How to Talk about the use and Abuse of Natural Family Planning the Importance of Accuracy in Translation and in Description

Abstract

This essay argues, through a close reading of relevant magisterial texts in the areas of sexual morality and of fundamental moral theology, that, contrary to opinions sometimes expressed by orthodox Catholic thinkers and internalized by good Catholics, the Church's teaching that the use of natural family planning (NFP) to avoid procreation is permissible for “just causes” should be interpreted as requiring married couples to have “serious,” but not “grave,” reasons for avoiding procreation; and the use of NFP to avoid procreation when a serious reason is lacking should be described as involving “selfishness,” not as reflecting a “contraceptive mentality.” Translating Latin and Italian terms correctly, with some help from their context, confirms that just causes are serious (not grave) reasons. Attention to the Church's use of “contraception” to refer to the object, not the intention, of an action, serves as the primary basis for the conclusion that there remains a fundamental difference between contraception on the one hand and the selfishly motivated use of NFP on the other.

How Catholics Sometimes talk about Natural Family Planning

The Catholic Church has come to teach that the use of natural family planning (NFP) by married couples to avoid procreation is morally acceptable for iustae causae, “just causes,” in the words of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae vitae and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.¹ This raises two questions. First, what sorts of causes would qualify as “just” ones? Second, if a couple were to use NFP to avoid procreation without a just cause, then how should their attitude toward sexuality and procreation be described? With regard to the first of these questions, it seems somewhat common to hear good Catholics interpret “just causes” rather narrowly, often by saying that only “grave reasons” for avoiding procreation will qualify as just causes. This is understandable; English translations of some key Church documents sometimes use the expression “grave reasons.” One can point to the influence of this interpretation both in the mid-twentieth century, when the “rhythm method” was newly developed, and today. In the second issue of The Linacre Quarterly, in 1933, “Ethicus” wrote, on the one hand, that “if the motive for family limitation is a good motive, such as well might be in these times, present and over-burdening economic difficulties, then the use of the safe period … is not evil from the purpose and intention of the agent.” This, so far, would not seem to be an especially narrow understanding of what would constitute a morally sufficient reason for the use of what is now called NFP to avoid procreation. On the other hand, however, Ethicus then adds this very significant caution: “All the moralists … deprecate and warn against the broadcasting of these matters. All this concerns individuals. Information, advice, direction should be given by individuals to individuals.” Why? “The use of the safe period is evidently open to abuse… . It can be a great danger to married people; childless marriages, to indicate one danger, frequently end in divorce.”² It should be noted that “childless marriages” are but “one danger” (emphasis added) that leads Ethicus to be concerned about the prospect of abuse of NFP by married couples; one might reasonably conclude that he also thinks that some couples, if imprudently provided with information about NFP, will have some children, but nevertheless also avoid procreation at some times without sufficient reason. Ethicus reiterates and further emphasizes this caution in a subsequent article later in the same year.³ Hence, Ethicus might be an early example of the view that there is great reason to worry about abuse of NFP, in other words, of something at least pointing in the direction of the “grave reasons” interpretation.

Not all mentions of NFP in the early issues of The Linacre Quarterly included and emphasized this sort of caution.⁴ Nevertheless, the approach that places significant and special emphasis on this caution has remained influential among some Catholics, including philosophers and theologians attempting to offer guidance regarding NFP. Brian Harrison, a professor of theology at a Catholic seminary, has emphasized the expression “grave reasons” in his response to Catholic traditionalists who are entirely opposed to the use of NFP.⁵ Taylor Marshall, a Catholic philosophy professor, has used both the adjectives “serious” and “grave,” but seems to interpret “serious” as meaning “grave,” i.e., especially serious, as when he gives as examples of medical reasons for avoiding procreation those in which the mother's or baby's life would be in jeopardy, speaks of “grave poverty” as an economic reason, or refers to social reasons as “serious problems in which raising children would be almost impossible” (not merely quite difficult).⁶ I can testify that this approach likewise influences some serious Catholics other than academics. I have been teaching for thirteen years at a Catholic university that takes its Catholic identity/mission seriously and whose students generally come because they want to be good Catholics and to be formed by a university with a strong sense of Catholic identity/mission. Each year, I teach (among other courses) an introductory moral theology course (generally two sections) and a senior-level course on sexual and medical morality (one or two sections). In both of these courses, I spend some time on Catholic teaching regarding marriage, sexuality, and procreation. I have observed that more than a few students come to these courses with the view that the use of NFP to avoid procreation is permissible only for a rather narrow range of grave reasons.

With regard to the second question raised by the Church's teaching that the use of NFP to avoid procreation is permissible for “just causes”–-How should one describe the attitude of a couple who uses NFP to avoid procreation with a less-than-just cause?–-it seems similarly common to hear Catholics refer to this attitude as a “contraceptive mentality.” This is true even among those who do not interpret “just causes” narrowly. Christian Brugger, in the context of a helpful analysis of the meaning of “just causes,” “argue[s] that practicing NFP in a way faithful to the norms of ‘conscia paternitas’ (‘responsible parenthood’) taught in [Humanae vitae] is … not expressive of a ‘contraceptive mentality,’ even when used to avoid getting pregnant.”⁷ Does Brugger mean that using NFP to avoid procreation when responsible parenthood does not require this is expressive of a contraceptive mentality? In a later article, Brugger contends that this would be primarily a matter of “selfishness,” but adds that “their frame of mind might be characterized by what John Paul II called a ‘contraceptive mentality’ (by which I take him to mean, a mentality that sees the coming to be of new life as a threat, something rightly to take measures against).”⁸ Hence, Brugger does seem to see a possible link between inappropriate use of NFP and a “contraceptive mentality.” The suggestion that there is such a link (generally minus Brugger's nuances) is, like the interpretation of “just causes” as “grave reasons,” one that I have observed to be influential among good Catholics in general, for example my students.

I would like to reexamine and suggest a critique of the expressions “grave reasons,” as an interpretation of “just causes,” and “contraceptive mentality,” as a description of the attitude that underlies use of NFP for avoidance of pregnancy without a just cause. I would like to propose that “serious reasons,” with “serious” understood fairly broadly, is a better interpretation of “just causes”; and that “selfishness” is a better term for the attitude that leads to inappropriate avoidance of pregnancy. My argument regarding “serious reasons” will be based on a look at the terminology used in several key magisterial texts. My argument regarding “selfishness” will take into consideration the meaning and significance of the view that contraception and NFP are distinguished primarily as fundamentally different kinds of acts, that is, in their moral “objects”; I shall also give attention to what Pope John Paul II means by “contraceptive mentality.”⁹ That the distinction between “grave” (understood narrowly) and “serious” (understood more broadly) reasons is of practical relevance goes, I assume, largely without saying. It is likewise of practical pastoral importance that we not abuse the expression “contraceptive mentality” by using it to refer to the attitude that leads to the abuse of NFP, because, I suggest, doing so makes it more difficult to see that NFP is different from contraception and therefore (unlike contraception) can, when used for just reasons, be morally good, as well as that the proper attitude for martial couples in relation to procreation is one of “prudent generosity.” I shall develop these practical/pastoral points a bit more in the conclusion to this essay.

NFP and “Serious” Reasons

A key papal text that likely plays a significant role in giving rise to the view that NFP may not be used to avoid pregnancy without “grave reasons,” with this expression narrowly understood, is Pope Pius XII's “Discorso alle Partecipanti al Congresso Della Unione Cattolica Italiana Ostetriche” (1951), often called in English his “Allocution to Midwives.”¹⁰ In Pope Pius's treatment within this discourse of what later came to be called NFP, he uses, three times, the Italian word that has “grave” as its English cognate, to refer to the sorts of reasons that justify NFP use to avoid procreation: “gravi motivi,” “grave motivo,” “gravi ragioni.” The English translation that I have cited accordingly translates gravi/grave as “grave” in each case. First, however, it may reasonably be asked whether “grave” is the only good English translation, or even the best one, for grave. It might be noted that these Italian and English words both come from the Latin gravis, meaning “weighty” or “heavy.”¹¹ One can compare another, related word that will be familiar in a medical or health-care context: “gravid,” meaning pregnant, that is, “heavy” (or “great”) with child. Hence, if etymology is to be considered, then one might reasonably entertain the conclusion that the Italian grave could and even should be understood as meaning a reason that is “weighty,” or “serious,” in a broad sense, as distinguished from light or trivial, rather than necessarily as “serious” in a only narrow sense of that term, as “super-serious.” And, indeed, a major Italian-English dictionary indicates that while grave can mean “grave,” it can also mean “serious” or “heavy.”¹²

Second, it is perhaps not always recognized that Pope Pius also speaks (between his second and third uses of grave) of “seri motivi,” “serious motives.” Even if grave is to be translated as “grave,” it is all the more clear that seri ought to be translated as “serious.” The question then arises: Is grave/grave to be interpreted in the light of seri/serious or vice versa? In other words, is Pope Pius speaking of a broader or a narrower range of reasons? This question is answered by noting that Pope Pius refers, more fully, to “seri motivi, come quelli che si hanno non di rado,” “serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise.” Evidently, he means “serious” to be interpreted at least somewhat broadly, rather than as signifying only a narrow range of reasons, which, precisely as narrow, would occur more “rarely.” This stands in contrast with, and seems to rule out, the interpretation of “serious” as meaning “grave” in a narrow sense of the latter term.

Third, Pius XII makes a more explicit statement to the same effect, referring back to and hence evidently providing his own interpretation of his “Allocution to Midwives,” less than a month later, in his “Address to the National Congress of the Family Front and the Association of Large Families.”¹³ He says that “nell'ultima Nostra allocuzione sulla morale coniugale abbiamo affermato la legittimità e al tempo stesso i limiti–-in verità ben larghi–-di una regolazione della prole”: “in Our last allocution on conjugal morality, we have affirmed the legitimacy and at the same time the limits–-in truth, very wide–-of regulation of offspring” using NFP. His uses in the allocution of the expressions grave and seri, then, are to be taken in a “very wide” sense, such as might be captured by the English word “serious,” not in a narrower sense such as would probably typically be connoted and even denoted by our word “grave.”

Probably the most important magisterial text on the topic of contraception and NFP is Paul VI's Humanae vitae. As mentioned at the beginning of this essay, Pope Paul refers to the need for “just causes” for avoiding pregnancy using NFP. Does he himself give any further guidance, to be considered together with Pius XII's, regarding the interpretation of “just causes”? In the English translation on the Vatican website, the encyclical refers to “those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time” (emphasis added). How should “serious” be interpreted here? First, it seems appropriate to try to read Humanae vitae in continuity with Pope Pius XII's teachings, and, hence, to take “serious” in a “very wide” sense. Second, the official Latin has “seriis causis.” Whatever one thinks regarding how the Latin gravis should be translated where it occurs in Catholic teaching on this subject, it is not the word used here, and “grave,” understood as meaning something narrower than “serious,” is not the correct translation from the Latin.

At least one translation of Humanae vitae has used “grave” at this point.¹⁴ This is likely because the encyclical was originally composed in Italian and French,¹⁵ and the words used in these languages are gravi and graves respectively. However, first, as explained above, these words and their other cognates in Latin and the Romance languages do not necessarily mean something stronger/narrower than the various cognates for “serious” do. Second, in any case, the Latin version, even though not the original one, is the official text, and interpretation and translation into other languages (like English) needs to refer above all to the Latin. Hence, “serious” is indeed the best word to use in an English version of the relevant passage, and this interpretation/translation indicates that Pope Paul VI's teaching on the matter of reasons for avoiding pregnancy using NFP harmonizes easily with Pope Pius XII's as I have explained it.

Finally, there are two texts of Blessed John Paul II that provide still further guidance regarding the interpretation of what the Church, especially in Pius XII's allocution and Paul VI's encyclical, has taught regarding just reasons for avoiding pregnancy. The first of these is in Pope John Paul's apostolic exhortation “On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World.” John Paul includes a section on “Preparation for Marriage,”¹⁶ which, he teaches, “includes three main stages: remote, proximate, and immediate preparation.” He explains, “Remote preparation begins in early childhood.” Next, “proximate preparation … from the suitable age and with adequate catechesis, … involves a more specific preparation for the sacraments.” Lastly, “The immediate preparation … should take place in the months and weeks immediately preceding the wedding,” in connection with “the so-called premarital enquiry required by Canon Law.” What is significant here is that it is the “proximate preparation” that Pope John Paul teaches should encourage people “to study the nature of conjugal sexuality and responsible parenthood, with the essential medical and biological knowledge connected with it.” Hence, on the one hand, and as would be suggested by common sense, John Paul does not say that the knowledge connected with what we typically call NFP should be taught in early childhood. On the other hand, however, he teaches that it ought to be learned sometime before the “immediate preparation” for marriage, sometime before “the months and weeks immediately preceding the wedding,” sometime before what most of us probably have in mind when we speak of “marriage preparation.” It ought to be learned as part of the same stage of preparation for marriage that also includes such topics as the following: “marriage as an interpersonal relationship of a man and a woman that has to be continually developed,” “correct methods for the education of children, and will assist them in gaining the basic requisites for well-ordered family life, such as stable work, sufficient financial resources, sensible administration, notions of housekeeping.”

The conclusion that might reasonably be drawn is that in John Paul II's mind, the knowledge connected with the use of NFP as part of responsible parenthood is approximately as basic and important for married couples as is knowledge regarding such matters as the continual development of their spousal relationship, the education of children, work, and the like. This is not to suggest that John Paul II thinks that every couple will actually need to practice NFP to avoid procreation for a time, at some point during their fertile years, or even that as many couples will need to do this as need to, say, educate their children (the latter number is already less than 100 percent since some couples are infertile). Still, there is a rough, even if not exact, equivalence.¹⁷ But if this is so, then the range of reasons that justify practice of NFP to avoid procreation must be, in Pope Pius XII's words, “very wide.”

The second relevant text from Pope John Paul II is an Angelus address on conjugal love, openness to life, and responsible parenthood. John Paul teaches that in regard to procreation/parenthood, spouses must be inspired “non dall'egoismo né dalla leggerezza, ma da una generosità prudente e consapevole”: “not by selfishness nor by carelessness, but by a prudent and conscious generosity.”¹⁸ What is striking is that in formulating the Church's teaching on this occasion, and one may assume that this formulation is indeed intended to convey the same substance as is found in the teachings of Pius XII and Paul VI, John Paul does not seem to think it entirely necessary to use words like “grave” or “serious.” On the one hand, spouses must not be selfish. They must not avoid procreation simply in order to maximize their own physical, psychological, material, or social pleasure. On the other, they are to avoid that leggerezza–-the word comes from leggero, light in weight, and indicates a kind of mental flightiness or thoughtlessness¹⁹ or “carelessness”–-that does not give real or, one might say, “serious” consideration to the question of whether it would at a particular time be in keeping with the genuine good of the family as a whole, including the prospective child, for the spouses to act in such a way that procreation would be a likely outcome. On the one hand, they are to practice “generosity,” giving of themselves in ways that may be really sacrificial; on the other, this generosity is to be “prudent,” taking into account their circumstances and avoiding actions that might be destructive of the family members’ genuine good. As long as they are being truly prudent rather than selfish, they are doing what is virtuous and good. As long as they have a weighty or serious, rather than trivial or selfish, reason for avoiding procreation, they may do so.²⁰

NFP and “Selfishness”

The contrast between just and “selfish” use of NFP to avoid procreation that I have drawn from Blessed John Paul II takes us to the second question that I would like to address in this essay: Should the use of NFP without a just, or “serious” reason, that is, the “selfish” use of NFP, be linked with the notion of “contraceptive mentality”–-or, as I suggest, should it simply be described as selfishness? In order to begin answering this question, I wish to consider first what is meant by “contraception” as distinct from NFP. Obviously, contraception, but not NFP, seeks to minimize the fertility (using surgical sterilization, drugs, barriers, or even withdrawal) of acts of marital intercourse in which couples engage (which is different from abstaining from those acts of intercourse that are likely to be fertile). I think that it is helpful to relate this understanding of the difference between contraception and NFP to what the Church teaches regarding the components, and sources of the morality, of human actions in general.

According to Catholic teaching, there are three such components/sources: object, intention, and circumstances.²¹ In order for an action as a whole to be morally good, all three of these must be good (or “appropriate,” as one might say instead with regard to circumstances). This analysis is rooted especially in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.²² Now, it has generally been understood that the difference between contraception and NFP is one of object, not (merely) intention and/or circumstances. It is possible that a given contraception-using couple will differ in their intention and/or circumstances from a given NFP-using couple (who are using NFP to avoid, not achieve, procreation), but this is not inevitable, nor, when it is the case, is it the difference that makes the one couple's act an act of contraception, and the other's an act of NFP. One sees this connection between “contraception” or “NFP” on the one hand, and “object” on the other, drawn implicitly by Ethicus, who, though he does not use the term object, does explain that the difference between contraception and NFP is not one of circumstances and/or intention.²³ The contemporary Magisterium refers to contraception as “intrinsically evil.”²⁴ This likewise links contraception with moral object, since the meaning of “intrinsically evil” acts is acts that are evil “on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances.”²⁵

Fully to understand the meaning of contraception (as distinct from NFP), then, it is necessary to consider what is meant by “object” as distinct from “circumstances” and especially from “intention.” This has been a somewhat vexed question among specialists in Thomistic/Catholic ethical theory and fundamental moral theology in recent decades. The complexity results at least partly from the fact that the Latin word obiectum was quite new in Aquinas's day (nor is it simply a translation of a Greek term), so that Aquinas's use of it does not occur in the context of anything like a long-settled, clear/specific understanding of its meaning.²⁶ Moreover, Aquinas himself uses the word frequently and sometimes in what appear to be different ways. Probably the most thorough study of Aquinas's use of the word in contexts that include his action theory is that of Joseph Pilsner, who concludes (to summarize the relevant portions of his analysis) that Aquinas uses it to refer to the aspects of an action that enable it to be compared to right reason (as morally good or evil); and/or to an action's “proximate” as distinguished from “remote” end, that is, to an end that is sought for the sake of some further end.²⁷ An object, then, would be something that is in a certain sense “within” an action. Despite this, some scholars have, with some plausible justification in Aquinas, taken “object” to refer to that “external” element, one might say, to which an action is directed, or, put differently, to the key moral element of the situation in which the action is taking place (so that, for example, the “object” of the action called “adultery” would be “another person's spouse,” rather than “intercourse with another person's spouse”).²⁸

Whatever meaning or range of meanings “object” has in Aquinas, in contemporary Catholic teaching especially as this has been elaborated/developed in Pope John Paul II's encyclical on fundamental moral theology Veritatis splendor, the word refers to “a freely chosen kind of behaviour,” “the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person.”²⁹ It is not a feature, however morally relevant, of the (external) situation in which an action takes place; it is a part of (hence internal to) the action. A further question regarding the meaning of “object” remains, however. Does one determine the object of an action by considering the act's “natural” purpose, or by considering its relationship to the intellect/will of the agent? The former position, identifying “object” with the natural finis operis (“end of the act”), is a traditional Thomistic one and is still maintained by some influential Catholic scholars. Ethicus, when referring to the component of an action that is distinct from intention/circumstances, uses such expressions as “the natural tendency of the act itself,” “the natural end of the married couple's … activity,” “the end of the act.”³⁰ Much more recently, Steven Long, among others, links “object” with an act's natural teleology (tendency or purpose).³¹

Others, however, drawing from both Aquinas and Pope John Paul II, have understood “object” as referring to an act considered not insofar as it has the natural tendency to produce a range of effects, but rather insofar as it is able to bring about the further end that is intended by the agent. In fact, John Paul writes,

In order to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person. … By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world.³²

Germain Grisez has suggested this understanding of “object,” relating the term to the intentional structure of the action.³³ Martin Rhonheimer has argued at length, over a period of years, for something like this understanding.³⁴ Christopher Kaczor has taken a similar approach.³⁵ In short, to summarize very briefly (and perhaps not wholly adequately) this position, “object” refers to the act itself that is chosen by the acting person, the act, that is, insofar (and only insofar) as it is able to bring about the further end that is intended (in the more specific sense of “intended”) by the person.

How does this understanding of “object” help to clarify the meaning of “contraception” as distinct from NFP? Again, a contracepting couple chooses (in some more specific way or ways–-the use of surgery, drugs, barriers, and/or withdrawal) to minimize the fertility of the martial intercourse in which they engage. They choose, in other words, some act (or combination of acts) that will have this consequence, and precisely insofar as the act will have this consequence. The act of minimizing the fertility of their engaging in intercourse, considered precisely insofar as it is an act of minimizing the fertility of their engaging in intercourse, constitutes the object of their action as a whole, and defines that action as contraception.

The couple will, obviously, have some further “intention” in view, something further that they hope to accomplish by means of their act of minimizing the fertility of the intercourse in which they engage. They may intend to maximize the likelihood that the woman will remain able to fit into certain fashionable articles of clothing (ones that she would not be able to fit into if pregnant). They may intend to maximize the likelihood that she will avoid serious negative health consequences (to her and/or to a prospective baby) that would, in her case, result from pregnancy. They may intend to maximize the likelihood that the man will be able to afford an expensive (and unneeded) luxury car (one that he would not be able to afford if the couple also had to bear the expenses of raising another child). They may intend to maximize the likelihood that they will be able to continue to provide basic and decent food for themselves and their other children (which they would not be able to afford if they had the added expenses of caring for another child). Any of these intentions are, however, precisely “intentions” as distinguished from the object of their action. Again, they have nothing to do with the definition of their action as one of contraception. Whether or not their intention is to avoid a serious evil and thus realize a serious good, whether or not it is one that might morally justify avoiding procreation (with the latter considered in abstraction from the concrete act by which it is accomplished)–-and the possibility of using contraception with a good intention is acknowledged by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II³⁶–-their act remains one of contraception (and, as such, morally evil).

What, then, would a “contraceptive mentality,” in the precise sense, be? It would be, I think, a mentality that approves of the choice to minimize the fertility of the intercourse in which a couple engages, as a means to accomplishing in turn some further intention. What this further intention might be in a particular case, and whether it would be selfish/evil (saving money for a luxury car) or prudent/good (saving money for basic/decent food) in a particular case, is not relevant to the question of whether the mentality, which approves of the use of a vasectomy or anovulant pills or condoms or the like in order to accomplish the intention, is a “contraceptive mentality.” Now, again, NFP differs in object from contraception (it must, since contraception is evil in its object, whereas NFP is not necessarily evil, hence it cannot be evil in its object). The object of an NFP–-using couple is the avoidance of intercourse during the fertile times, precisely because the fertile times are fertile, in other words, insofar as this avoidance of intercourse is likely to accomplish the avoidance of procreation. They will of course want to accomplish some further end in turn by means of this avoidance of procreation. But their further intention, whether it is good or selfish, is irrelevant to whether the object of their action is NFP. However selfish their further intention might be, it cannot transform the act itself that they are choosing, the object of their action, into contraception. And if “contraception” denotes an object (one essentially and hence always distinct from NFP), then it follows, I think, that “contraceptive mentality” ought to be reserved for a description of the mentality that is a constitutive element of this object, of “contraception” specifically, that is, of the mentality that it is permissible to minimize the fertility of an actually engaged–-in act of intercourse. However selfish the mentality might be that motivates a couple to use NFP, since it is not the attitude that necessarily expresses itself in contraception, it would not be accurate to call it a contraceptive mentality. It should instead be called, simply, selfishness or a selfish mentality.

It remains to examine Pope John Paul II's use of “contraceptive mentality” and of another, similar/related expression, and to consider the relationship between his understanding and the one that I have offered. John Paul says that the contemporary situation includes “the appearance of a truly contraceptive mentality” and adds, “At the root of [this and other] negative phenomena there frequently lies a corruption of the idea and the experience of freedom, conceived not as a capacity for realizing the truth of God's plan for marriage and the family, but as an autonomous power of self-affirmation, often against others, for one's own selfish well-being.”³⁷ In a later document, John Paul states that

despite their differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree… . [I]n very many … instances such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfilment. The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.³⁸

In this second text, John Paul does not use the precise expression “contraceptive mentality”; he speaks rather of “a hedonistic mentality.” Still, he says that this mentality often underlies both contraception and abortion, and could be called the “tree” of which both contraception and abortion are “fruits.” Insofar as this mentality is linked with contraception, and also insofar as it is linked with what seems to be the same selfish (mis)understanding of freedom with which the contraceptive mentality too is linked, it seems plausible to regard this hedonistic mentality as equivalent to a contraceptive mentality.

Pope John Paul seems to think that there is a difference between this hedonistic/contraceptive mentality and the selfish but non-contraceptive mentality that might sometimes motivate the use of NFP; he writes “that the couple who have recourse to the natural regulation of fertility can lack … valid reasons …: this, however, constitutes a separate ethical problem” from that of contraception.³⁹ But what is the difference? It is, I suggest, as follows. The choice to use contraception is (intrinsically/always) morally evil especially because it is already–-regardless of further intention–-a choice to treat one's spouse as a mere “means,” as an “object” to be “used” for the maximization of one's own sexual pleasure, rather than a personal “subject” (with intellect and will, hence genuinely interior life and genuine self-possession) to be “loved,” and hence to treat her hedonistically and selfishly.⁴⁰ John Paul II works out this position in his pre-papal writings,⁴¹ and these are likely key background for what he says about contraception as pope.⁴² But this is not true of the choice to avoid procreation using NFP. The very fact that a couple uses NFP, with the sacrifice of what would otherwise be some opportunities for sexual pleasure that this entails, means that they are not treating each other as sexual “objects” as is necessarily the case when a couple uses contraception, with its inherent choice to maximize sexual pleasure. Their most basic attitude/mentality toward each other remains, not one of “objectification”/“use” or (therefore) hedonism/selfishness. It remains, instead, a self-giving and loving attitude/mentality (with the “self-giving” expressed in the “giving up” of ways of maximizing sexual pleasure that would “objectify” the other). And this still remains the case even when choice of NFP is made in order to accomplish a selfish further motive/intention.⁴³

This is not to deny that, in John Paul's mind, there could, potentially, sometimes be a problem with the basic attitude of an NFP-using couple. He offers the observation/caution that Humanae vitae

places the ethical dimension of the problem in the foreground, underlining the role of the virtue of temperance rightly understood. In the area of this dimension, there is also an adequate “method” of acting. In the common way of thinking, it often happens that the “method,” detached from the ethical dimension proper to it, is applied in a merely functional and even utilitarian way. When one separates the “natural method” from the ethical dimension, one no longer sees the difference between it and the other “methods” (artificial means), and one ends up speaking about it as if it were just another form of contraception.⁴⁴

Two things are to be noted about this passage. First, it is at least possible that “the common way of thinking” about NFP is to be understood primarily as the way of thinking that leads to the choice of contraception instead of NFP. It might sometimes be associated with the choice to use NFP, as perhaps in the case of couples who object only on health grounds to surgical sterilization or hormonal contraceptives, although it would not be surprising if at least some such couples, while determining their fertility in the same ways as NFP users, engaged in intercourse using barrier contraceptives during the fertile times.⁴⁵ Second, in any case, this way of thinking, as described by Pope John Paul, does not seem to have anything to do with whether a couple's further motive/intention in using NFP is selfish/evil rather than good. It has to do, rather, with their way of thinking about the “method” (NFP) itself.

Conclusion

I have argued that two somewhat common ways of thinking/speaking among good Catholics should be modified. The just reasons that are needed for morally good use of NFP to avoid procreation should be described as “serious” reasons (understood somewhat broadly), not “grave” reasons (understood much more narrowly). When selfish motives lead a couple to use NFP to avoid procreation, this should be called, simply, “selfishness,” not a “contraceptive mentality.” As I suggested above in introducing this thesis, these modifications are both of practical, not merely academic, importance. Couples/families will be hurt, and/or will come to ignore Church teaching regarding sexual morality (which will in turn hurt them morally/spiritually), if they are given mistaken counsel to the effect that their genuinely serious reasons for avoiding procreation using NFP are not serious enough because they are not “grave.”

The Church's urgent and cogent message about the basic moral difference between contraception and NFP will be obscured and likewise dismissed if the term “contraceptive” is misapplied. One can explain the pastoral importance of using “selfishness” rather than “contraceptive mentality” to describe the use of NFP without a serious motive in another way also. As I noted above, the Church speaks of “prudent generosity” as the correct term for the morally good attitude toward procreation. With Blessed John Paul II, we should perhaps want to point couples in the direction of this attitude, thereby offering them “positive” and not merely “negative” advice regarding the attitude that they ought to have. Since there is a clear and obvious relationship of contrast between “selfishness” and “generosity,” the use of “selfishness” to refer to the wrong attitude could also help point couples in the direction of seeing “generosity” as the morally right one.

For these practical reasons, I propose that talking about NFP in a way that accurately presents the Church's consistent teaching about its nature and use is an essential component of our mission to participate in the building of a culture of life, love, and holiness.⁴⁶