Reflection on July 23, 1980

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb31.htm

As we have seen, the fall has distorted the communion of persons from what JPII calls an authentic subjectivity, a fully receptacle gift between giver and receiver. What we have instead is a the giving and receiving of an object, a deterioration of the human to a worldly object on par with the rest of creation, not above it as God created in the beginning. This loss and distortion and trying to combat that is one of the main foundational reasons, I see, that NFP is promoted by the Catholic Church. NFP is focused on getting rid of the barriers that prevent this full reciprocity that was there in the beginning. In NFP, the husband and wife give to each other the gift of themselves fully and receive the other fully. It is meant to be a method that opens up a couple to the fullness of communion that was meant to be at the beginning.

Yes, as with everything, it can be abused. It can be used as a method of not having children for no particular reason, but it is not taught for that reason or is it intended for that purpose. Its purpose is to help a couple get back to that original communion, to push back against the view that the other is an object of pleasure, that the union of husband and wife is a special and unique thing, that the two becoming one flesh (with no barriers) is meant to be one of our strongest experiences in understanding our own humanity and seeing the mystery of God.

Artificial birth control, at it very foundation, seeks to destroy that original idea. It says to the other, “You are not a gift I want to receive. I want the bodily pleasure you can give me, but not the communion, the commitment. You are not a gift, you are an object.” Everything that artificial birth control promotes pushes a view of this distorted communion of persons that we see after the fall. It relies on us seeking physical pleasure, of using the other as an object. It relies on our lack of commitment, our shielding ourselves from the other, our longing to “cover” ourselves and not be fully given or to fully receive. Think about the vows we hear at a wedding. “I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.” In the small print you don’t see, “Accept in the bedroom where I will shield you away from who I really am, keep a barrier between us because I don’t trust you or I don’t trust God, I will never fully give myself to you because I am afraid, and I will never fully receive you because we will choose to hold ourselves back.” Sounds like true love to me, but that is what we are saying when we choose artificial birth control.

“It deprives man of the dignity of giving, which is expressed by his body through femininity and masculinity. In a way it depersonalizes man, making him an object "for the other." Instead of being "together with the other".

“in the sense that these relations become almost incapable of accepting the mutual gift of the person.”

I really don’t have anything to say about the court case going on right now about this subject. I think there are strong religious and moral and reasonable reasons that artificial birth control is wrong. I don’t know how the court will fall on this issue. Regardless, the issue won’t be settled. If the court does find that we must pay for birth control, I think it is within our right to ask them to pay for a couple to have an NFP class, which when followed can be more effective than any artificial birth control. It has also always made me curious how the same liberals who do not want pesticides on their tomatoes or coal smoke in their rain jump up and down for the right to put something that is lethal to a fetus in their body. You would think they would be the strongest proponents for a NATURAL method. But the world is a mystery to me.

Words I looked up.

Appropriation – (Relationship of Appropriation) - to take to or for oneself; take possession of.