Pastoral Considerations

Current teaching documents, such as those distributed by any number of episcopal conferences, would need some substantial revisions were they to incorporate the present position. The lack of any discussion at all about the marital debt is also a serious problem which cuts across many or even most national, diocesan, and parochial programs on marriage preparation, catechesis, and pastoral counseling; it is as if the moral obligation to give one’s body to one’s spouse upon reasonable request has been forgotten altogether.¹⁶² Finally, more directly addressing the issue of just motives for avoiding having children would also be helpful in these documents. ¹⁶² Of course, neglecting the dynamic of the marital debt leads to many problems within marriages, in which the debt is not always paid when it is due. However, presenting the concept of the marital debt to couples, including or even especially those couples who are relatively devout and have some interest in contemporary papal literature on marriage, poses the challenge of explaining how this is not “objectification.” Such people need to be helped to see that this is not only a right which is acquired through the marriage contract, but it is also a great help to one’s spouse, and the refusal of a serious and reasonable request can do immense damage to their relationship and to the soul of one’s spouse – for which reason to avoid paying the debt without a proportionately serious reason is sinful, even gravely, as all the classical authorities agree. On the other hand, the spouse should be free to point out that the debt is being abused, and that, while it is owed, it is in such-and-such a case sinful to ask for. Unfortunately, few contemporary voices which do address this topic do so with the subtlety required; a common mistake is the conflation of the use of the imperative mood (“do this”) with a strict appeal to one’s rights (“I command you to do this”).

Teaching couples about NFP on the parochial or diocesan level presents many challenges, and certainly it is difficult enough for many pastors and collaborators merely to make the case against contraception, let alone to make the case for the more rigorous doctrine espoused in the current text. However, there are many couples who, far from needing to be convinced about the evils of contraception, have the sense that something is not quite right with the principle of “free reign” to recreate sexually during infertile periods, just causes for avoiding pregnancy being taken for granted. These couples could easily see the need for self-restraint even within infertile periods to which recourse can legitimately be had for the sake of avoiding pregnancy. They would accept the suggestion that abstinence from relations for about a week each month does not suffice for a completely chaste relationship.¹⁶³ Many couples, it is true, struggle mightily to practice the popular doctrine on NFP and would be led to despair should it be suggested that self-control is necessary over and above what they are already practicing; other couples even less trained in virtue could be led to presume upon God’s mercy callously and deliberately commit many venial sins, creating a terrible spiritual disposition in them. Perhaps it is normally better to leave such couples undisturbed, given the greater harm which could come to them should they be led to fear the burden of virtue to such an extent that they give up on chastity, be led into presumption, or even give up on holiness altogether.¹⁶⁴ Confessors especially ought to avoid prying into this delicate topic in the hopes of correcting venial sin in this regard, not the least of all because the doctrine presented here is, while safe, not common opinion. Marriage preparation courses or retreats could be better forums to explore this topic with general and indirect language, i.e., “Sex is not something to do just for fun,” etc. ¹⁶³ Past disciplines popular in the Church prohibited the use of marriage on many days of the year – Sundays, certain feast days, Lent, Advent, Ember Days, and, of course, three days before receiving Holy Communion. This was formerly considered an appropriate set of boundaries in favor of prayer. ¹⁶⁴ This is in accord with the so-called “law of gradualism.” Scrupulous persons, on the other hand, should most certainly be advised in accord with prevailing doctrines on the perplexed conscience; no mention should be made that perhaps their motives for the habitual state of avoiding pregnancy or their actual requests for the marital debt are sinful unless it is extremely clear to the confessor or director.

Rhetorical strategies which use the language employed by St. John Paul II could be used to suggest that merely recreational sex, even if done for the sake of social or psychological goods, is actually detrimental to the relationship of the couple on account of a degradation of the meaning of human sexuality. It is to tell one’s spouse that in order to express one’s love for him or her, there has to be carnal union. While certainly this is one fitting and even important expression which can be virtuous, gratifying, and healthy for the relationship, rational expressions of love, whether by language or by willful perseverance and sacrifice in difficulty for the sake of one’s spouse, are objectively superior, insofar as these behaviors are specifically human activities, while sexual reproduction is something which animals and even mere plants can do.

And perhaps it is better in many cases, even in marriage preparation courses, hardly to touch the issue at all. Rather, it might be better to help engaged couples to see that children are a good thing – not mere burdens, not environmental or population threats, but also not a supped-up form of a household pet which one might have as part of a lifestyle. Putting the focus on the primary good of the sexual act is something which might effect more healing than is commonly suspected. We are designed to pursue the good before we avoid the bad.

Should a husband or wife find this rigorous doctrine on NFP convincing, that leaves us with the question of the other spouse: what if he or she is seeking to use periodic continence in a way one finds unchaste? It is not an easy conversation to have, and because of the uncertainty of the argument laid down here, one might lawfully decide not to have such a conversation at all and simply change one’s own behavior in this regard. This course of action – self-amendment without giving one’s spouse an explanation for a sudden behavioral change involving conjugal life – could be a wise decision, or a terrible mistake. I cannot possibly offer concrete advice about how to navigate the unique situations of all couples. What I can say is that adopting the change here proposed could be a good opportunity for a conversation among spouses about the meaning of their conjugal life, including especially the goodness of the children which they have perhaps had the grace to bear – or have the hope of bearing.

The question of “how much easing of concupiscence is reasonable in the context of NFP” has not been explored here at great length, as this is an individual matter and moves into psychological and biological science as much as (or more than) moral science – I will only suggest a review of the Church’s traditional exhortations and laws on the use of marriage on certain days to give an oblique indication of what might be a reasonable point of beginning to orient oneself around in this regard – that is, as a point of departure for self-examination.^{165 165} See the Roman Catechism’s treatment: “But as every blessing is to be obtained from God by holy prayer, the faithful are also to be taught sometimes to abstain from the marriage debt, in order to devote themselves to prayer. Let the faithful understand that (this religious continence), according to the proper and holy injunction of our predecessors, is particularly to be observed for at least three days before Communion, and oftener during the solemn fast of Lent.” The Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests, trans. McHugh and Callan (1923), p. 355.

Those inclined to scrupulosity ought to follow the normal guidance for people in such a condition (such as strict adherence to the guidance of one’s confessor, presuming they are not sinning unless absolutely sure, etc.) and resign themselves to the fact that they are not perfect and may not be so for quite some time, though they can be with God’s help.

St. Thomas, if he were to be persuaded by the recent magisterial literature and/or the manuals which incline away from his position, whether by their intrinsic or extrinsic authority, would at a minimum certainly caution against the indiscriminate use of and counseling towards frequent recourse to infertile periods, especially as an anchor for a healthy sexual dynamic within marriage. He would instead insist on the virtues of religion, legal justice, and charity as normative poles by which to orient married couples’ understanding of their sexuality. Religion, as part of justice, is the normal way St. Thomas talks about the marital act being virtuous: it is an act of procreation for the sake of raising children in the Faith to worship God; the meaning of Holy Matrimony, as distinct from mere natural marriage, is to create saints who will love and worship God forever in Heaven. Legal justice has the common good as its object.¹⁶⁶ The desire to produce virtuous citizens is an especially important intention for the benefit the common good. Finally, charity inclines the couple toward loving in a special way the souls which God deigns to entrust to them as parents, in view of both the natural ends of society and the supernatural end of Heaven. Couples ought to wish to be benefacted by God in this way, thus being able to return a special kind of thanks to Him, although they are bound to exercise due care not to overburden themselves by having too many children and thus be unable to provide for them well as to natural or supernatural ends. Both the desire for and welcoming of children can thus be acts of charity, and so too is the stewardship over one’s family which takes into consideration the welfare of each actual and potential child. All of these considerations ought to form a substantial part of marriage preparation courses. Above all, couples preparing for marriage (or even those who have been married for some time) must be shaken out of the illusion that their marriage is about their own existential fulfillment apart from the plan of God; it is principally about fulfilling God’s designs, both for the human race in general, and for the eternal community in the next world. Conjugal activity and children are not to be treated as simply “part of a lifestyle,” as they are gifts from God which are supposed to be spiritually creative in their returns. Shirking the gift being offered through fertility in marriage is, we may say, a burying of one’s talents. (Mathew 25:24-30) ¹⁶⁶ ST II-II, q. 58, a. 6.

Married couples are meant to give their lives to each other, to their children (including in having them to begin with), to the Church, and to their community. For those who seek their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives will gain them. (Matthew 10:39) Such a context paves the way for the presentation of NFP in general, and it even makes the rigorous model laid down in this text more palatable for those who are only beginning to become aware that the world, and perhaps even some clergy and moral theologians, have misled them about the meaning of chastity and its relationship to Holy Matrimony.