But how are we to seek and obtain divine help if we go against
God’s will? Thus do we come to understand that the "lifestyle" and
"exercise of self-control" are, in reality, nothing but a
presumptuous self-delusion and, in the end, sheer hypocrisy meant
to cover up a very wretched reality. The priests who still listen
to penitents in confession are quite aware of this fact.
Just to what point we can delude ourselves through the
systematic and unjustified recourse to "natural methods" of birth
control can best be depicted by Ivan Gobry in his book, Amour
conjugal et fécondité [Conjugal Love and Fecundity],1
one of the best works on this question which we have been able to
obtain. We deem it useful to provide our readers with a few
extracts from this text:
Since the proponents of the above-mentioned "natural methods"
have sought to pose the problem on the level of asceticism, hard
facts will provide the answer on that same plane. Which calls
for the greater self-sacrifice? —Merely avoiding carnal
relations, or else carrying a child over a period of nine
months, then feeding and nursing it, worrying and crying over it
and not knowing rest and freedom over a stretch of several
years?
But such a comparison remains still too theoretical. For
those spouses who have chosen to do God’s will in having a large
family, reality is something quite different. For them,
continence has become the rule since pregnancies, nursings, and
periods of fatigue all constitute factors favoring chronic
abstinence much more serious than the fear of begetting a child.
The profound happiness stemming from the spouses’ mutual
collaboration in the service of such pure and delicate beings
confers a new meaning to their chastity. The husband faithfully
standing by his wife weighed down by hard work and ennobled
through her generosity, experiences for her a saintly, even a
godly respect for his wife which can scarcely be understood by a
man whose partner rejects motherhood as a source of shame and
disgrace.
Malthusian spouses make use of periodical continence in order
to avoid their God-given responsibilities, while faithful
couples practice continence as a result of having cooperated in
God’s plan of bringing new souls into the world for heaven’s
sake. How grotesque indeed is that caricature often presented to
young idealistic couples of two ‘sensual’ spouses who have
several children ‘through lack of moderation.’"2
...Such necessary continence for couples raising a large
family does not cause them serious problems. Quite on the
contrary, the "continence" of those other couples who busy
themselves in avoiding having children, simply continues
poisoning their daily lives. Constantly attracted to one another
and all the more since they are not busy, and therefore less
prone to fatigue [through concern for their children], they find
themselves forever torn between desire and reason, between risk
and prudence. Their sole possibility of escaping such a
dangerous state for their chastity and mental stability lies in
two equally fearsome solutions: mutual indifference or having
recourse to contraception.
Mutual indifference leads to an enervating exasperation. Nor
can it be understood that such would constitute a more righteous
course, since it cheats the spouses of that which they owe one
to the other in all justice. Carnal separation will soon beget
the separation of the couple’s affections. Each goes about his
own business which takes up all of his attention, making them
forget the wonder of their first love. But beware of those
temptations lurking outside of the family hearth. The body,
always inclined to its passions and having been temporarily
neutralized through trickery and not through deep virtue, will
take its inevitable revenge at the first or some other occasion,
and that love which was divinely destined for procreation will
soon be swallowed up in base treachery.
Contraceptive methods, on the other hand, allow the married
couple to come together in carnal knowledge at the risk and
cost, however, of true tenderness and serenity. What they do
allow, in fact, is responsibility-free sensual gratification
with nothing in return, without responsibility or commitment.
They even fly in the face of a possible commitment or
responsibility. If the unity of the spouses has not previously
been attained through prior sacrifice, their unity will then be
founded on the moving sands of fear and negations which will
soon be understood as a kind of complicity in evil, rather than
a union based on true love. Since, unfortunately (for the
Malthusians), those periods wherein the wife is the most
attracted to her husband also correspond to her cycles of
fertility —all of which corresponds exactly with the
life-producing aims of nature —those days of abstention will
then be times of increasing tension and of unusually strange
resistance, while those sterile periods, considered as an
opportunity to be seized as it arises, will demand the most
sexual encounters possible. These will be provoked at the
expense of the true rushes of affection he feels for her and
will be exploited at the expense of gentleness and
consideration.
It must also be noted that the Malthusians, being of those
who, in order to excuse their refusal to have those children
wanted by God, pretend that the spouses’ mutual tender
affections constitute the first goal of marriage, here again are
found to be contradicting themselves. That which they are
obtaining in fact is not only a spiritual lessening as a result
of their selfishness, but also a decrease of that freshness of
their affection and spontaneity of their love for one another.
They will then resort to yet new "remedies," those refined
methods which will let them give themselves to one another in
the wife’s fertile periods without, however, completing the act
of procreation, known as onanism [i.e.,
interruption, after Onan; cf. Gen. 38:9]. Over and above
that, the systematic practice of such methods constitutes much
more directly the cult of a freestyle kind of sexual
self-gratification, and such an abuse of the natural act (if it
can still be regarded as such) constantly exposes the couple to
two well-established risks: 1) that of falling short of the
expected sensual pleasure and, 2) that of bringing new life into
the world. And since the flesh has not finally received its full
part which would have been the complete act, both spouses, who
have tried to obtain the most satisfactory result possible find
themselves, after their sensual encounter, more dissatisfied and
frustrated than ever.
All that needs to be done now is to take issue with the
morality involved in such cases. For those whose top priority in
life amounts to simply enjoying themselves by systematically and
always satisfying their lower instincts, God’s laws will soon
become an intolerable burden. So long as they can fool
themselves into various detours and devious interpretations,
they will still retain a modicum of respect for the
commandments. But a day will inevitably come when God’s laws
will be seen as a nuisance and much too bothersome. Then it will
be unmistakably clear that such compromise has become simply
unbearable. All that there is left is the choice of living in
sin or that of total self-renunciation. Alas! such persons have
never been in the habit of exercising self-control as have those
good parents who, for the sake of their children, generously
accept all manner of fatigue and personal sacrifices. On the
other hand, sin has invaded and poisoned the Malthusians’ very
existence. After a few experiences of this type, if the couple
does not accept the great moral awakening wanted by God, such
people find themselves settling, once and for all, into a
permanent life of sin. Two attitudes will result from such a
situation: 1) either admitting or acknowledging defeat in
bitterness and disgust for themselves and for the sacraments or
else 2) simply denying sin altogether as they accuse moralists
of ignorance and of an appalling form of torture."3
It is all very ‘nice’ to pretend that mutual ‘indifference’
as well as contraceptive methods (even though ‘natural’) amount
to some sort of positive ‘asceticism.’ However, if they stem
from selfishness, they are based on a sinful mentality. It is
not too surprising that they lead to serious sin. In both cases,
it is manifest that such ‘continence’ is not a virtue, and
prudence is not to be found in such asceticism.
The advocates of conjugal happiness through Malthusian means
[i.e., self-gratification as the primary goal in marriage
—Ed.] certainly have a very limited experience of family
life. Normally, the spouses’ happiness is increased with the
arrival of each new child in the family. To those worried and
constantly tempted couples who torture their conscience, consult
books, and storm confessionals, we simply say: "Have
children and all such problems will soon fade away."
Other problems may arise, but, at least, these will not prove to
be useless. Such will be problems of ordinary life. Moreover,
they will not be found in the shade of shame but in the life of
their duty generously accomplished."4
Here we see to what point conjugal chastity, religious
chastity as well as priestly chastity are all part of and share
in the same virtue. It consists in the complete surrender or
self-denial of one’s body which was made to serve God’s will and
not made for self-gratification or rest here below."5
And, may we add, it seems just as clear that anyone who
forgets all about his duties of state is simply fashioning
himself a much heavier cross, while risking —God forbid —his
eternal salvation.
The chief characteristic of the systematic use of periodical
continence lies in its twofold finality–one positive and one
negative. In truth, it is not, as its name would lead us to
believe, a purely negative affair, simply abstaining from
conjugal acts during specific times. Such a system, precisely,
implies a positive right of use of conjugal rights together with
the sensual pleasures inherent therein, as well as the
fulfillment of the secondary ends of coitus (including
especially the experience and expression of mutual marital
love), with, at the same time, the negative will of avoiding
procreation. And it is precisely this union of two contradictory
ends which gives rise to those problems as to its value....
The fundamental principle upon which we are to find the
solution to such a moral problem lies in the spouses’ positive
duty of cooperating, through their regularly repeated conjugal
unions, in the procreation of new life. This principle is often
neglected and put in doubt and indeed even roundly denied….Human
sexuality was instituted by the Creator primarily and
fundamentally for a purpose going far beyond the couple’s
gratification, that is to say, for procreation or the begetting
of new life....Following this fundamental goal we have, of
course, other secondary ends or purposes concerning the manner
in which the procreative act is carried out. Now, the very fact
of taking advantage of sexual relations solely for the sake of
their secondary purposes through a positive act of the couple’s
will, while simultaneously effectively excluding their primary
and fundamental purpose, constitutes an unreasonable refusal of
that order laid down by God Himself.6
