Reflection on August 1, 1984

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb116.htm

As we read this, we see that the argument about birth control, if limited to only whether you can use it or not, will miss the actual point. The reasons for its restrictions in the eyes of the Church go far beyond the actual use of it, but stretch, as we have seen, to the very understanding of what it means to be human. All of these documents go to the very powerful and fundamental meaning of the conjugal act and what that act means to us as humans, both in its two meaning and in its connection with being a part of God’s divine plan.

SPJII seems to point not to the use of birth control but to the moral maturity that is required for those to join in the conjugal act. There must be commitment; there must be understanding, the acceptance of children, the decision to not have children, etc. It is so much more than the physical pleasure that you receive. The world wants the physical pleasure and wants to delete everything else involved. The Catholic teaching sees the conjugal act as so much more than a physical act (although it sees it as that as well) which is why it attempts to protect it from distortion. Something so precious is meant to be guarded. The world doesn’t want to guard it; it wants to “free” it. I am sure there are stories out there the analogies this gift with something precious, maybe this is a better way to sell it to the world. Catholic teaching isn’t a restriction on your life, it is a protection of a very precious gift, possibly the most valuable gift you have. Hard to say if the world would listen to that either.