Instead of being pragmatic, the option consistently presented by the Catholic Church (and all Christians prior to the Anglican decision at the Lambeth Conferences in 1930) is to be open to life, trust in God's providence according to the Gospels - like the lilies of the field and the birds of the air - and let God decide the number of children He wants to give to a family (instead of us telling God and human nature how many children we will "plan" to have).
As an aside, it's interesting that "birth control" is about not having births and, for many, not exercising self-control; so a sort of contradiction in terms. Likewise, "Planned Parenthood" is, in my opinion, better dubbed "Planned Barrenhood" because they certainly are not promoting having offspring. They definitely don't have a placard with this quote on it:
Behold the inheritance of the Lord are children: the reward, the fruit of the womb. As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so the children of them that have been shaken. Blessed is the man that hath filled the desire with them; he shall not be confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate. (Psalm 126:3-5)
Just as a final thought, it is interesting to note that contraception and sterilization are, without talking about philosophy or the Bible or theology, just unnatural. I heard of a group of hippies who wanted to be "natural" and not use contraception and in seeking for others of this mindset the only outfit they found to hold their position was the Roman Catholic Church - they became Catholics and formed a lay Dominican community. (Sorry I can't find a specific reference, but it's an interesting story - not often that hippies make there way into the Catholic Church!).
God bless you.
“.. group of hippies who wanted to be natural...”
Ha!! In advising my own daughters I like to highlight the hypocrisy of the greenie/hippy crowd. The women are pro choice and pro birth control. Most of the college aged women are taking birth control. I enjoy pointing out the discrepancy involved in consuming only organic chemical free vegetables and then daily ingesting a powerful synthetic hormone that fools the body into thinking it’s pregnant!! And this certainly includes the ivy league types who are supposedly smarter than the rest of us! My neice graduated from Cornell and was brainwashed to be as pro contraceptive as most all who reside in the happy/hippie valley in Ithaca - yet she is a strict Vegan!!
Also - isn’t giving birth the most natural thing for a woman to do rather than kill her unborn child?
This seems a bit off topic, but consider this - Christians know that we are created by God. Therefore God understands our nature thoroughly because he created that nature. Our inherent natural reproductive qualities were His intention. The prevention/interference with this process is articifical and man made. At the very least this nce is interference with His plan implies a lack of trust - and at worst it is an actual sin. The saints know to trust God completely - just as Jesus on the cross had total trust in His Father - His will be done.
This has been a burden on my mind for the past year. The goalposts have been moved by the church in relation to the world. The world moves and then the church. Now, we are at the point, even good and sincere Christians get their daughters on birth control at 16. Good and sincere married Christians allow the wife to get the birth control injection which last 3 months or so with side effects. I am not innocent in any of this, my kids are grown, but articles the past year have caused me to talk with them about God and contraception.
I grew up in an all Catholic, Irish and Italian community in The Bronx, NYC. I saw many families with 8-10-14 kids. for the most part the kids were not regulated as well as families with 2-3 kids... limited resources prevented them from getting higher education and as they got older, they were doing stuff out in the streets that their parents had no idea about...because the parents were too busy taking care of the plethora of babies still in the house.
in the day of the family farm, where you ‘bred’ your own farm help and expected a good chunk of progeny to die in childhood, making lots of babies was not only common, but made good sense.
we do not live like that anymore...life expectancy is way up from the 1800s...power equipment does most of the hard work on farms and most people live in the burbs or cities....
it just does not make sense to breed like that anymore.
IMHO....