Just Cause for Spacing Births

The last theoretical consideration to make is that of what constitutes a “just cause” for recourse to the use of periodic continence in the first place, thus completing the exegesis of the two parts of the 1932 dubium justifying the use of NFP – “just and grave causes” and “upright motives.” We have already established that, following as closely as possible to the reasoning of St. Thomas while not contradicting the papal literature, the request for the marital debt can be made within the context of intentional recourse to natural infertile periods for the sake of a legitimate easing of the movement of concupiscence. This leaves the question of what justifies the use of the habit of avoiding procreation in the first place. In other words, we have established what constitutes “idle speech,” but now we must ask what constitutes an “unjustified broad mental reservation.” There can indeed be such justification, because the sexual act, as St. Thomas so clearly teaches in the Summa Contra Gentiles, requires rectitude both with regard to the nature of the act itself and with regard to the care of potential children.¹³⁴ Proper regard for the care for potential children could include avoiding their actualization as real children. ¹³⁴ See SCG III, ch. 122, 4-6.

Pius XII in his “Speech to Italian Midwives,” and St. Paul VI in Humanae Vitae, both lay out several categories of “just causes” for using NFP. Pius XII lays out the following doctrine:

Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called “indications,” may exempt husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life. From this it follows that the observance of the natural sterile periods may be lawful, from the moral viewpoint: and it is lawful in the conditions mentioned. If, however, according to a reasonable and equitable judgment, there are no such grave reasons either personal or deriving from exterior circumstances, the will to avoid the fecundity of their union, while continuing to satisfy to tile full their sensuality, can only be the result of a false appreciation of life and of motives foreign to sound ethical principles.^{135 135} Pope Pius XII, “Address to Participants in the Conference of the Italian Catholic Union of Obstetricians,” (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, October 29, 1951).

St. Paul VI has an essentially identical take with very similar categories:

If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained.^{136 136} Pope St. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, §16 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, July 25, 1968).

Many interpretations could be made of these paragraphs.¹³⁷ However, we can see the connection between the “medical” motives of Pius XII with the “physical condition” of Humanae Vitae, and likewise the “social” with the “psychological,” and the “eugenic” and “economic” with the “external.” At least, this is one way to connect these unexplained categories. While surely there is no question that circumstances like living in an active warzone, having a wounded uterus, or being in a faltering marriage due to a schizophrenic spouse are grounds for the use of NFP to space births, the economic question is perhaps the thorniest. However, solving the economic question also could give some indication of how to interpret the less extreme instances of motives which would fall into the other categories. ¹³⁷ See Brugger, Christian, “Just Cause and Natural Family Planning,” June 16, 2010, Washington, D.C., Zenit

I propose that there is a strong analogy between the duty to have children with the duty to give alms.

The teaching of St. Thomas on almsgiving is that it is an act of mercy, which is part of charity.¹³⁸ Justice demands the relinquishing of what belongs to some specific person or group, such as returning a deposit or loan, or such as paying wages which were fairly agreed upon – these acts are not acts of charity in themselves. Charity demands that one give of one’s own wealth to others who are in need, motivated by friendship with God, Who cares for those who lack what they need to flourish in the natural order. ¹³⁸ ST II-II q. 32, a. 1.

St. Thomas, like many commentators and manualists who followed him, including St. Alphonsus Liguori, see the obligation of almsgiving as standing in relation not only to the needs of those receiving alms but also in relation to the benefactor’s socio-economic class.¹³⁹ It is in fact vicious on St. Thomas’ account for a wealthy man to make himself significantly poorer by almsgiving, except in special cases. This provides us with a framework to understand the economic issue of having more children. If having another child is likely to move the couple downward a socio-economic class or even merely to force them to live altogether out of keeping with the class they belong to, they possess a serious enough reason to avoid pregnancy until that condition is removed.¹⁴⁰ The more serious the motive (or reservation) in this regard, the stronger the intention to avoid children can be with its accompanying restriction to the use of only the infertile time, ranging from merely “not intending to have children” to “strongly intending not to have children.” ¹³⁹ ST II-II q. 32, a. 6; cf. O’Neill, James David, “Alms and Almsgiving,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907, New York: Robert Appleton Company. ¹⁴⁰ This is evaluated with due regard to the likelihood of twins, triplets, etc., the likelihood of a problematic gestation which will require expensive medical treatment, the likelihood of serious physical or mental deformities in the child requiring extraordinary assistance, and the likelihood of other special problems which could cause economic strain.

It might be responded that the duty to have children is one of justice, not of charity. In fact, this is true, both in terms of the requirement to will that one’s potential children offer due worship to God (as an act of religion which forms part of a rightly ordered conjugal act, as explained above), and also in terms of the common good of one’s society which demands the production of virtuous children, especially on account of the social and economic privileges which a married couple is rightly afforded in virtue of their marriage (as an act especially proper to the general virtue of legal justice, which has the common good as its object).¹⁴¹ However, this second aspect of justice refers not to a “legal debt” but “moral debt,” that is, a debt of fittingness rather than one of strictly demarcated right. Having children is the sort of thing which a couple ought to do so that their community can flourish.¹⁴² The will to offer their children as virtuous citizens to society is the natural counterpart to the supernatural offering of children to God as saints: benefitting the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant by raising up saints they have brought into the world through their marriage is also the sort of thing a couple ought to do. However, given that this offering is one of moral debt and not legal, and it is an offering not from one’s possessions but of “creation” and of increasing the burden upon oneself in terms of duties toward dependents, the analogy with almsgiving seems especially appropriate. Likewise, all are bound to give alms – according to their state in life and their present disposition. Having renounced marriage altogether would excuse one from having children, and renouncing temporal possessions altogether would excuse one from giving alms as it is only possible to do metaphorically, since one would not really be giving of one’s own possessions. Yet those who are married are bound to have children, not necessarily “here and now,” but “here and there,” just as one cannot be bound to give alms to a particular person (for then it would be justice), but rather one has discretion and must give “here and there” to those in need. ¹⁴¹ Legal justice is a “general virtue,” that is to say it is part of every virtue insofar as its object (the common good) is affected. (See ST II-II, q. 58, a. 6) However, a due act can be more directly in correspondence with what the common good demands, and therefore it follows that it can be more closely related to the general virtue of legal justice. NB: “legal justice” is not to be confused with the commutative justice arising from “legal debt.” (Much less is it to be confused with distributive justice issued in a courtroom – that is, “justice in a legal environment.”) ¹⁴² An extended study of the moral tradition on the duty to procreate would be a worthy project. I simply note that Pius XII and St. Paul VI explain the existence of such a duty in other places in the texts just quoted – the “Speech to Italian Midwives” and Humanae Vitae. The ancient and medieval authorities usually describe procreation as the primary end of marriage – the end thus defines “what one ought to do,” without further need to explain a duty to pursue that end – that is to say, what else does one marry for? (St. Thomas, however, does allude to a duty to procreate in ST II-II, q. 142, a. 1, ad. 2.) In witness to this, I offer the words of St. Justin Martyr (died c. 165): “But whether we [Christians] marry, it is only that we may bring up children; or whether we decline marriage, we live continently.” (First Apology, ch. 29; Translated by Marcus Dods and George Reith. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.] Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm.) See also Dr. N. Orville Griese, The Rhythm in Marriage and Christian Morality, The Newman Bookshop (Westminster, MD: 1944), p. 46-47. He compares the failure to have sufficient children to a priest with no assignment who refuses to give occasional sacramental assistance in a nearby parish church out of desire to stay in solitude with his own private mass.

The conclusion is that the illicit avoidance of having children is at least a sin against legal justice and also a sin against religion. The motives which inform this decision (i.e. for wealth, for ease of life, etc.) will further specify the precise nature of the sin.

In his “Speech to Italian Midwives,” Pius XII comments on the duty to have children in the following way:

The reason for this is that marriage obliges to a state of life which, while conferring certain rights also imposes the fulfillment of a positive work in regard to the married state itself. In such a case, one can apply the general principle that a positive fulfillment may be omitted when serious reasons, independent from the good will of those obliged by it, show that a similar demand cannot reasonably be made of human nature. The marriage contract which confers upon husband and wife the right to satisfy the inclinations of nature, sets them up in a certain state of life, the married state. But upon couples who perform the act peculiar to their state, nature and the Creator impose the function of helping the conservation of the human race. The characteristic activity which gives their state its value is the bonum prolis. The individual and society, the people and the state, the Church itself depend for the existence in the order established by God on fruitful marriage. Therefore, to embrace the married state, continuously to make use of the faculty proper to it and lawful in it alone, and on the other hand, to withdraw always and deliberately with no serious reason from its primary obligation, would be a sin against the very meaning of conjugal life.^{143 143} Pius XII, “Speech to Italian Midwives.” He continues: “There are serious motives, such as those often mentioned in the so-called medical, eugenic, economic, and social “indications,” that can exempt for a long time, perhaps even the whole duration of the marriage, from the positive and obligatory carrying out of the act. From this it follows that observing the non-fertile periods alone can be lawful only under a moral aspect. Under the conditions mentioned it really is so. But if, according to a rational and just judgment, there are no similar grave reasons of a personal nature or deriving from external circumstances, then the determination to avoid habitually the fecundity of the union while at the same time to continue satisfying their sensuality, can be derived only from a false appreciation of life and from reasons having nothing to do with proper ethical laws.” Note also that St. Paul VI opens Humanae Vitae by describing the transmission of human life as a duty: “The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships. The fulfillment of this duty has always posed problems to the conscience of married people, but the recent course of human society and the concomitant changes have provoked new questions.” (Humanae Vitae, §1.)

We see that Pius XII sees the duty of the spouses to have children as being interwoven both with the logic of the use of marriage and with what is owed to the natural community (the State, the human race) and to the Church.

The summary of the principle is then the following: justice demands the payment of the marital debt, in proportion to the seriousness and reasonableness of the request, while charity demands due care for the needs of any potential children, in relation to one’s status in the family or in society. It is possible for someone requesting the debt to be owed its payment while his or her charity towards potential children is lacking. As St. Thomas indicates, the debt is owed even in cases where the child is foreseen to be seriously ill (but not in cases where there is clearly serious danger to the spouse, evidently over and above that of possibly contracting leprosy).¹⁴⁴ In other words, the obligation of justice toward the spouse “outweighs” considerations of charity towards potential children. (The principal reason for this appears to be that the debt is owed to a real person, while charity is owed toward a potential person, viz., the child who may or may not be conceived.) ¹⁴⁴ ST Supp. q. 64, a. 1, ad. 4; a. 3; a. 4. The example discusses the contraction of serious illness on the child begotten, which is a matter for charity. Ultimately, however, the debt must be paid if there is sufficient insistence, which is explained in the Reply to the Fourth Objection in Article 1 as being because it is better for a child to be diseased than not to exist at all.

This model gives a way forward into thinking about other categories. For instance, a sufficient medical reason would probably not include the likelihood of gaining several pounds which one will be unable to lose easily (though this could be a legitimate social factor in an extremely unhealthy marriage where the wife is severely judged for her looks), but it could include worsening a preexisting heart condition that would render one unable to engage in the moderate recreations one is accustomed to. A sufficient social or psychological reason would likely not include standard postpartum depression or a slightly elevated level of stress, but it could include the foreseeable loss of mental energy to give the minimal amount of reasonably expected care to one’s other children or even to oneself. But one must be really honest with oneself about such things.

The distinction between intending to avoid pregnancy and the absence of an intention to achieve pregnancy (whether virtually or in any particular sexual act) must be insisted upon. The mere absence of an intention to achieve pregnancy seems to require much less serious motives than the positive intention to avoid pregnancy, but it does appear that it requires at least some kind of justification. As Pius XII teaches so clearly, the vocation to matrimony is also a call to build up a family when possible. However, it may be the case that circumstances are not quite so difficult to justify positively intending to avoid having more children but are difficult enough that it would require virtue beyond what the couple possesses to intend positively in a psychologically healthy way to have another child, somewhat analogous to giving alms here and now begrudgingly, or doing non-obligatory ascetical practices out of a false sense of duty.¹⁴⁵ The couple would then be excused from actively trying to have more children, but they would not necessarily be justified in having intending not to conceive and subsequently having intentional recourse to infertile periods for relations. In practice, this means they are relieved from the duty of preoccupying themselves with achieving pregnancy – this latter state being the obligatory default habitual intention of the couple. If the virtual (but not actual) intention to have more children remains, that is, if they still really want more children but are not actively trying to maximize this possibility, then they are free in their use of conjugal activity, regardless of whether it is foreseen to be infertile or not.^{146 145} Cf. 2 Corinthians 9:7. ¹⁴⁶ We see that there is then a kind of gradation of justification required to avoid venial sin which maps onto the recourse to the use of marriage within the context of periodic continence which also tracks the kind of intentionality towards children which the couple has.

Furthermore, it almost goes without saying, were they to decide to consecrate themselves to perpetual continence by mutual agreement for the sake of contemplative goods or the apostolate, this would also excuse them from having more children.

Dr. Griese’s text (The Rhythm in Marriage and Christian Morality) provides a list of excusing motives for periodic continence which seem to match this analysis. He classifies them by their relation to the probability of licitly excusing the practice permanently and temporarily: sufficient for permanent use, certainly sufficient for temporary use, probably sufficient for temporary use, doubtfully sufficient for temporary use, and certainly not sufficient for temporary use. This list is quote in full in the Appendix.

I conclude this section with some pertinent lines from Pius XII’s Address to Midwives, an allocution which has already been cited in this book several times:

It is not, moreover, necessary for Us to prove to you who have experienced it, how essential nowadays is that apostolate of appreciation and love for the new life. Unfortunately, cases are not rare in which even a cautious reference to children as a “blessing” is enough to provoke a downright denial and perhaps even derision. Far more frequently, in thought and in words, the attitude of considering children a heavy “burden” predominates. How opposed is this frame of mind to the mind of God and to the words of Holy Scripture, and, for that matter, to sound reason and the sentiment of nature! Should there be conditions and circumstances in which parents, without violating the law of God, can avoid the “blessing” of children, such cases of force majeure, however, by no means authorise the perversion of ideas, the disparaging of values, the belittling of the mother who has had the courage and the honour to give life.^{147 147} Pius XII, “Address to Participants in the Conference of the Italian Catholic Union of Obstetricians,” (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, October 29, 1951).

The fundamental questions to ask in the analysis of NFP are: what is the motivation for avoiding conceiving more children? – what is the motivation for this particular conjugal act? The preceptive data that has been presented thus far in searching out how to answer these questions correctly can be summarized by the following axiomatic principles.

First, the debt is to be paid according to the reasonability of the request according to circumstance in proportion to insistence upon it (in keeping with the normal human dynamic of communication about debts in general), regardless of any intention for procreation, lack of intention for procreation, or intention against procreation on the part of either spouse. No pre-arranged agreement of periodic continence short of mutually consensual vows of temporary or permanent continence would suffice to excuse one from this obligation, according to the general moral conditions regarding vows. In other words, if the spouse does not want to practice NFP, he or she does not have to and has a claim over his or her spouse according to the structure of the legal debt of conjugal goods.

Second, apart from the intention to conceive, the debt may only be requested for the sake of the easing of concupiscence not otherwise reasonably alleviated due to the risk of unchastity or gnawing distraction from rational goods, in proportion to the strength and urgency of that need vis-à-vis the strength of one’s intention not to pursue procreation (“not intending” or “intending not to”), any danger or inconvenience which is intrinsic (i.e. health) or extrinsic (i.e. social or economic difficulties) to conception which may occur in proportion with conception’s real likelihood (of an individual child, of twins, etc.), and the likelihood of such danger or inconvenience really obtaining. All this is to say that one may use marriage only to calm one’s desires as long as it is sufficiently honest, generous, and prudent to do so.¹⁴⁸ Social or affective goods may be willed beyond the relief of concupiscence but do not suffice of themselves to excuse the act. ¹⁴⁸ This author rejects the hypothesis that health alone would excuse the use of marriage. While concupiscence might not be relieved in another reasonable way, it is not plausible that health could not be pursued in some other way. This seems to render it sufficiently secondary or extrinsic so as not to be an excusing good, unlike the relief of concupiscence, the justice of the payment of the debt, or the primary end of the act used, namely, procreation.

Third, intentionally delaying the relaxation of concupiscence to the infertile periods is acceptable in proportion to the need for such relief, whether that need and its delay until infertility is actual (“one-off”) or habitual, and in proportion to the legitimacy of avoiding pregnancy. In other words, one may use NFP and anticipate sexual acts over some amount of time so long as it is really foreseen to be necessary for one’s need to relieve concupiscence.

Fourth, the legitimacy of avoiding pregnancy is measurable in accord with the spiritual goods which replace children (i.e. continence used to free one for prayer or the apostolate), and to the extent that one’s socioeconomic status or fundamental way of life is seriously threatened by conception strictly speaking. Just as one is bound to give alms in general, here and there (as opposed to being obliged to give in a specific case, which would then constitute an obligation of material assistance from justice rather than from charity), so too one is bound to have children generally within a marriage, “here and there.”¹⁴⁹ Intentionally avoiding this in the long-term requires a proportionate justification, just as the long-term refusal to give alms requires a proportionate justification, and the longer the intention endures, and the stronger the intention is, the more serious the justification must be.^{150 149} McHugh and Callan recommend having at least four children as a general rule. See #2622 – in this section they share their summary of Pius XII’s teaching on NFP and also discuss the debate on the positive duty to have children. ¹⁵⁰ To the untrained moralist, the continued use of the word “proportion” might give the impression that the position being presented is “proportionalist,” that is, somehow connected to the moral philosophy which is called “proportionalism.” This is not correct. For a brief explanation and condemnation of proportionalism, see Pope St. John Paull II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993), §75, §79, etc.

The simple summary of these four points could be expressed in the following way. “Give your spouse his or her due, be realistic about your own sexual needs independent of trying to conceive, only plan to use infertile periods for acts if really necessary, and try to have children unless it will clearly be harmful.”

It is not reasonable to say that a person would need to consider all of these thing individually and deliberately in each decision to make use of marriage, nor is it to be expected that one considers all these things perfectly well when they are averted to. Rather, one must simply form his or her conscience well, developing a taste for the true good according to the dictates of practical wisdom. This takes maturity of mind and virtue. In other words, one must “grow up and sincerely try to figure it out.”

Something must be said about if and when an unjustified decision to refrain from having children and continuing to use marriage in the context of periodic continence becomes grave sin. It is not a question which admits of a clear answer, as the foregoing analysis would be enough to imply. However, it is clear that the couple who is capable of having children and who has not given up their conjugal rights or their use for the sake of spiritual goods has a duty to procreate, as offspring is the primary good of marriage. Gaudium et Spes summarizes this principle in the following way: “Parents should regard as their proper mission the task of transmitting human life and educating those to whom it has been transmitted. They should realize that they are thereby cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are, so to speak, the interpreters of that love. Thus they will fulfil their task with human and Christian responsibility, and, with docile reverence toward God, will make decisions by common counsel and effort.”¹⁵¹ St. Thomas also speaks about the vice of “insensibility” (the immoderate aversion to pleasures of touch, including sexual pleasure,) as including a failure to fulfill one’s duty to procreate.¹⁵² In fact, given the inclination toward conjugal acts, we see that nature and the moral structure of the use of conjugal acts which has been explained in the preceding pages also generally inclines couples to intend to have children, or else be continually falling into venial sin. To be fully free to use conjugal acts indicates habitually having an intention towards procreation. ¹⁵¹ Gaudium et Spes, §50; later in the same paragraph, as quoted earlier, the text speaks of the “duty to procreate.” ¹⁵² ST II-II, q. 142, a. 1, resp.; ad. 2: “Whatever is contrary to the natural order is vicious. Now nature has introduced pleasure into the operations that are necessary for man’s life. Wherefore the natural order requires that man should make use of these pleasures, in so far as they are necessary for man’s well-being, as regards the preservation either of the individual or of the species. Accordingly, if anyone were to reject pleasure to the extent of omitting things that are necessary for nature’s preservation, he would sin, as acting counter to the order of nature. And this pertains to the vice of insensibility . . . Since man cannot use his reason without his sensitive powers. which need a bodily organ. as stated in I:84:7; I:84:8, man needs to sustain his body in order that he may use his reason. Now the body is sustained by means of operations that afford pleasure: wherefore the good of reason cannot be in a man if he abstain from all pleasures. Yet this need for using pleasures of the body will be greater or less, according as man needs more or less the powers of his body in accomplishing the act of reason. Wherefore it is commendable for those who undertake the duty of giving themselves to contemplation, and of imparting to others a spiritual good, by a kind of spiritual procreation, as it were, to abstain from many pleasures, but not for those who are in duty bound to bodily occupations and carnal procreation.”

Given all this, it is difficult to see how an objectively and clearly unjustified avoidance of having children, whether due to a lack of constraining conditions or there being no proportionately taxing pursuit of higher spiritual goods, and then having frequent and intentionally infertile recreational sexual activity for the duration of several years, perhaps three or four, can be without grave guilt.¹⁵³ It is not that many venial sins accrue together to make one mortal sin, for this is impossible. Rather, it reveals and confirms that one is so without the kind of generosity proper to one’s state in life that one is spiteful of or at least ungrateful toward the One Who instituted that which is being abused – because by now, at this point, one could should know for sure that God wants one to set out to do this very important and serious thing which is being neglected, and instead one chooses to “fool around.” However, opinions on this may vary. Here we begin to see the blurrier lines of moral science. It becomes even less clear when we ask whether the same analysis holds true of prolonged ongoing continence in conditions which would not justify spacing births when continence is used not for spiritual goods but merely to avoid having children, or even because a couple is simply not interested in having children and also has little interest in conjugal acts. It seems that the less frequently conjugal acts are used in infertile times, especially illicitly (and most of all unnaturally), the more lenient the judgment on the amount of time until there is grave matter on account of a failure to attempt to produce children. Perhaps seven or eight years would suffice for grave matter for those practicing total continence for the sake of pursuing personal hobbies or to accrue wealth beyond what is necessary for their station in life.^{154 153} McHugh and Callan discuss several opinions on this topic in #2622. Of course, in line with the basic jurisprudence of the confessional, couples who have acted in such a way and are convicted in conscience that they have committed grave sin ought to manifest this in an appropriate way in their next confession, even if such sin has already been forgiven through sufficiently blameless ignorance in past sincere confessions. ¹⁵⁴ Dr. Griese’s opinion is quite similar. See Rhythm in Marriage and Christian Morality, p. 54-56.

This list is published as found in Dr. N. Orville Griese’s book, The Rhythm of Marriage and Christian Morals (1944), p. 76-79.

[Note: Dr. Griese frames these causes as potentially excusing motives to abstain from relations, not as motives to have relations during infertile times. His book lacks a robust discussion of the latter piece of the puzzle.]

Ordinarily Sufficient for the Permanent Practice of Periodic Continence

1. Because conception will very probably result in death or a permanent state of bad health for the mother.

2. Because it is almost certain that the mother cannot bring forth living children.

3. Because the mother can bring forth only abortive children (i.e. miscarriages).

4. Because it is practically certain that the children will be born with serious and incurable hereditary defects, especially insanity.

5. Because it is morally impossible for the husband to support another child.

6. Because the mother has proven to be utterly incapable of fulfilling the usual maternal duties relative to the care and training of children either physically or morally.

7. Because one of the spouses is absolutely opposed to having children or another child. If there is no just cause for such an attitude, the other party (not the opposing one) would be justified in using the “rhythm” method. If the opposing party cannot be persuaded to change that attitude, the practice may be permitted to that party as the lesser of two evils.