"The use of NFP to avoid pregancy is invalid if the intent is invalid, namely if the intent is, for example, to have two uninterrupted careers."
What if the intent is to space the children? Is that valid? What if there are only two bedrooms in the house and the couple is going on the fourth child? Is that valid? What if the husband is expecting a decrease in pay? Is that valid? What if the wife is having trouble raising so many children, she finds the task daunting? Is that valid? What if the couple is in the middle of a move to another city soon? Is that valid? I'm not trying to be cute, I'm really not. I just have a problem, to a very large degree, with Letter of the law Catholics, and the NFP issue brings it to the fore more than any other Catholic issue I can think of. It is the splitting of hairs and that's where our discussion has gone here. No one, as much as they have tried, has put my questions to bed in a very practical and reasonable content which would squash all my doubts. I have studied this NFP issue intensively and it's the practical application that just gives me fits. I know I'm supposed to buy into NFP as a good Catholic and to fortify my faith with it's practice. But on an intellectual basis I am not getting it. I understand "Do NOT KILL." , "Do Not steal" and the other 99.99% of our simple and strighforward Roman Catholic Faith." I understand it's moral applications, the intent, the consequences, etc. It all makes sense. However, this one issue still confounds me to no end. Maybe one day the proverbial light bulb will illuminate in my soul.
I'm confused. Are you starting from scratch, here?
Have you read "Familiaris Consortio" and "Humanae Vitae," and the "Catechism of the Catholic Church"? How about Pope John Paul II's "Love and Responsibility" and "Theology of the Body." Scott and Kimberly Hahn's "Life Giving Love." Janet Smith's (tape), "Contraception ... Why Not?" John and Sheila Kippley's "Art of Natural Family Planning," which is not just a "how-to," but a "What's it all about?". Charles Provan's "The Bible and Birth Control." Sam and Bethany Torode's "An Open Embrace." Rick and Jan Hess's "A Full Quiver."
This is just a start of Catholic and Protestant resources on the subject ... just the ones I can remember the author and title of at the end of a long, 100+ day. If you've done the basic intellectual groundwork, what do you expect this thread to add? If not, well ... what?
Your sincerity is more than clear. These are excellent questions. The reality is that once I have taken these decisions into my own hands, rather than leaving them in God's hands, then the questions never stop, and there really aren't any good answers to them. This is literally true, since the Catholic Church has never provided concrete answers to your questions, and has deliberately steered clear of answering the obvious question "What precisely qualifies as 'grave reasons'?"
The only really good answer to your questions is to place my entire confidence in God's divine providence, and for me to realize that I made my choice on the day that I said "I do" -- on that day I made the choice for fruitfulness and generosity and submission, and I no longer have to reconsider my decision on a month-by-month basis.
I just have a problem, to a very large degree, with Letter of the law Catholics, and the NFP issue brings it to the fore more than any other Catholic issue I can think of. It is the splitting of hairs and that's where our discussion has gone here.
Your insight is valid regarding the tendency towards being a "letter of the law Catholic." I know I've often felt that temptation. The solution is not to split hairs ever more finely, but to accept as many children as God wants to send you. If you come to Mass at a traditional Catholic chapel, you will meet many families who are doing just that. They have given up splitting hairs and following the letter of the law, and have given their lives over to God.
However, this one issue still confounds me to no end. Maybe one day the proverbial light bulb will illuminate in my soul.
Perhaps the light bulb will go on when you read Pope Pius XII's beautiful "Address to Large Families." Given in 1958, the final year of his pontificate, it contains not even a whiff of legalistic hair-splitting. Instead it describes in beatifully poetic language the joys of obeying God's law by "being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth."
http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=5370&longdesc
If you are in doubt whether avoidance of pregnancy is valid, you can ask a priest. I am not one, and, like with any moral consideration, an insight into your internal disposition is required.
A general principle, I guess, is that if avoiding pregnancy is done for fear of true economic hardship, or health reasons, then it is valid. If some practical consideration is used as an excuse, and the real reason is selfishness, then it is not valid. It is God, not a police department that your need to find peace with.
My horse sense is that spacing the children to geve the mother a break form serial pregnancies is valid, and waiting till you get a raise so that each child has a separate bedroom is not valid.
The issue confounds you because it is countercultural, as is, in fact, all of Catholicism. For some reason you are not inclined to split hairs over Do Not Kill commandment in the same way you look for excuses with Be Fruitful and Multiply commandment. But they are both equally simple. If you want a hard issue, try Do Not Be Prideful. Imagine the hairs split over that. Yet, Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. We are simply conditioned to let some moral issues slide.
Every reason you give above is valid.
Catholic Moral Theologians have stated that the obligation to procreate children is a matter of social justice, and is limited by right reason to what society actually needs from you in the way of children. During the middle of the last century (~1930-1975) when there was some intense discussion on this topic, this was held to be at least 4 children. This provides for the replacement of the parents, making-up the deficit of those who never marry, marry late in life, or are infertile, and providing for a modest increase and an ability of society to absorb the vocations of celibate priests, monks, and nuns without causing a population decline. I don't see any reason this judgement needs to be changed, nor have any Moral Theologians suggested such.
The method of achieving this aim is then a matter of sexual morality, which dictates that artifical contraceptives and sterilization may not be used, but abstinence (whether periodic, longer term, or permanent) may be used.
I just have a problem, to a very large degree, with Letter of the law Catholics, and the NFP issue brings it to the fore more than any other Catholic issue I can think of. It is the splitting of hairs and that's where our discussion has gone here.
I sympathize with you brother. Catholic morality, no thanks to the casuists, is often presented as a Talmudic like quest for legalistic perfection in the face of problems. On the contrary, it is really the living of the basic norms of the Lord Jesus, and it neither involves nor needs a legalistic inquest.
That being said, the questions you first ask are poorly phrased. It is not a matter of whether or not your reasons are "valid", but whether they are "just". Something is "just" if it is aimed towards an end which is not immoral, and does not vitiate formal obligations of Christian life.
As I stated above, one obligation of Christian life for a married couple in the United States is to attempt to have at least 4 children, based on the divine command at our creation "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it". Provided that you intend to accomplish this if temporally possible given your wife's age at marriage, and provided that her health is okay, and that you have sufficient time left in the fertile years of your wife to actually accomplish it, nearly any reason that might occur to a normal couple, such as those you give above, could be a just cause for using NFP for some time. The only reasons that would be unworthy would be a desire to avoid having at least 4 children out of misplaced financial reasoning as if everyone cannot afford to raise at least 4 children, or an active dislike for children, or various false beliefs that there are too many people or children in the world, etc., in other words a debased view of marriage and family life, an overly frugal view of financial reality, or a deranged view of the actual population situation in the world.
It follows from all of this that purposefully having more than 4 children is an act of supererogation - that is, a meritorious act above and beyond what everyone is obliged to fulfill which gives an increase of merit with regard to eternal salvation. Hence the glowing descriptions and praise of the Popes regarding large families. It is a wonderful thing to have a large family, but it is not an obligation, just like it is a wonderful thing to go to daily Mass, but not an obligation.
Unfortunately, the way too many Catholics present this issue is that NFP is illegitimate unless you are on the verge of starvation or foreclosure on your home or your wife would die in childbirth during the next delivery or you are actually homeless. That simply is not the case at all.
The real practical application is one of freedom in the Lord. Provided you are acting uprightly towards your marriage obligations towards society to have children and each other to maintain marital affection and prevent alienation or solitary sins, you and your spouse may choose to have intercourse as often or infrequently as you wish, and no one should judge you or the results, providing you never frustrate the natural act. This last proviso referring not only to the use of artifical birth control and sterilization and onanism, but also the disgusting practices of heterosexual consummated male passive oral or female passive rectal sodomy.
I hope this helps.