to make sure you don't. So on the one hand abandoning yourself to divine providence to say if as husband and wife which is beautiful and right and just that we should decide we want to embrace in marital intimacy we end up conceiving a child well we will we will receive that child as a gift from God or we may say we better not we have to be intimate by some other means show each other affection in another way uh because it would be very very difficult in our family life right now if we were to become pregnant again. And that is for the couple to discern. That's back to my point about the pastor. I have no right or capability to insert myself into your discernment of that as a as a as a family. You know, uh you know, we have seven children. Our E is on the way. And uh sometimes we'll get questions like, well, obviously NFP doesn't work because why in the world would you have eight children? Children are beautiful. They're a great blessing from God. Traditionally, the church has said that the children are a sign of a blessing upon marriage. Right. So why which of your eight children don't you want? Right. Yeah. And and so I I I I'm sad to hear that people see their marriage that way because I feel like they're being cheated. No, I can't discern for them. Like I don't know their situations. Um, but we should admit if we look in our pews in the Catholic Church, there were few large families. And I have trouble thinking that it's because all these families had grave situations where they could not welcome more children into their life. I suspect that that can very well be some sometimes the case. But if you look at the average Catholic family in the pew, that's there's not a lot of difference between the size of their family and then the size of a secular family. Mhm. Um would you agree with that assessment or am I a little off with it? I don't think your observation is mistaken because it's a matter of counting. If your point is Catholic families look like they have on average as many children as secular or non-atholic families, that's an observable fact. I am careful about trying to interpret that data or what that means. Uh because we there are and there are many other reasons beyond just whether or not something is physically possible for uh the the wife to be able to continue to give birth to more children. uh they there are multiple factors and it's not even just about money because I know plenty of people who find a way to make it work to have a large family uh that earn less money than some people who claim that they couldn't possibly afford to have any more children. Uh maybe you have to examine the way you use your money. I don't know. Uh so I'm not even just referring to the financial consideration, but there has to be the question of uh the needs of your other children. And I know that sometimes you are blessed, even if it doesn't always feel like a blessing, with a child who requires very special and particular attention. And maybe that means for a period of time in your family life, you you just can't really conceive of needing to divert attention away from this child towards an infant who absolutely needs all of your undivided attention. Uh and so that's a discernment that that family is going to need to undertake together. Maybe by the time maybe that's their third child and now and they got married a little bit later and so they're wondering could we possibly begin to try having children again now that this child who needed so much of our attention until he was 7 years old. Uh I I can't insert myself into those into those questions. Uh and so that's why it's not helpful to try and examine what may have motivated people to decide that they were going to stop after two or three kids. uh but they need to ask themselves what were the reasons for them to decide that and then I know other people who would have said we I've heard people say it in exactly these words we thought we were done and then something happened maybe maybe they watched a video on YouTube or they met a family that had many children and I know sometimes I speak with with wives who say that something is rekindled led in their heart where they they just miss being a nurturing mother of an infant and something inside of them longs for that again. And uh maybe when they had four children under six, it was just unimaginable to have another. But then this one is 3 or four years old and you realize I think we could probably have another child and and I long to to have that that experience. And so they decide and they try and they have another baby. There's so many factors that that can go into all of that. And so what's best done is that as a church, we try our best to do everything in our power to strengthen family life and to make couples feel supported and nurtured and loved uh especially through the vibrancy of a parish and accessing the sacraments. and give them the other strength that they need to be able to have those discernments together. I know in a previous conversation that we had um we spoke about uh vasectomies and it is entirely possible that someone had that procedure then realizes the teaching of the church realizes it's wrong and now are left with uh a question. Do I seek a reversal? Mhm. Do they have a moral obligation to do so? The church does not teach that someone has a moral obligation to reverse a vasectomy uh for multiple reasons. Perhaps not surprisingly, uh at least in this jurisdiction, you can have a vasectomy under a proincially provided healthcare. It's paid for, but you can't have a reversal that you'll pay for out of your pocket. It's expensive. Uh so if a family realizes that just simply couldn't afford that, then there maybe that's the answer. Uh there's also the question of the likelihood of it being successful. Uh and although it is known to be able to be, it is absolutely not a guarantee. Uh it's complicated. It's a surgical procedure. There's always risks that are run with having surgery that might be considered gratuitous or unnecessary. And so there's factors that would go into that which the church would not feel that it has the right or the authority to teach. You must be prepared to undertake these burdens and risks. The bottom line is as I think we've said before where St. Alphonsus Lori says that punishment is in the sin itself. uh and so maybe now you are you are burdened by realizing that you have to live with a decision that you made previously in your life and and therefore you need to look for other ways to try and make amends for that. I have known couples uh who either had a conversion to the teaching of the church even though they were Catholic all their life but didn't feel that they could abide by that and so the husband had a vasectomy and later realized we shouldn't have done that uh and so impose upon themselves uh periods of of abstinence in their married life u knowing that they're not going to get pregnant uh but still feeling like that they have an oblig obligation and justice to say that no, we can't just have a free-for-all on intimacy in in marriage because we know there's no consequences. We need to exercise some uh abstinence and responsibility out of recognition for how we ought to have lived then. I think that's very honorable and and very respectable that there would be some who would discern that. And then there are others who would say, "No, we're going to take our chances. We know we can afford it. we believe we should have more children. They try for the reversal and they conceive. And what a beautiful gift. What a blessing that they would have had the resolve and the courage to be able to do that and that the Lord would have blessed it with new life. But ultimately, we have to differentiate between artificial contraception where you're introducing a kind of prophylactic method of some kind of a barrier, right? That's different from a sterilization. Uh so a vasectomy a tubaligation this is a surgical procedure where you go in with the intention of rendering yourself sterile. Uh that's different than let's say you know giving into human weakness on a particular occasion where you uh introduce a condom into the conjugal act. Uh that's not right. Uh but you know it can be repented of and done away with never to be returned to again. to pursue a sterilization is is really to try and make a definitive decision in that moment that you want to render yourself unfruitful and there's grave consequences for that and so someone needs to appreciate what they're walking into. Uh and I would have a word of caution for any of the men who might be listening to this. If you think that you going to get a vasectomy means that now you and your wife can more freely and frequently embrace an intimacy because she doesn't have to be worried about getting pregnant, you better think twice. Uh I hear about this frequently enough that someone thought that that was going to be the case and perhaps the frequency of their intimacy never increased. Uh but now you've gone through a painful deasculating uh difficult procedure that has not delivered on what you thought it might. And then that can create resentment. And if you become resentful of your wife and she becomes aware that you're resentful of her and now she's resentful of you, it it can snowball into something far worse uh than you would have bargained for. So that needs to be very carefully considered regarding natural family family planning. There's a variety of different methods that would be in communion with the church's teaching. Um your thoughts on is it possible to use a legitimate method but with a contra set of mentality? Mhm. Yeah, we hear people describing that I think uh rightly. Uh it's important to distinguish for the sake of moral theology that a contraceptive mentality doesn't render it contraceptive because contraception in object is something objective and defined and in itself evil. And so having a bad intention does not render something intrinsically evil. Uh and so there can be those who use methods of natural family planning for selfish reasons or reasons that lack faith. Uh and they need to be purified of that just like all of us need to be purified of any of our bad intentions or our misguided intentions. Uh so it's I I completely reject the idea that NFP is just Catholic contraception. No, it is not. It is not contraceptive in object. Uh meaning the essence of the thing and what it is. And so they must be kept distinct. Even if NFP can be misused or abused or however you want to put it, it that does not make it contraception. And so I think that couples need to exercise a virtue in how they go about trying to use NFP uh in the same way that we all need to grow in virtue and how we access anything that we use in our moral life. Can you touch on that exactly like why it is not NF why NFP is not contraception? Well, let's let me use a bit of an analogy that I think we can relate to more more easily. Uh, we've all heard of someone who is dying and there are no more medical interventions that can be made and maybe they're being kept alive on a respirator or something. And so the family decides we we are going to disconnect uh the this person's respirator and we'll do our best to keep them comfortable as long as we can until they just pass away of whatever was uh depriving them of life. So that's a natural thing. We all die. Uh you haven't killed your loved one by deciding to not let a machine force them to keep breathing. If they couldn't survive without the machine, then they were going to die. So that is what you could call equivalent to NFP. Contraception is going in and giving that person a lethal injection and saying, "I will put you to death." No one would say that those two are the same thing, but they both result in the death of the person. I see. And so if you say that uh using NFP for a selfish reason is equivalent to having yourself sterilized or introducing a barrier method of of contraception. They're just not equivalent. They're not the same because in the one you are doing something different in object than in the other even if they produce the same outcome. If there was a John and Sally fall in love, they want to get married. John and Sally don't want to have kids. Um maybe it's, you know, they got to finish university, they want to start their careers. Uh what would you say to them? They're intentionally getting into the sacrament of marriage and they're intentionally saying we we don't want to have children for the next, let's say, 3 to 5 years. I deal with this by in my former life of of university campus ministry and young adult chapency. I was I was constantly celebrating weddings and preparing couples for marriage. And that would be one of the leading questions I would ask them. Are you ready to have kids? And if they say no, no, no, no. We don't want to have kids for a few years. I say okay well then you don't want to get married. Marriage is for children. So if you know you don't want to have children, then you do not want to get married. However, if you believe that it wouldn't be prudent for you to have children right now and you hope that you would be able to finish university or finish this internship and then you would hope to begin having children, that's fine. As long as you're prepared to accept that children might come anyhow and can you live with that? And if you can't live with that or that freaks you out, then you're not free to marry. And so there are some couples that I have told that I think they need to wait. Uh who have taken my advice and decided to postpone either getting engaged or they got engaged but still decided maybe we're not getting married for another couple of years. And then I've had others who have said, "No, no, we, you know, it wouldn't be ideal, but we could live with it." And then a month after their wedding, they're pregnant. They say, "Oh my gosh, Father, what are we going to do?" Say, "You can have a baby. Congratulations." And I've never met one of those who don't afterwards say that this child was not the greatest joy of their life. Beautiful. We'll wrap up our conversation, but is there any loose holes that you'd like to to fill in here before we close off? uh only just that I have the the deepest respect for the married life and for those who are called into it. Uh and also I I appreciate the burden of those uh who listening to a conversation like this might be doubly wounded by the fact that they have not been blessed with children in their married life. Uh and so to know that there are uh their counterparts and other married couples who uh are actively wanting to avoid having children that is uh it's very painful uh for them to know that that exists out there. And so to just simply reinforce the truth that marriage is family, that the day of your wedding, you are a family. Children are born into a family. They don't create a family. Uh and so to live generously your married life with each other, which includes also making yourselves open to each other's fertility and and embracing all of your spouse uh and never wanting to put part of your spouse to the side. Thanks for your thoughts. You bet.