Why does the Church say that contraception is immoral?
"Why does the Church say that contraception is immoral? perhaps the reason is something like this. Our hearts and bodies were made to be temples of the living God. God joins Himself to us not in some vague, 'spiritual' way, but in the very actions of our bodies by which we give flesh to our love. And so a married couple is never along in bed. God is in bed with them. And sometimes He creates a child from their love. If they have good reasons for not seeking a new child, then they should make love only at times when making love would not invite Him to create one ( the 'infertile period'). Abstaining from sex while fertile is just another way of showing love and responsibility in marriage.
If instead, the couple tries to make the fertile period infertile so as to be able to make love then too without conceiving a child, they are trying to make sex without God. They are pushing God out of the bed. After all, if He were not going to create a child, and if they knew that for sure, they would not use contraception. They think He might just, and they use it to prevent Him doing so.
The couple using contraception are doing something to prevent the existence of a person God would otherwise create. this is not the case with the couple making love only when they are naturally infertile. They are not doing something to prevent a child's conception; the most you could say is that they are not doing something to bring it about. And that is not a sin. The Church welcomes all new life, but she does not insist that every couple have as many children as they can.
(Stratford Caldecott, Universe, Jan 17th, 1993).
When therefore,through contraception, married couples remove from the exercise of their conjugal sexuality its potential procreative capacity, they claim a power which belongs solely to God:the power to decide in a final analysis the coming into existence of a human person. They assume the qualification not of being cooperators of God's creative power, but the ultimate depositaries of the source of human life (John Paul II)
"There is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to what you might expect, the provision of contraception leads to an increase in the abortion rate." (Dr. Judy Bury, Medical Advisor and Director of Brook Advisory Service, in the Scotsman, 29/6/81).
H/T Robert Colquhoun at Discover Happiness
If instead, the couple tries to make the fertile period infertile so as to be able to make love then too without conceiving a child, they are trying to make sex without God. They are pushing God out of the bed. After all, if He were not going to create a child, and if they knew that for sure, they would not use contraception. They think He might just, and they use it to prevent Him doing so.
The couple using contraception are doing something to prevent the existence of a person God would otherwise create. this is not the case with the couple making love only when they are naturally infertile. They are not doing something to prevent a child's conception; the most you could say is that they are not doing something to bring it about. And that is not a sin. The Church welcomes all new life, but she does not insist that every couple have as many children as they can.
(Stratford Caldecott, Universe, Jan 17th, 1993).
When therefore,through contraception, married couples remove from the exercise of their conjugal sexuality its potential procreative capacity, they claim a power which belongs solely to God:the power to decide in a final analysis the coming into existence of a human person. They assume the qualification not of being cooperators of God's creative power, but the ultimate depositaries of the source of human life (John Paul II)
"There is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to what you might expect, the provision of contraception leads to an increase in the abortion rate." (Dr. Judy Bury, Medical Advisor and Director of Brook Advisory Service, in the Scotsman, 29/6/81).
H/T Robert Colquhoun at Discover Happiness
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