It seems that every time I am introduced to someone, they ask if the "JC" stands for "Jesus Christ." The joke gets old, since I am not worthy of the comparison, but I can at least hope to be a good Christian.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
NFP and Ritual Purity
The recent Washington Post article about "rebranding" the Church's teaching against contraception has sparked a bit of discussion in the Catholic corner of the blogosphere (especially among those cultivators of Catholic culture, the Catholic mothers). In particular, Mrs Sarah Babbs has a post in which she essentially discusses the question as to whether any form of birth control--whether contraceptive, or NFP, or what--is morally licit. This is in the context of two camps within Catholicism: one which says that all married couple are obligated to bear as many children as physically possible barring very grave reasons (e.g. serious danger to the mother's life), the other which says that there is nothing in principle wrong with spacing children--though contraception itself is wrong--and thus NFP is perfectly fine for use in delaying pregnancy. She laces herself in the latter camp, concluding:
“What I don’t get is why it’s bad to, using prayerful discernment, decide to use your God-given intellect, and ability to track your fertility signs, to either avoid or achieve a pregnancy. If you’re not putting an actual barrier (visible or not) between yourself and your spouse, then what is wrong with wanting to space children out? Why should I feel the need to justify to anyone other than God why we chose to avoid a pregnancy for as long as we did?...
The point I’m trying to make is that, if we acknowledge that the control we do have is limited, and we include God in the decision making process, is it wrong to say that NFP can be ‘Catholic birth control’ and that’s not such a horrible thing?”
I agree with her in principle (and in practice). I would even say that it is fair to acknowledge that periodic abstinence (assisted by NFP or not) is a form of birth control, albeit one which can be used not only to successfully delay pregnancy, but also to more successfully achieve pregnancy. That is to say, if the abstinence is practiced during the fertile time of the woman's cycle, she will not get pregnant; if it is practiced only during the non-fertile times of the month, she will more like become pregnant than a woman who has no particular pattern to her times of abstinence and non-abstinence.
However, Mrs Babbs also hits on an important point when she writes (original format), “Birth control and contraception are not the same thing.” And that is a big part of the problem, which is a problem with the culture (of death) in general, that they do not make this distinction. So long as the culture does not make this distinction [1], we will have a sort of language problem.So long as contraception and birth control are viewed by the larger culture as interchangeable terms, rather than recognizing that the former is a subset of the latter [2], the statement that "NFP is Catholic birth control" is likely to be confusing or misleading, or at times even provides cultural cover to people who embrace (and indeed, proselytize for) the contraceptive mentality.
Consider two groups of people (there are, of course, others). On the one hand, there will be some who continue to view NFP as just one among many options for avoiding pregnancy, and by extension even some Catholics who view it this way with a ritual caveat (it is the only “ritually pure” form of birth control). The conclusion is that there is no moral difference between birth control and contraception, nor really between contraception and NFP, and hence that there isn’t *really* a moral problem with contraception. Thus, the more Orthodox Catholics will not use contraception but may use NFP in the same way that orthodox Jews cannot eat pork but may eat beef. Viewed this way, there really isn't anything morally wrong with (for example) the Obama Administration's mandate, though it still may still infringe on religious freedoms slightly by making Catholic employers help others to violate this ritual taboo [3].
At the other end, there will be some Catholics who take the same "first" view that contraception and birth control are indistinguishable and then (correctly) note that contraception is morally wrong. They would then draw the incorrect conclusion that NFP is also morally wrong, whether or not it is ritually permissible. They might, for example, compare contraception to NFP by way of an analogy comparing murder to justifiable homicide in self-defense, or for that matter between abortion and the removal of the fallopian tubes and subsequent death of the embryonic child in the case of an ectopic pregnancy. By such a view, the act is permissible only for the most extreme of reasons (e.g. because the mother would die if she becomes pregnant, or perhaps in some cases because the family is homeless, etc). According to such a view, every act of sexual intercourse must intend that a child come into existence (provided that the wife is not already pregnant), rather than simply being "open to life."
Notice that both views of sex diminish it. The former treats it as nothing special, or at the very least as something considerably less special than it is, that is, by removing the procreative end of sex from the act. Sexual intercourse is then no longer an act of pro-creation, which ultimately means of co-creation [4], the participation in God's creation. On the other hand, the latter view treats sex as unholy by removing its unitive act. In the extreme (prudish) version of this view, sex becomes a dirty thing which stains the soul. It is in some ways an evil thing out of which God brings something good (a new life), and which has been made ritually pure for us thanks to our married state and then only in order to procreate.
Contrast this with a third option, which says that sex is holy, but which recognizes that we are not holy. Thus, one of the graces of the sacrament of marriage is that we may be purified to approach this mystical altar. Only in marriage are we able to remove the shoes of our feet to walk piously upon this holy ground. This makes sex ritually pure for us not by purifying the sex, but by purifying us. Periodic abstinence (with or without NFP) is then the decision not to approach the altar, or not to step onto the holy ground, during some days of the woman's cycle. Contraception, on the other hand, becomes more akin to striking at the altar, to desecrating it and despoiling the holy ground surrounding it; or worse yet, it becomes akin to symbolically sacrificing our spouses on the altar to Asmodeus (and perhaps also to Lucifer): it's not only ritually impure, but morally bad.
--Footnotes--
[1] Sometimes this is willful, e.g. the distinction is refused because the person failing to make this distinction doesn't want there to be a distinction. Other times it's laziness, and the person in question simply doesn't care about the distinctions and refuses to try and understand the significance. Still other times, the person is genuinely confused concerning the difference, and still others he may see the distinction as too minor to matter.
[2] As an example, consider murder as opposed to killing. The former is always wrong. The latter is unfortunate, but not always wrong, as it can involve anything from murder to accidental manslaughter to justifiable homicide (self-defense).
[3] Viewed this way, the Obama Administration's HHS mandate would still infringe slightly on religious freedoms, but in a much less radical way. Catholics are still "free" to pursue ritual purity in their sex lives, but they must still provide support for those who do not want to live according to that ritual purity. This then becomes a more-or-less economic question and a question about Big Government and politics, but not of religion.
[4] God alone Is Creator. Man can normally make a thing--that is, he can take an existing material and change it, as from a tree to a table. God can create a thing, that is, bring it into existence where previously nothing (no thing) existed. But in the act of procreation, we are allowed to participate in God's creation, since each new life represents a new soul, which is turn is brought into being by God from nothing, becoming the form of the newly-begotten child.
I agree with her in principle (and in practice). I would even say that it is fair to acknowledge that periodic abstinence (assisted by NFP or not) is a form of birth control, albeit one which can be used not only to successfully delay pregnancy, but also to more successfully achieve pregnancy. That is to say, if the abstinence is practiced during the fertile time of the woman's cycle, she will not get pregnant; if it is practiced only during the non-fertile times of the month, she will more like become pregnant than a woman who has no particular pattern to her times of abstinence and non-abstinence.
However, Mrs Babbs also hits on an important point when she writes (original format), “Birth control and contraception are not the same thing.” And that is a big part of the problem, which is a problem with the culture (of death) in general, that they do not make this distinction. So long as the culture does not make this distinction [1], we will have a sort of language problem.So long as contraception and birth control are viewed by the larger culture as interchangeable terms, rather than recognizing that the former is a subset of the latter [2], the statement that "NFP is Catholic birth control" is likely to be confusing or misleading, or at times even provides cultural cover to people who embrace (and indeed, proselytize for) the contraceptive mentality.
Consider two groups of people (there are, of course, others). On the one hand, there will be some who continue to view NFP as just one among many options for avoiding pregnancy, and by extension even some Catholics who view it this way with a ritual caveat (it is the only “ritually pure” form of birth control). The conclusion is that there is no moral difference between birth control and contraception, nor really between contraception and NFP, and hence that there isn’t *really* a moral problem with contraception. Thus, the more Orthodox Catholics will not use contraception but may use NFP in the same way that orthodox Jews cannot eat pork but may eat beef. Viewed this way, there really isn't anything morally wrong with (for example) the Obama Administration's mandate, though it still may still infringe on religious freedoms slightly by making Catholic employers help others to violate this ritual taboo [3].
At the other end, there will be some Catholics who take the same "first" view that contraception and birth control are indistinguishable and then (correctly) note that contraception is morally wrong. They would then draw the incorrect conclusion that NFP is also morally wrong, whether or not it is ritually permissible. They might, for example, compare contraception to NFP by way of an analogy comparing murder to justifiable homicide in self-defense, or for that matter between abortion and the removal of the fallopian tubes and subsequent death of the embryonic child in the case of an ectopic pregnancy. By such a view, the act is permissible only for the most extreme of reasons (e.g. because the mother would die if she becomes pregnant, or perhaps in some cases because the family is homeless, etc). According to such a view, every act of sexual intercourse must intend that a child come into existence (provided that the wife is not already pregnant), rather than simply being "open to life."
Notice that both views of sex diminish it. The former treats it as nothing special, or at the very least as something considerably less special than it is, that is, by removing the procreative end of sex from the act. Sexual intercourse is then no longer an act of pro-creation, which ultimately means of co-creation [4], the participation in God's creation. On the other hand, the latter view treats sex as unholy by removing its unitive act. In the extreme (prudish) version of this view, sex becomes a dirty thing which stains the soul. It is in some ways an evil thing out of which God brings something good (a new life), and which has been made ritually pure for us thanks to our married state and then only in order to procreate.
Contrast this with a third option, which says that sex is holy, but which recognizes that we are not holy. Thus, one of the graces of the sacrament of marriage is that we may be purified to approach this mystical altar. Only in marriage are we able to remove the shoes of our feet to walk piously upon this holy ground. This makes sex ritually pure for us not by purifying the sex, but by purifying us. Periodic abstinence (with or without NFP) is then the decision not to approach the altar, or not to step onto the holy ground, during some days of the woman's cycle. Contraception, on the other hand, becomes more akin to striking at the altar, to desecrating it and despoiling the holy ground surrounding it; or worse yet, it becomes akin to symbolically sacrificing our spouses on the altar to Asmodeus (and perhaps also to Lucifer): it's not only ritually impure, but morally bad.
--Footnotes--
[1] Sometimes this is willful, e.g. the distinction is refused because the person failing to make this distinction doesn't want there to be a distinction. Other times it's laziness, and the person in question simply doesn't care about the distinctions and refuses to try and understand the significance. Still other times, the person is genuinely confused concerning the difference, and still others he may see the distinction as too minor to matter.
[2] As an example, consider murder as opposed to killing. The former is always wrong. The latter is unfortunate, but not always wrong, as it can involve anything from murder to accidental manslaughter to justifiable homicide (self-defense).
[3] Viewed this way, the Obama Administration's HHS mandate would still infringe slightly on religious freedoms, but in a much less radical way. Catholics are still "free" to pursue ritual purity in their sex lives, but they must still provide support for those who do not want to live according to that ritual purity. This then becomes a more-or-less economic question and a question about Big Government and politics, but not of religion.
[4] God alone Is Creator. Man can normally make a thing--that is, he can take an existing material and change it, as from a tree to a table. God can create a thing, that is, bring it into existence where previously nothing (no thing) existed. But in the act of procreation, we are allowed to participate in God's creation, since each new life represents a new soul, which is turn is brought into being by God from nothing, becoming the form of the newly-begotten child.