the elephant in the room

"Why are we not protecting married couples from the violence of contraception — the divorce of unitive and procreative aspects of the beautiful gift of sexuality? Why are we afraid of helping our brothers and sisters to live in truth, according to their dignity?" (Father Shenan Boquet, 11/6/2015)

• "....[Saint Pope] John Paul II said that God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude but a family, because He has within Himself Fatherhood, Sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love.  Now we don't totally understand the Trinity, obviously.  We're finite and God is infinite.  But we do know some things, we know how they relate to one another.  The Father gives of Himself completely to the Son.  The Son gives of Himself completely back to His Father, and from this mutual Self-donation, this love communion between Them comes a Third Person, the Holy Spirit.  So, the Church says our human families are supposed to image the Divine Family, because that's the family we were made to be a part of.  That's the Sacrificial Family we were made for.  So, we're supposed to live the same way they do.  Husband should give of himself totally to his wife.  His wife should give of herself completely back to her husband.  And this mutual self-donation, from this love communion between them, comes a what - a third person, a baby!  So, that's what it's all about.  We're supposed to image the Divine Family, and anything that cuts off our ability to do that, i.e., contraception, is wrong!  We're no longer living like God, if we're contracepting.  And that what it's all about." (Matthew Leonard, 5/16/2012)

• "Each of...three major developments in the field of reproductive medicine - the release of the birth control pill, the legalization of abortion, and the introduction of in vitro fertilization - has had a major [deleterious] impact on the practice of obstetrics and gynecology and the health care of women....[Fertility awareness can instead be taught to wives and husbands:] "These observations are easy to do and require very little time" (Dr. Thomas Hilgers, 2010)

• "337. What is the plan of God regarding man and woman?  God Who is love and Who created man and woman for love has called them to love. By creating man and woman He called them to an intimate communion of life and of love in marriage: ‘So that they are no longer two, but one flesh’ (Matthew 19:6). God said to them in blessing ‘Be fruitful and multiply’ (Genesis 1:28).” 
  
  
  "338. For what ends has God instituted Matrimony?  The marital union of man and woman, which is founded and endowed with its own proper laws by the Creator, is by its very nature ordered to the communion and good of the couple and to the generation and education of children. According to the original divine plan this conjugal union is indissoluble, as Jesus Christ affirmed: ‘What God has joined together, let no man put asunder’ (Mark 10:9).”
  
  
  "347. What sins are gravely opposed to the sacrament of Matrimony?  Adultery and polygamy are opposed to the sacrament of matrimony because they contradict the equal dignity of man and woman and the unity and exclusivity of married love.  Other sins include the deliberate refusal of one’s procreative potential which deprives conjugal love of the gift of children and divorce which goes against the indissolubility of marriage.”
  
  "456. What is the nature of the family in the plan of God?  A man and a woman united in marriage form a family together with their children.  God instituted the family and endowed it with its fundamental constitution.  Marriage and the family are ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of children. Members of the same family establish among themselves personal relationships and primary responsibilities. In Christ the family becomes the domestic church because it is a community of faith, of hope, and of charity."
  
  
  "496. What is the meaning of the conjugal act?  The conjugal act has a twofold meaning: unitive (the mutual self-giving of the spouses) and procreative (an openness to the transmission of life). No one may  break the inseparable connection which God has established between these two meanings of the conjugal act by excluding one or the other of them." 
  
  
  "497. When is it moral to regulate births?  The regulation of births, which is an aspect of responsible fatherhood and motherhood, is objectively morally acceptable when it is pursued by the spouses without external pressure; when it is practiced not out of selfishness but for serious reasons; and with methods that conform to the objective criteria of morality, that is, periodic continence and use of the infertile periods."  
  
  "498. What are immoral means of birth control?  Every action – for example, direct sterilization or contraception – is intrinsically immoral which (either in anticipation of the conjugal act, in its accomplishment or in the development of its natural consequences) proposes, as an end or as a means, to hinder procreation.”(Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church).

• "the history of the way in which the Church has proposed the teaching on contraception clearly shows that the criteria for infallibility have been met" (John Ford, SJ and German Grisez, 1978)

• "We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children.  Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary.  Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means" (Pope Paul VI, 1968).

• "Every active intervention on the part of the spouses, which eliminates the possibility of conception through the conjugal act, is incompatible with the holy mystery of the superabundant relation in the incredible gift offered by God....To make use of natural family planning is not to imply the slightest irreverence or rebellion against God's institution and the wonderful link between the love union and procreation" (Dietrich von Hildebrand, 1968).

• "the marriage act purged of impurities is the nearest thing to the beatific vision we can know....To offer the suffering of celibacy, temporary or permanent, to the Lord is to make use, in the best possible way, of man's greatest joy...." (Servant of God Dorothy Day, 12/10/1966)

• "there is no greater mystery in the natural order of things than the fact that this closest of all unions procreates a human being with an immortal soul (although the soul, in each case, is a direct creation of God), and that this act brings a new being into existence destined to love God and to adore Him, a new being made after His image....How terrible to think of man wanting to destroy this unity which God has established so mysteriously, deeming those united in the highest earthly union of love worthy to take part in His creative power" (Dietrich von Hildebrand, 1929)

"If any confessor or pastor of souls, which may God forbid, lead the faithful entrusted to him into these errors or should at least confirm them by approval or by guilty silence, let him be mindful of the fact that he must render a strict account to God, the Supreme Judge, for the betrayal of his sacred trust, and let him take to himself the words of Christ: `They are blind and leaders of the blind: and if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit[']" (Pope Pius XI, 1930).

Natural Family Planning (USCCB)