Dear Scott:

I praise God that you wish to adhere to the Church teachings on artificial contraceptives. It is a courageous stand to make these days to opt for truth.

St. Paul instructs married couple in 1 Corinthians 7:5: "Do not deprive one another, unless it is with consent, so that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer. And come together again so that Satan does not tempt you for your incontinence."

A more contemporary language translation may make this more clear: "So don't refuse sex to each other, unless you agree not to have sex for a little while, in order to spend time in prayer. Then Satan won't be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control."

This passage, however, refers to abstinence of marital relations for the purposes of prayer. What you are asking is about abstinence for the purpose of delaying pregnancy.

One of the primary messages of this passage is that abstinence of marital relations in a marriage is not healthy. Not only may abstinence erode the bond between husband and wife, but it opens the door to temptation to one or more sexual sins such as lust, masturbation, and adultery.

With all that said this passage also presents us with a principle, I believe, that may apply to other things besides abstinence for prayer. For example, a couple may mutually agree to abstain because of medical reasons, illness, infirmity, emotional disturbance, or other factors that legitimates justify temporary abstinence.

Abstinence to avoid pregnancy is not justified except in limited and extreme circumstances such as danger of death. It would not appear that your situation qualifies for an extreme circumstance.

The solution for your situation is Natural Family Planning. It should be noted that couples MAY NOT use NFP as a "Catholic contraceptive". The contraceptive mentality must be avoided at all costs. Rather, the Church teaches that when there is a justified and legitimate reason to delay pregnancy NFP is an approved way to accomplish that. But NFP cannot be morally practices "merely" to avoid pregnancy for selfish or indulgent reasons.

Only the two of you, in consultation with your spiritual director or priest can determine if your current situation qualifies as a justified reason to use NFP.

As to your wife's distrust of NFP, I am afraid that she is being irrational. NFP is scientifically proven to be just as effective as any artificial birth control if it is practiced properly. That is true for artificial birth control, too -- it must be used properly in order to gain the advertised "success" rates.

Even when NFP is practiced properly there is a chance of pregnancy. That is also true for artificial contraception. There is only two ways to guaranteed 100% avoidance of pregnancy -- total sterilization or total abstinence.

The bottomline here I do not think is really about pregnancy. It would appear that the real issue is that your wife does not trust God.

We must remember that God promises us that nothing will come into our lives that we cannot handle. If God does not keep that promise, then he is a liar. By your wife's refusal to trust God, she is, in essence, calling God a liar.

God will give us the grace to handle whatever it is we have to handle in life. He may not give us that grace until one second before the event, but He will give us that grace sufficient for us to handle whatever comes. God promises that and He does not lie or go back on His promises.

I would suggest that you pray for your wife to trust God. I would pray that any spirit of distrust, spirit of fear, spirit of lack of faith be rebuked. We have such a prayer in our Spiritual Warfare Prayer Catalog.

As for grave sin, I do not think this qualifies, but that does not matter. We are obligated to God to not sin at all, grave or venial, and in addition we have an obligation to live in accord with virtue (faith, hope, love, prudence, moral rightness, self-control, perseverance, trust, obedience, self-sacrifice, honor, and dignity, among others).

Prudence, just as one example, is for married couples to have a normal sexual relationship. Faith, love, trust, obedience, and self-sacrifice all give our lives over to God. If we keep our lives to ourselves, then we rob God of what is really His. Jesus said we must die to self in order to live. That means giving ourselves over to God completely and totally -- all of our lives -- and that means our reproductive lives, too.

Take your position as head of the house (paterfamilias) to pray for your wife to gain faith, trust, and self-sacrifice; to find prudence, hope, and joy. Take your place as the protector of the family and rebuke the Enemy who would destroy those virtues.

We will certainly be in prayer for you. You may also want to talk to your confessor.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary