Investigating NFP: Pius XII

"Today, besides, another grave problem has arisen, namely, if and how far the obligation of being ready for the service of maternity is reconcilable with the ever more general recourse to the periods of natural sterility the so-called 'agenesic' periods in woman, which seems a clear expression of a will contrary to that precept."

Pius is saying that he is concerned that the increased popularity of using the understanding of women's fertile and infertile periods is indicative of a contraceptive mentality. It seems to him that general recourse to such knowledge is contrary to a woman's obligation to be ready for maternity. It should be noted that Pius mentioned only women not becausemen's obligation to be ready for paternity isany less binding, but rather because his audience was made up of midwives, who aid women in childbirth. In the following, he then attempts to explicate which scenarios involve licit or illicit use of increasing knowledge of fertility.

"It is necessary first of all to consider two hypotheses. If the application of that theory implies that husband and wife may use their matrimonial right even during the days of natural sterility no objection can be made. In this case they do not hinder or jeopardize in any way the consummation of the natural act and its ulterior natural consequences. It is exactly in this that the application of the theory, of which We are speaking, differs essentially from the abuse already mentioned, which consists in the perversion of the act itself. If, instead, husband and wife go further, that is, limiting the conjugal act exclusively to those periods, then their conduct must be examined more closely."

In other words, if you're using NFP to merely monitor the fertility and health of the wife, but not restricting your engagement in the marital act, there's no doubt that you're acting morally. If, however, you are limiting your sexual activity to just the infertile periods, further examination is required to determine the licitness of your behavior.

"Here again we are faced with two hypotheses. If, one of the parties contracted marriage with the intention of limiting the matrimonial right itself to the periods of sterility, and not only its use, in such a manner that during the other days the other party would not even have the right to ask for the debt, than this would imply an essential defect in the marriage consent, which would result in the marriage being invalid, because the right deriving from the marriage contract is a permanent, uninterrupted and continuous right of husband and wife with respect to each other."

There's nothing new here. If you enter marriage with no intention whatsoever of conceiving children (assuming you are able), by only having sex when the wife (whoever's choice that may be) is infertile for instance, you lied when you took your wedding vows. That's sufficient ground for annulment. That is, your hostility to parenthood is an impediment to the valid operation of the Sacrament of holy Matrimony.

"However if the limitation of the act to the periods of natural sterility does not refer to the right itself but only to the use of the right, the validity of the marriage does not come up for discussion. Nonetheless, the moral lawfulness of such conduct of husband and wife should be affirmed or denied according as their intention to observe constantly those periods is or is not based on sufficiently morally sure motives. The mere fact that husband and wife do not offend the nature of the act and are even ready to accept and bring up the child, who, notwithstanding their precautions, might be born, would not be itself sufficient to guarantee the rectitude of their intention and the unobjectionable morality of their motives."

That is, if you're not denying the right of marital union to your spouse, the validity of the sacrament is not in question. However, the morality of the particular use of sex may still be in doubt. I think it's crucial to point out here that readiness to accept and raise a child conceived "accidentally" is insufficient to guarantee that one's use of periodic abstinence is moral. In other words, it's not enough to begrudgingly accept unplanned children. Presumably, he means that children should be joyfully, not begrudgingly, accepted. The reasons for putting off parenthood must be "sufficiently morally sure". What that means is unclear thus far.

"The reason is that marriage obliges the partners to a state of life, which even as it confers certain rights so it also imposes the accomplishment of a positive work concerning the state itself. In such a case, the general principle may be applied that a positive action may be omitted if grave motives, independent of the good will of those who are obliged to perform it, show that its performance is inopportune, or prove that it may not be claimed with equal right by the petitioner—in this case, mankind."

"The matrimonial contract, which confers on the married couple the right to satisfy the inclination of nature, constitutes them in a state of life, namely, the matrimonial state. Now, on married couples, who make use of the specific act of their state, nature and the Creator impose the function of providing for the preservation of mankind. This is the characteristic service which gives rise to the peculiar value of their state, the bonum prolis. The individual and society, the people and the State, the Church itself, depend for their existence, in the order established by God, on fruitful marriages. Therefore, to embrace the matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper to such a state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life."

Worth noting is His Holiness' use of "omitted". This seems to be in agreement with my contention (made in the preface to this series) that the commission of an immoral act is not the same as the omission of a moral act. Beyond that, it might seem that the previous paragraph, that motives for avoiding conception must be "grave",is just repeated with greater emphasis. Actually, Pius is making a much stronger statement.He says that married couples have a God-given natural duty to be fruitful. In fact, it's a couple's primary duty. The phrase "bonum prolis" means "the good of progeny", that is, children add to the goodness of marriage. To avoid that "primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life."

It's not enough to talk only about reasons against children. If one's discernment in any situation is to be genuine, one must first consider the reasons for a given decision first. In this case, when Pius says that children are "a positive work concerning the state [of marriage] itself", that is,they a complement to the sacrament of matrimony. They are part of the the natural, cosmicorder of the universe and of man's personal and communal society, without which there is defect, i.e. disorder. Taking a peek a head to John Paul II, we can note that he regarded the "culture of death" as a manifestation of that disorder. Put simply, the conceiving and raising of children is not merely a private matter for a couple to consider, but a decision that affects the whole natural and social order. If we are to properly discern when avoiding conception is licit, we must bear that in mind.

This entry was posted in essays, editorials, fisks, and rants, science and technology and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on by .

About Funky Dung



25 thoughts on “Investigating NFP: Pius XII

  1. Pingback: all kinds of time...

  2. Pingback: A Song Not Scored For Breathing

  3. Pingback: Ales Rarus - A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog » Investigating NFP: Preface

  4. Squat

    I’m also reading some Pius XII encyclicals and addresses and found this in an address to a concourse of women of Catholic Action and all their helpers from all the Dioceses of Italy reguarding the raising of children on The Feast of Christ the King, Oct.26,1941.

    “Train their hearts. Frequently the decision of a man’s destiny, the ruin of his character, or a grave danger threatening him, may be traced to his childish years when his heart was spoiled by the fond flatter, silly fussing, and foolish indulgence of misguided parents. The impressionable little heart became accustomed to see all things revolve and gravitate around it, to find all things yeilding to its will and caprice, and so there took root in it that boundless egoism of which parents themselves were later to become the first victims! All this is often the just penalty of the selfishness of parents who deny their only child the joy of having little brothers and sisters who, sharing in the mother’s love, would have accustomed him to think of others besides himself”

  5. Sean

    I’ve enjoyed reading these posts and comments. It has certainly been enlightening. But I have a suggestion for a new topic, once this one has been sufficiently beaten into submission… What about folks who are single? And I mean single for a long time, single beyond the point at which they are likely to have children, maybe single for life? The Bible says “be fruitful and multiply”, yet the Bible also says if you can do it, its better not to marry.

    Some of us have managed to hit 40 without being married, and without the supernatural graces of ordination or religious vows helping us along. Single folks are single for tons of different reasons… some good, some bad. And I’ve even heard “singleness” referred to as a vocation like marriage or the priesthood. I have a hard time accepting the “single as vocation” concept outside of vowed or ordained religious life.

    But anyway, I’d be interested in some discussion on that topic… if anyone else is. If not, I’ll happily read whatever topic’s up next. 🙂

  6. Stuff

    Just a couple quick thoughts:

    I’m not entirely sure about the use of the word “eugenics,” and maybe someone with more specifically medical training would know more, but I’m pretty sure that there are very rare instances in which both parents are carriers of recessive genes that can cause miscarriage and/or extremely serious disease in almost every pregnancy. Or, at least, this may have been the case at the time of Pius’ writings of these documents. In such a case, I think the Church’s stance on “eugenics” is such that if you are absolutely certain to only miscarry or that every child you bear will die within a few years of birth, your circumstances are grave enough to postpone conception pending medical advances or whatever. Again, just a thought, no real backing.

    Also, as much as we all like finding hard data to support conclusions, I don’t think any exists for Pius’ assertions about the relationship between large families and individual/societal health. I will mention here that I toyed with the idea of writing a report on the effects of birth order/family size in my pre-pharmacy days (trying out of mainly pride and vanity to prove that my family of 5 kids, as disfunctional as we are, is still healthier than yours with 1 or 2 ;)). I found that most of the psychology studies that were done were performed from the viewpoint of proving that small families were just as good as large families, not the other way around. My conclusion is that we only study things that are not familiar, or not the norm. For such a long period of history, large families were considered normal and healthy, so no one felt they needed to prove that; it’s only when people started trying to limit family size that we had to prove it was O.K.

    One last thought about large families being willing to “sacrifice” one or more children to religious vocations. While I think you make a valid point, I don’t think yours outweighs the Pope’s: when you look at the families of saints, they’re usually big and there are usually a bunch of them that are at least Blessed, whatever they’re vocation. We just watched the movie “Therese,” by the way, and every single one of the daughters of the Martin family was a religious.:)

    Hmmmm…if that was the last thought, I guess this one is an afterthought!
    Sean, there is a whole big section entitled “Virginity for the Sake of the Kingdom” in John Paul II’s Theology of the Body that might be helpful to you. I think your situation is worth discussing, too!

  7. Jerry

    Sean, I’d also recommend checking out some of the literature surrounding Opus Dei and its founder, Jose Maria Escriva. BYOCT (Bring your own conspiracy theories)

  8. Spacemouse

    Re the Eugenics issue:

    It’d be nice if someone with a background in the original language (Italian, in this case, since it’s an address to Midwives?) could look at the word that’s translated as “eugenic.” Going from the English, eugenic can simply mean “Relating or adapted to the production of good or improved offspring.” The Church doesn’t forbid couples to seek to have healthy (“good”) offspring: genetic screening and in-utero diagnosis ARE allowed for that very purpose. The Church does forbid parents to abort children with genetic conditions, of course, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. Presumably, as Stuff points out, we’re just talking about parents avoiding conception because of genetic abnormalities likely to affect their children. With genetic counseling, it is indeed possible to get a good idea (ahead of time) what the odds are that a couple will have children with various disorders.

    In such a case, I think the Churchâ€™s stance on â€œeugenicsâ€ is such that if you are absolutely certain to only miscarry or that every child you bear will die within a few years of birth, your circumstances are grave enough to postpone conception pending medical advances or whatever. Again, just a thought, no real backing.

    This was pretty close to what I was going to say, except that I don’t know that you have to be “absolutely certain” that all the offspring will be miscarried/will die shortly after birth. I don’t think there are hard and fast rules, but I think a strong likelyhood of producing children with serious diseases is sufficient to justify avoiding conception.

    The fact that there aren’t hard guidelines saying “there must be more than a 50% likelyhood that the child will die” or “there must be a 99% chance that the child will die” may seem frustrating, but different couples have different breaking points. One couple might be willing to conceive, bear, and lose several children because of the hope that a healthy child might arrive. Another couple simply might be so broken hearted over one lost child that they could not face the probability that their next one would be similarly lost. For the second couple, a mere probability (rather than a certainty) that a future child would be lost may constitute a grave reason.

    Like Stuff, though, I don’t have anything “hard” to back that theory up with. It’s just the impression I’ve gathered from what I’ve read.

  9. sibert

    On NFP, various addresses, and the aggregate of Catholic traditional writings:
    “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR COME and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES.”
    Examine the symbolism of birds in the Bible…

  10. Louise

    On the “eugenics” thing. I have a good friend who has four children. She and her husband use NFP and will be trying not to conceive any more children, because she now has a number of very serious medical problems which require her to take lots of prescribed medication which is seriously harmful to a growing baby in utero.

    If a child is conceived while she is taking such medication, there is a serious risk to the child’s life either in utero or after it is born. I think that in her situation, they are right to use NFP. It goes without saying, that if they do conceive, they will accept the child with love.

  11. Pingback: Ales Rarus - A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog » Investigating NFP: Supporting Families

  12. Tom Smith

    “And Iâ€™ve even heard ‘singleness’ referred to as a vocation like marriage or the priesthood. I have a hard time accepting the ‘single as vocation’ concept outside of vowed or ordained religious life.”

    Even though one inevitably sounds like an ass by saying this, I agree that it’s hard to see how there’d be a vocation to the single state. There are a few reasons that I don’t think that there exists a call to the single life. First, the three recognized vocations (priesthood, religious life, and matrimony) require one to take positive action (be it ordination, the vowing of the evangelical counsels, or nuptial vows) to enter, whereas all one need do to exercise single life is chill. Also, all three of the recognized vocations require a public profession of one’s desire to receive the status of that state of life (ordination, solemn profession of vows, or profession of marital vows). The approbation of the Church is required to enter the priesthood, religious life, or marriage, but not single life. Last, there is always a period of discernment before entering the priesthood (seminary training), religious life (one’s novitiate), and marriage (dating, pre-marital spiritual guidance), but not single life.

    We see that the single life does not share any of these things with the three known vocations; that’s why I think it’s rather clear that the single state does not represent a true vocation.

  13. edey

    do they have to take any kind of action? do they have a public profession of vows? do they have a period of discernment? as far as i know, they don’t have a public profession of vows, but they might have the other two. enlighten me.

  14. Spacemouse

    I know this is a late comment, but I’ve been meaning to comment on the “not rare” issue, since I do think this is crucial.

    If you spend any time at all dealing with probability and statistics, youâ€™ll realize that “rare” and “not rare” are very vague concepts that need to be represented by numbers to be meaningful. Saying that difficulties “not rarely arise” only tells us that they might not be statistical outliers, which doesnâ€™t tell us much.

    I think it’s worth asking whether Pius XII was a statistician, though. That is: is there any indication that he used the expression “not rare” (or rather, whatever the original was) in a statistical sense? I ask because if you look in a thesaurus, “uncommon” is listed as a synonym for “rare.” In English, the expression “not uncommon” would be a way of saying “common.” In other words, the reason that some people read “not rare” to mean that serious/grave reasons are common is because that’s what “not rare” DOES mean in normal English useage. I submit that an unbiased reader -one who came to the document with no opinion as to how common grave reasons are- would read “not rare” as roughly synonymous with “not uncommon.” (Perhaps there’s a rare to experiment on readers to find out?)

    It’s always possible that the translation is at fault, but to suggest that “not rare” simply means “not a statistical outlier” and that it’s thus possible that grave reasons are still pretty uncommon seems to me to be grasping at linguistic straws, unless there’s a reason for thinking that the translator had the statistical meaning rather than the commonly accepted meaning of the words in mind when he chose the phrase “not rare” instead of “not uncommon.”

    It’s true that “not uncommon” would still be vague, in that it wouldn’t give any indication of how much of the time an “average” couple might spend avoiding conception- but perhaps the vagueness is there because that Pius XII knew that it wasn’t possible for him (or any theologian) to predict how many times in the average couple’s life they’d have grave reasons to avoid.

  15. Pingback: Ales Rarus - A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog » Investigating NFP: The Joy of Sex

  16. Jeremy Pierce

    For some women, pregnancy and/or childbirth could be fatal. How should they procede? Well, the answer seems to be that they should entirely refrain from the marital act. NFP is not perfect birth control. In fact, any such method might be forbidden by the Church as being hostile to fertility. Therefore, such an at-risk woman might unwittingly conceive and endanger her life and/or the life of her child.

    Getting on a plane could be fatal. So could going for a walk. In a case with similar chances of conception to the risk of dying on the highway in an accident, would you say that it thus makes it wrong to get on the highway? Or isn’t it just better to say that some things in life are worth doing, even if there’s a small chance of risking something serious happening?

  17. Funky Dung

    That’s not quite the meaning I intended. My point was that if the danger of death for mother or child is great enough that one would periodically abstain (during fertile periods), one should totally abstain or not abstain at all (assuming that this health problem is the only grave reason for avoiding conception). That is, if you are so concerned about the health problem that you feel the need to rely on the 98%+ pregnancy avoidance success rate of correctly-used NFP, either you have underestimated the threat and should avoid intercourse entirely or you have overestimated it and should not be periodically abstaining. If it’s “a risk you are willing to take”, you’re essentially playing Russian roullete with one or more lives at stake. It’d be bad enough to endanger the mother’s life like that, but to play games with a child’s life is unconscionable.

  18. Pingback: Ales Rarus - A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog » Fruitful multiplication and care of God’s creation

  19. Pingback: Ales Rarus - A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog » Investigating NFP: Pius XI

Leave a Reply
