Open to Life?

Openness to Life

If you have read anything about the Catholic Church's teachings on the sacrament of marriage, you know that for Catholics, marriage takes place when a man and a woman freely exchange vows to live in lifelong fidelity and in openness to life.

But what does "openess to life" mean in the context of marriage? In simple terms, being open to life means that a good, healthy, successful marriage is about more than just two individuals who get married. Married love is meant to create more life. Openness to life means that a married couple learns to say yes, together, to God's plan.

What follows is an attempt to succinctly, candidly, and faithfully represent the Church's official teachings. As this is an important and difficult subject, let this brief piece be the beginning, and not the end, of the conversation.

Perhaps the best place to begin is with the catechism, and so I encourage you to stop and read chapter 30 in the U.S. Catholic Catechism for Adults (or go here and read #2331-2400 in the official version.)  You can also check out  http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/natural-family-planning/ for some helpful resources.

In a nutshell, the Catholic Church teaches us that sex is good for two reasons: sex celebrates the unity and love of a married couple (sex is unitive), and sex leads to the creation of new life (sex is procreative). When one or both of these aspects are absent, we're not having good sex. 

So, for sexual intimacy to participate in God's plan for renewing all of creation, it needs to take place between two people who have freely vowed to only have sex with one another and to not prevent the sex that they have from leading to the conception of a child. Hence, they are "open to life." 

To quote from the catechism: 

The spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family ( 2363)

The Church wants to honor our bodies as they are.  Catholic teaching helps us make a distinction between what we're doing when we're actively trying to keep sex and our sexual bodies from their reproductive aspects and what we're doing when we recognize and use the body's own cycle of reproductive potential. A couple who, for good and honest reasons, judges that they aren't presently ready for a child can practice abstinence. No sex equals no babies. This couple can also have sex when Mrs. Catholic isn't ovulating. No eggs equals no babies. Apart from using their knowledge of ovulation cycles and good planning, the couple does nothing to keep their sex from being what good sex is and doing what good sex does. They're simply observing what's actually occurring with their bodies and responding to it. Catholics call this natural family planning, or NFP. 

But current official Catholic teaching says that when a couple intervenes to make sex not fertile -- with a condom, with hormonal contraceptives, with an IUD -- they are taking steps to change the actual sex they're having and/or their bodies in order to prevent pregnancy. Doing this, says the Church, keeps sex from being something that helps a married couple consciously and intentionally be faithful to their promises to one another and to God. It becomes less than what good sex is meant to be.

Of course, contraceptive sex still feels good. It might even feel better because the couple isn't worried about having kids. (And these can be legitimate worries!) But the Church wants us to understand that the pleasures of sex are not the whole point, that they have a further meaning, and that without openness to life these pleasures aren't as unifying as they're meant to be. Again, from the catechism:

Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God. "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. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility." (2367)

And once more:

"By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man's exalted vocation to parenthood." (2369)

Openness to life is not a commandment to have as many babies as humanly possible. We need to be good stewards of our resources. We need to use our capacity to think clearly and carefully and heartfully about our decisions. But the Catholic Church also wants us to respect the bodies that God gave us, to be a people who offer their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing. This means letting pleasures -- sexual and otherwise -- takes their rightful place amidst a whole drama of human experiences. It means developing true intimacy with our spouse, an intimacy that can face hardship as well as joy. It means recognizing that we live in a culture that is too often not safe for children, certainly quite risky for big families. It means failing and trying again, seeking something better each and every time. It means starting where you are, accepting who you are, and taking the next best step. God cherishes all these things, and when we're faithful to Christ, the Father is faithful to us.

Please give these teachings your full attention before you make up your mind about how to respond to them. This is what we mean when we say that you need to use your informed conscience. There are lots of resources (some listed below) to help you. 

Official Catholic teachings on sexuality are not popular. They can be hard for us to understand (alienated as we are from our bodies, from stable human relationships, from a tradition that gives us a sense of rootedness in the world, from economic and cultural security). They cause some discomfort. They're presented to you to learn from, to question, to argue with. Eventually, these teachings are meant to be an invitation to a life of radical self-giving love and fulfillment, however you are able to attain it.

Some Additional Resources

Francis Nemeck and Marie Coombs, Discerning Vocations to Marriage, Celibacy and Singlehood. This is an excellent guide to the principles of discernment for the three possible states of life to which Christians are called. It's a good blend of practical and theological wisdom.

Todd Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, The Sexual Person: Toward A Renewed Catholic Anthropology. Good, somewhat dense overview of Catholic teaching on sex and marriage. I think it's a fairly sound treatment, though some folks think it raises too many questions about matters that they prefer be settled. It has a pretty nuanced theoretical discussion of natural family planning and contraception. 

William May, Ronald Lawler, and Joseph Boyle.  Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation, & Defense. A good counterpart to The Sexual Person. Less exploratory and more dogmatic.

Toni Weschler, Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health. Secular resource, but praised for its readability and explanation of the reproductive cycle. 

Jim Arraj, Is There a Solution to the Catholic Debate on Contraception?. Dense but interesting reflection on some possible areas for development in the Church's teaching on contraception. Online here.

https://dioceseofnashville.com/natural-family-planning. List of natural family planning classes offered in the diocese.

http://www.fertilitycare.org/. Many Catholics have recommended this website for a general overview of the Creighton method of natural family planning.

Harville Hendrix, Getting The Love You Want: A Guide For Couples.

John Gottman and Nan Silver, The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide From The Country's Foremost Relationship Expert.

Hendrix and Gottman are not Catholics, but they are provide important and practical guides to understanding the marriage and marital expectations. Gottman, in particular, is a leading marital therapist in the United States. Any of his books will be fruitful.