Whenever I hear about the Catholic church's strong stand against contraception, I want to bang my head against the wall. The Catholic church endorses contraception. It TEACHES contraception. There is no logical, moral, or theological difference between practicing natural family planning/fertility awareness and using a condom or the pill.
Where does the Catholic church's stance on birth control come from? In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued the Humanae Vitae, which stated that contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible." (Humanae Vitae 14)
What's the problem with contraception?
[A]n act of mutual love which impairs the capacity to transmit life which God the Creator, through specific laws, has built into it, frustrates His design which constitutes the norm of marriage, and contradicts the will of the Author of life. Hence to use this divine gift while depriving it, even if only partially, of its meaning and purpose, is equally repugnant to the nature of man and of woman, and is consequently in opposition to the plan of God and His holy will.
(Humanae Vitae 13)
Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as "natural law." The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children.
But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the basic purpose of sex, which is procreation. God’s gift of the sex act, along with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end—procreation.
http://www.catholic.com/...
According to the Catholic church, the problem is that contraception is not a submission to God's will regarding whether he sees fit to give you a child. And non-procreative sex is sinful because it strips the divine purpose from sex - it's not supposed to be pleasurable, it's supposed to be potentially procreative.
So, um, I attended Pre-Cana classes offered by the Catholic church before my fiance and I were married. And those Pre-Cana classes taught us that the only acceptable form of contraception was natural family planning (a/k/a "rhythm method," a/k/a "fertility awareness").
Indeed, there are Catholic-founded and Catholic-endorsed organizations that teach fertility awareness methods of contraception, including the Couple to Couple League International, Family of the Americas, and the Pope Paul VI Institute.
Fertility awareness is contraception. It teaches you to identify biological signs of fertility (cervical fluid, temperature, increased sex drive, dates/length of cycle, etc.) so as to avoid sex during fertile periods in a woman's cycle. When the methods are rigorously followed, success rates are as high as 99% effectiveness; with good but not perfect use, rates are comparable to observed effective rates of condoms, 75-80%.
But, here's the thing - being abstinent during times that you know you could get pregnant is deliberately depriving sex of its procreative possibility, isn't it? Isn't restricting your sexual activity to times when you know you can't get pregnant partaking in the pleasures of sex without opening yourself up to the procreative potential of sex? Isn't it "deliberately excluding the basic purpose of sex, which is procreation"?
Of course, if a woman pays attention to her own body, she becomes well aware of when her most fertile times are (cervical fluid, increased sex drive, dates in her cycle). Once you know what fertility looks and feels like, it's almost impossible to not pay attention to it if you truly wish to avoid pregnancy.
The larger point, though, is that the Catholic church has always been aware that, in modern times, its members are absolutely unwilling to endure a dozen or more pregnancies, that they will not impoverish themselves and jeopardize the welfare of existing children by having far more children than their means can support.
But the compromise offered by the Church is absolutely inconsistent with its doctrinal teachings. You can't teach that it's a sin to willfully deprive sex of its procreative possibility to thwart God's will to give you children, and simultaneously teach every young couple seeking to get married in the church how to identify fertile times in a woman's cycle so as to avoid pregnancy.
The church's teachings on this subject have been entirely inconsistent for more than 40 years. For the church to now rail against providing "artificial" forms of contraception while teaching couples alternative methods of contraception (which include "artificial" devices like thermometers and charting software) is simply absurd. The church long ago conceded to the reality that its members will use contraception. The church instructs them in how best to use natural family planning for that purpose. Every time I see someone in the news talk about how the Catholic church forbids contraception I want to scream - it is absolutely untrue.