[steadfastconservative]

As far as I know, priests aren’t allowed to give “dispensations” on anything. That power would belong to the Holy See. It sounds as if this priest acted on his own authority.

The Church does NOT permit the use of artificial birth control for any reason.

The Church does not permit sterilization procedures, i.e. medical procedures that are performed for the purpose of preventing conception. It does permit medical or surgical procedures that are performed for other reasons of health that happen to cause infertility but it does NOT permit procedures that performed for the specific reason of preventing conception regardless of how “noble” the reasons for these might be. This couple could have used NFP, which is quite effective.

The problem with allowing married couples to use artificial birth control is that it opens the door to the widespread use of birth control. Indeed, Catholics who wanted the Church to approve the use of the Pill in 1968, wanted married, faithful Catholics to have the option of using the Pill for supposedly good reasons, they didn’t intend for everyone to be able to use it. Of course, Pope Paul VI quashed their hopes in Humanae Vitae and unequivocally condemned the use of the Pill or any other form of contraception by Catholics for any reason. Many Catholics simply refused to accept this teaching and, not surprisingly, many Catholics, married and single, started using artificial birth control, some for “good” reasons and some for bad. At least those who use birth control, know that they are disobeying the Church and doing something wrong.

[Caramelgal]

As far as I know, priests aren’t allowed to give “dispensations” on anything. That power would belong to the Holy See. It sounds as if this priest acted on his own authority.

As my brother and his wife are at least twelve years older than I, and I was pretty young when this all took place, perhaps they never shared with me all the details and what other medical complications were going on at the time. And I don’t really know for a fact that it was the priest who acted alone in saying the tubaligation was OK or whether it went to a higher authority or even all the way to Rome. So perhaps I misspoke or misunderstood that this was a true “dispensation” in the eyes of the Church. When I see my brother and sister in law next month at the Traditional Catholic Christening of their daughter’s 4 month old triplets, perhaps I’ll ask them for more details and consult with their priest on the subject.

I do know that my brother and my sister in law are very devout and extremely conservative Catholics who have for many years been active in the Traditionalist movement and have attended Mass and taken the Sacrament in a traditionalist Catholic Church that holds to pre-Vatican II and very conservative tenants and a Tridentine Latin Mass.

This couple could have used NFP, which is quite effective.

NFP is very effective as long as the woman has very regular and predictable menstrual and ovulation cycles. If her cycles are at all irregular or if she is pre-menopausal, then NFP is very unreliable as is the idea that a woman in lactation is not capable of getting pregnant. One of my best friends and her husband had another baby 15 months after the birth of their first and conceived her second while she was still nursing the younger child.