Brother:

I was browsing the archived forums and found something that I would like clarification on. In a post that you made earlier this year entitled "re:birth control Q by Farrell," you stated that in your opinion, a person may not have sexual relations with his/her spouse if he/she (the spouse) is using some form of contraception.

 For example, if a Catholic woman is married to a Protestant man and he insists on using condoms regardless of her constant entreaties, it seemed to be your opinion (correct me if I am wrong) that the woman should refuse to have sex with her husband, regardless of the effect on the marriage.

The reason I mention this is because in the most recent issue of "Family Foundations" (the Couple to Couple League's bi-monthly magazine) I found an article that addresses this point, and it cites a document from the Pontifical Council for the Family called "Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life" (can be found at www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm).

The article paraphrases the document, but it says that there is a hierarchy of goods in regard to marital relations. They go something like this:

BEST: Only licit ways of regulating births are used, meaning no method of family planning or NFP

2nd BEST: Faithful spouse refrains from sexual relations with contracepting spouse

3rd BEST (to be used for the good of the marriage if contracepting spouse will not agree to abstinence): Faithful spouse may share the marital embrace with the contracepting spouse providing the following conditions are met:

a) The action of the cooperating spouse is not illicit in itself (i.e., the faithful spouse is not the one using artificial birth control)-

NOTE: this condition may not be met with chemical forms of birth control since abortions will most likely result

b) Reason must be proportionally grave (denying sexual relations might end the marriage)

c) Faithful spouse must keep trying to convince contracepting spouse to change and be continually praying that God would change the heart of the offending spouse.

In your earlier post, were you referring to chemical birth control alone? I would just like clarification for myself and others so that no one unnecessarily threatens the integrity of their marriage.

-Rachel
(Sorry this is so long, feel free to shorten it if you wish)