28)
3 "But the Church firmly believes that human life, even if weak and suffering,
is always a splendid gift of God's goodness. Against the pessimism and
selfishness which cast a shadow over the world, the Church stands for life: In
each human life she sees the splendor of that 'Yes', that
'Amen',
who is Christ himself. To the 'no' which assails and afflicts the world, she
replies with this living 'Yes', thus defending the human person and the world
from all who plot against and harm life" (John Paul II, Apost. Exhort. Familiaris
Consortio, Nov. 22, 1981, n. 30).
"It
is necessary to go back to seeing the family as the sanctuary of life.
The family is indeed sacred: it is the place in which life—the gift of God—can
be properly welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is
exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes authentic human
growth. In the face of the so-called culture of death, the family is the heart
of the culture of life" (John Paul II, Enc. Centesimus Annus, May
1, 1991, n. 39).
29)
John Paul II, Letter to Families Gratissimam Sane, February 2, 1994, n.
9.
30)
"God himself said: 'It is not good that man should be alone' (Gen 2:18),
and 'from the beginning (he) made them male and female" (Mt 19:4);
wishing to associate them in a special way with his own creative work, God
blessed man and woman with the words: 'Be fruitful and multiply' (Gen
1:28). Without intending to underestimate the other ends of marriage, it must
be said that true married love and the whole structure of family life which
results from it is directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly
with the love of the Creator and Saviour, who through them will increase and
enrich his family from day to day" (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Past. Const. on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, December
7, 1965, n. 50).
"The
Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion
of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. In the procreation and education
of children it reflects the Father's work of creation" (Catechism of
the Catholic Church, n. 2205).
"Cooperating
with God to call new human beings into existence means contributing to the
transmission of that divine image and likeness of which everyone 'born of a
woman' is a bearer" (John Paul II, Letter to Families Gratissimam Sane,
February 2, 1994, n. 8).
31)
John Paul II, Enc. Evangelium Vitae, March 25, 1995, n. 43; cf. Second
Vatican Ecumenical Council, Past. Const. on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium
et Spes, December 7, 1965, n. 50.
32)
"Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit
human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are
thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain
sense, its interpreters. This involves the fulfilment of their role with a
sense of human and Christian responsibility and the formation of correct
judgments through docile respect for God and common reflection and effort; it
also involves a consideration of their own good and the good of their children
already born or yet to come, an ability to read the signs of the times and of
their own situation on the material and spiritual level, and, finally, an
estimation of the good of the family, of society, and of the Church. It is the
married couple themselves who must in the last analysis arrive at these
judgments before God. Married people should realize that in their behaviour
they may not simply follow their own fancy but must be ruled by conscience—and
conscience ought to be conformed to the law of God in the light of the teaching
authority of the Church, which is the authentic interpreter of divine law. For
the divine law throws light on the meaning of married love, protects it and
leads it to truly human fulfillment" (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Past. Const. on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, December
7, 1965, n. 50).
"When
it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission
of life, it is not enough to take only the good intention and the evaluation of
motives into account; the objec-
tive
criteria must be used, criteria drawn from the nature of the human person and
the human action, criteria which respect the total meaning of mutual
self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; all this is
possible only if the virtue of married chastity is seriously practiced. In
questions of birth regulation the sons of the Church, faithful to these
principles, are forbidden to use methods disapproved of by the teaching
authority of the Church" (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Past. Const.
on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965, n.
51).
"In
relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions,
responsible parenthood is exercised, either by the deliberate and generous
decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives
and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even
for an indeterminate period, a new birth.
"Responsible
parenthood also and above all implies a more profound relationship to the
objective moral order established by God, of which a right conscience is the
faithful interpreter. The responsible exercise of parenthood implies,
therefore, that husband and wife recognize fully their own duties towards God,
towards themselves, towards the family and towards society, in a correct
hierarchy of values.
"In
the task of transmitting life, therefore, they are not free to proceed
completely at will, as if they could determine in a wholly autonomous way the
honest path to follow; but they must conform their activity to the creative
intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and
manifested by the constant teaching of the Church" (Paul VI, Enc. Humanae
Vitae, July 25, 1968, n. 10).
33)
The Encyclical Humanae Vitae declares as illicit "every action
which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or
in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or
as a means, to render procreation impossible". And it adds: "To
justify conjugal acts made intentionally infecund, one cannot invoke as valid
reasons the lesser evil, or the fact that such acts would constitute a whole
together with the fecund acts already performed or to follow later, and hence
would share in one and the same moral goodness. In truth, if it is sometimes
licit to tolerate a lesser evil in order to avoid a greater evil or to promote
a greater good, it is not licit, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so
that good may follow therefrom, that is, to make into the object of a positive
act of the will something which is intrinsically disorder, and hence unworthy
of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote
individual, family or social well-being. Consequently it is an error to think
that a conjugal act which is deliberately made infecund and so is intrinsically
dishonest could be made honest and right by the ensemble of a fecund conjugal
life" (Paul VI, Enc. Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968, n. 14).
"When
couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings
that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the
dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as 'arbiters' of the divine plan
and they 'manipulate' and degrade human sexuality—and with it themselves and
their married partner—by altering its value of 'total' self-giving. Thus the
innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and
wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory
language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads
not only to a positive refusal to be open to life, but also to a falsification
of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in
personal totality" (John Paul II, Apost. Exhort. Familiaris Consortio,
November 22, 1981, n. 32).
34)
"The human being must be respected and treated as a person from his
conception. Therefore, from that very moment the rights of a person must be
accorded to him, foremost among which is the inviolable right to life of every
innocent human being" (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of
Procreation Donum Vitae, Feb. 22, 1987, n. 1).
"Ever
more clearly there emerges the strict connection which, at the level of
mentality, exists between the practice of contraception and that of abortion.
This is demonstrated in an alarming way also by the development of chemical
preparations, intrauterine devices and injections which, distributed with the
same ease as contraceptives, in reality act as abortifacients in the initial
stages of development of the new human being" (John Paul II, Enc. Evangelium
Vitae, March 25, 1995, n. 13).
35)
"If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive
from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from
external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into
account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use
of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate birth
without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier.
"The
Church is coherent with herself when she considers recourse to the infecund
periods to be licit, while at the same time condemning, as being always
illicit, the use of means directly contrary to fecundation, even if such use is
inspired by reasons which may appear honest and serious. In reality, there are
essential differences between the two cases; in the former, the married couple
make legitimate use of a natural disposition; in the latter, they impede the
development of natural processes. It is true that, in the one and the other
case, the married couple are concordant in the positive will of avoiding
children for plausible reasons, seeking the certainty that offspring will not
arrive; but it is also true that only in the former case are they able to
renounce the use of marriage in the fecund periods when, for just motives,
procreation is not desirable, while making use of it during infecund periods to
manifest their affection and to safeguard their mutual fidelity. By so doing,
they give proof of a truly and integrally honest love" (Paul VI, Enc. Humanae
Vitae, July 25, 1968, n. 16).
"When,
instead, by means of recourse to periods of infertility, the couple respect the
inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of human
sexuality, they are acting as 'ministers' of God's plan and they 'benefit from'
their sexuality according to the original dynamism of 'total' self-giving,
without manipulation or alteration" (John Paul II, Apost. Exhort. Familiaris
Consortio, November 22, 1981, n. 32).
"The
work of educating in the service of life involves the training of married couples
in responsible procreation. In its true meaning, responsible procreation
requires couples to be obedient to the Lord's call and to act as faithful
interpreters of his plan. This happens when the family is generously open to
new lives, and when couples maintain an attitude of openness and service to
life, even if, for serious reasons and in respect for the moral law, they
choose to avoid a new birth for the time being or indefinitely. The moral law
obliges them in every case to control the impulse of instinct and passion, and
to respect the biological laws inscribed in their person. It is precisely this
respect which makes legitimate, at the service of responsible procreation, the use
of natural methods of regulating fertility" (John Paul II, Enc. Evangelium
Vitae, March 25, 1995, n. 97).
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