Dear Maximilian,
Well, at times in the conversation, it seems as if Prolifeconservative has not objected (at least not entirely in theory) to the ends of NFP. It appears that he has, rather, said that he doesn't see the difference in MEANS between NFP and artificial contraception.
If I've misconstrued that, Prolifeconservative, please correct me.
However, Maximilian, even you seem to leave open a door for a just use of NFP, in that even you appear to admit that in some exceptional circumstances, avoiding conception may be permitted. Under those circumstances, do you think NFP is a moral means? I'm sure that you agree that artificial contraception would not be a moral means.
sitetest
Perhaps I misunderstood him, but the basic message I got was "In both cases you're having sex without having babies, so what's the big difference?"
However, Maximilian, even you seem to leave open a door for a just use of NFP, in that even you appear to admit that in some exceptional circumstances, avoiding conception may be permitted. Under those circumstances, do you think NFP is a moral means?
Periodic continence is like missing Mass on Sunday -- it's not a sin if you have a good enough reason. But it's not a good thing either. NFP is inherently superior to artificial birth control, but it's still enormously problematic.
Using NFP is comparable to getting an annulment. Both can sometimes be legitimate, but both have exploded from a very rare handful of exceptions to, in the case of annulment, more than 50,000 per year. Now that some dioceses are requiring pre-marital NFP counseling, will they also be offering pre-marital annulment counseling?
In the meantime, NFP acts like the conjurer's trick of misdirection by distracting our attention away from real issue: "I set before you today death and life -- choose life." We need to stop trying to serve 2 masters. Let's choose life, and life in more abundance.