May 16, 2013 – Catechism 2366 - 2379

Fecundity is the ability to reproduce.  I didn’t know that when I first read it, but it becomes pretty obvious as you go through the paragraphs.

2370 is a focus on the difference between artificial contraception and forms of NFP.  The basic difference is in the word “artificial”.  NFP is natural, using the natural cycles that God gave a woman.  Ask yourself what the purpose of giving a woman her cycle was for.  It allows for reproduction and it allows a time to be fertile or not.  God did not give woman their cycle so that they could be cranky and irritable for periods of time.  There is a very specific and natural reason.  Now, take God’s natural and specific reason, and think about all the ways that people try to upset or stop the natural system that God installed.  People wonder why Catholics are against contraceptives, but why are people for them.  They are not just “artificial” but basically contrary to nature.  They distort what God created.

And those are the hormonal contraceptives.  The barrier methods are basically a barrier to the fully and total gift that the marital act is supposed to be.

I think it is also interesting that the Church teaches about children not being a right, but a gift.  One of the most disturbing movies I have seen in a while was the Nanny Diaries, or something like that.  I know it is a movie and it cannot possibly be that bad in real life, but it probably is in places.  These parents had the kids, seemingly, because they thought they were supposed to, but couldn’t be bothered or care for these kids in the least.  They left them with the nanny and lived the lives they wanted to.  (Side note by the way.  Watch the ever popular Mary Poppins movie with this in mind and ask yourself if the mother learned anything in that movie.  I couldn’t stand that movie because the mom is nowhere to be seen and then comes in at the end and enjoys her changed husband, but did she change at all.  NO)

The paragraphs also touch on the different methods that people use to have babies that go outside the marital act and bring in doctors or third parties.  Many people would be upset that the Church would not allow any means to be allowed to have children, but that is because people have taken the sacredness of the marital act away.  When you believe that this act is holy and sacred and that a child should be brought into this world through that act, anything outside that should be wrong.  But, ask yourself how many of these “methods” would not be necessary if we hadn’t injected so many different things into our bodies to prevent pregnancy.  I don’t know if there is a correlation between the two, but logic would say if you pump chemicals in your body for 20-25 years to stop a pregnancy, your body will need some extra assistance to have one when you do want one.