Bulletin Inserts: Why not Contraception?

“Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is on the side of life, teaches that it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life. This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act." Catechism of the Catholic Church,2366

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“..when a married couple, by mutual agreement, and for serious reasons adduced by well-formed Christian conscience, decide to limit the number of children, they ought to know that there are two things to bear in mind: the lawfulness of limiting the number of births and the lawfulness of the means employed to do so. Assuming serious reasons of medical, eugenic, economic or social nature, it is lawful to limit the number of new births either for a fixed period of time or indefinitely. This decision must be made in conscience by the spouses, who are therefore personally responsible to God for their choice. Once the decision has been made, the next question is which method to use, since not all of them are morally acceptable.” Javier Abad & Eugenio Fenoy, Marriage A Path to Sanctity, Sinag-tala Publishers , Inc (Manila 1988)

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"The way to plan the family is natural family planning not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self, and so it destroys the gift of life in him or her"…"Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily." Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

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“The Church’s support for NFP (Natural Family Planning) is not based on its being “natural” as opposed to artificial. Rather, NFP respects the God-given power to love a new human life into being even when we are not actively seeking to exercise that power. However, because NFP does not change the human body in any way, or upset its balance with potentially harmful drugs or devices, people of other faiths or of no religious affiliation have also come to accept and use it from a desire to work in harmony with their bodies. They have also found that it leads couples to show greater attentiveness and respect for each other.” Married Love and The Gift of Life by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2006

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Family and Gospel of Life
"It is above all in raising children that the family fulfills its mission to proclaim the Gospel of life.... The family celebrates the Gospel of life through daily prayer, both individual prayer and family prayer. The family prays in order to glorify and give thanks to God for the gift of life, and implores his light and strength in order to face times of difficulty and suffering without losing hope. But the celebration which gives meaning to every other form of prayer and worship is found in the family's actual daily life together, if it is a life of love and self-giving" (Pope John Paul II: The Gospel of Life, n.92-93).

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Love and Life
"It is the nature of love to overflow, to be life-giving. Thus, it is no surprise that marriage is ordained not only to growing in love but to transmitting life: "by its very nature the institution of marriage and married love [is] ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory." 15
"Married love itself is ordered to the procreation of children, for, after all, the first command given to Adam and Eve is "be fertile and multiply" (Gn 1:28). Tobiah‘s prayer, even as it asks for a happy and lifelong union, remembers that the human race descended from Adam and Eve. His prayer for happiness certainly includes, even if implicitly, a prayer for offspring. God indeed sends the couple seven sons (Tb 14:3) and long life (Tb 14:14). Again, in the words of the Second Vatican Council:

Children are the supreme gift of marriage. . . . Without intending to underestimate the other ends of marriage, it must be said that true married love and the family life which flows from it have this end in view: that the spouses would cooperate generously with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will in due time increase and enrich his family.16

~USCCB, Nov 2009, Love and Life in the Divine Plan [used: 7-31-2010]

15 Gaudium et Spes, no. 48; see CCC, no. 1652.
16 Gaudium et Spes, no. 50; see CCC, no. 1652.