Aside from hurling drivel around, there is plenty of "Failure to communicate" going on. Could you say again the question you think we aren't answering? I ask because I thought I saw a charge of an unanswered question and I thought I tried to answer it.
And if you want, could you explain the word "legalistic". In my experience that word mostly generates heat and obscures the little light that might be floating around.
I simply don’t buy into the legalistic prohibition on responsible family planning by Rome.
Of course this is a highly tendentious way of expressing what nearly all Xtian denominations taught until less than 100 years ago. "Rome" is not against family planning and "Rome" is not against being responsible. "Rome" generally thinks that sin is intrinsically bad for one, not in terms of a future punishment but also in terms of a current hindrance in one's walk in Christ. "Rome" thinks, I'd venture to say, that while not all married couples are able to fulfill the archaic command to be fruitful and multiply, inability is one thing and setting out deliberately "with - if not malice, certainly disobedience aforethought" is not just a blot in one's copy-book, but contrary to how God intends and designs redeemed humans to be healthy, holy, and happy. And she sees artificial birth control as such an act, bearing its consequences within itself.
All the dire threats made by the fuddyduddies in reference to ABC have come true. They were pooh-poohed at the time, But homosexual genital activity has gone from the love that dare not speak its name to a civil right, promiscuity beggars the imagination, mothers dress their pre-pubescent daughters like trollops, TV advisors think adolescents should be sexually active and say so, illegitimacy is, unexpectedly at a very high rate and so on. When I was a deputy just a few years ago we transported some kids from the Juvie to Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court and heard the young men bragging about the bastards they'd sired -- Juveniles! Under 18! Students at UVA had their underthings all in a twist because the state subsidy - SUBSIDY! - on Artificial Birth Control was being reduced and they were going to have to pay more for their pills.
All this, though not in such detail, was predicted when the Anglicans at Lambeth in 1930 decided to come out in favor of "responsible family planning".
Of course, at the last Diocesan Council I attended as an Episcopal priest, the argument was seriously raised that the old notion of marriage being lifelong was made popular when people died younger and women died more often in childbirth. But now that we have the curse of better medicine and it's diabolical result that our wives actually hang around for a while, the burden of lifelong marriage had become just too much to expect of the modern Christian. Artificial Birth Control was going to reduce sexual frustration in marriage and so reduce the impetus for infidelity and the resultant divorce. But the unintended consequence of women living longer was now offered as a justification for MORE divorce!
Consequently, I think a little disagreement about what exactly constitutes responsible family behavior is not out of order and the view opposing yours is not fit to be dismissed as a legalistic condemnation of responsibility.
“artificial birth control...bearing its consequence within itself”
So true. God may forgive, but nature won’t.
And so the consequences of pharmacuetical and surgical sterilization will make themselves know in due time and maybe at the most inconvenient time at that. And those consequences won’t be just physical—they will affect the whole person.
I’m going to try to ease out of this thread - so I’ll leave it at this.
As to the unanswered question - I was simply curious to see if any Roman Catholics would affirm the notion that sex betwen two heterosexual, married people - whether genital intercourse with contraception, or oral sex, anal sex, masturbation, etc. - if those constituted grave sin or not. Just a question.
Legalistic - calling married intercourse or sexuality ‘sterile gymnastics’ if family planning is used to me, frankly, seems legalistic and just sort of sad. I can’t speak for other folks sex life, but mine is a bit more rich, meaningful, life-giving and blessed than ‘sterile gymnastics.’
But if one views sex between a married man and woman as legitimate and moral only if pregnancy is a realistic possibility as the result of orgasm, then it makes sense. To me, to many, that perspective is extrabiblical and legalistic. The use or non-use of contraception is a matter of personal conscience.
Birth control is more available in Europe and one doesn’t see the same level of unwanted and unintended pregnancies between unmarried folk - such as those you transported to ‘juvie.’ You label the babies they sired - god bless that procreation - bastards. Huh. Should we abort the bastards? Should they bear the label bastard through their lives. So - abortion is evil, but contraception is also evil. You’re going to wind up with babies then - why label them bastards?
Condoms are shunned in Africa, the AIDS rate is very high and the notion that having sex with (i.e. - raping) a virgin will cure it is current. Wouldn’t wider availability and more education as to the use and application of family planning and the biological facts of sex be a positive good?
Correlation is not causation. You suggest contraception abets divorce or illegitimacy. Perhaps it is cars, the ability to travel outside the bounds of community; the anonymity of cities and suburbia? The avoidance of realistic sexuality education among many Christians? The longer time between the onset of puberty and the average age of marriage? It is a complicated and complex issue. Blaming the availability of birth control seems a very superficial answer.
Finally, the NFP “all contraception is sin folks” don’t mind throwing labels and judgments around but you balk at the perception that it is legalistic to condemn other Christians who in good conscience utilize contraception in family planning? Sorry.
That said - Have a blessed sabbath day and Memorial Day, I bow out. It is an intramural debate among sistren and brethren. We’re all in it together against Islam, etc, etc, etc. Blessings.