But from reading other sources, it seems that NFP is fine no matter when and these conditions are rarely, if ever, mentioned.
I got out of teaching NFP when the NFP industry started teaching that NFP can be used for any reason whatsoever. The magisterial documents all mention grave or serious reasons. Pope Pius XII addressed this in his Address to the Italian Midwives, which specifically mentions the four types of scenarios I outlined:
“Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called ‘indications,’ may exempt husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life. From this it follows that the observance of the natural sterile periods may be lawful, from the moral viewpoint: and it is lawful in the conditions mentioned. If, however, according to a reasonable and equitable judgment, there are no such grave reasons either personal or deriving from exterior circumstances, the will to avoid the fecundity of their union, while continuing to satisfy to the full their sensuality, can only be the result of a false appreciation of life and of motives foreign to sound ethical principles.”
A couple months ago, I stumbled onto an older thread where I saw another view of NFP.
I think the poster was Herman the Cherusker, but I don’t see that name still on free republic. Anyway, he was saying that, according to most moral theologians, NFP is fine as long as you contribute a suitable amount of children to society. If I remember correctly, he also said that they estimated the suitable amount of kids for present-day America to be about 5 or so.
Do you have any comments on that? Was what he was saying correct at all?