Birth control in the light of Sacred Scriptures, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church.

1. The Human Person:
Sexuality, Marriage, & the Family
Liza Manalo, MD, MSc.

2. THE DIGNITY OF THE
HUMAN PERSON
• Rooted in his creation in the image and
likeness of God (CCC, 1700).
• God, in a plan of sheer goodness, freely
created man to make him share in
His own blessed life.
• For this reason, at every time and in
every place, God draws close to man.
He calls man to seek him, to know him,
to love him with all his strength.
(CCC, prologue I.1.)

3. Dignity of Man
• Man is called to communion with God.
• This invitation to converse with God is
addressed to man as soon as he comes into
being.
• For if man exists, it is because God has
created him through love, and through love
continues to hold him in existence.
• Man cannot live fully according to truth unless
he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts
himself to his Creator.
• Vatican Council II, GS 19 § 1.

4. The Trinity and the Divine
Family
• “God in His deepest mystery, is not a solitude
but a family, since He has in Himself
fatherhood, sonship and the essence of the
family which is love (John Paul II, 1979).
1. God is family—not like a family
2. Highest mystery of faith: Trinity, the Divine
Family
3. Earthly families are like the Trinity
4. Reveals essence of family = love

5. Man‟s creation and vocation
• “Then God said, „Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness;
• So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created
them.
• And God blessed them, and God said
to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. . .’
(Genesis 1:26–28).

6. Man & Woman‟s Vocation
to Love and Communion
• "God is love, and in Himself, He lives
a mystery of personal loving
communion.
• Creating the human race in His own
image . . .. God inscribed in the
humanity of man and woman the
vocation, and thus the capacity and
responsibility, of love and
communion.“
– Familiaris consortio 11

7. “Humanity images God in
the family.”
• “[God] willed man and woman to be
the prime community of persons,
source of every other community,
and, at the same time, to be a „sign‟
of that interpersonal communion
of love which constitutes the
mystical, intimate life of God, One
in Three.” - John Paul II
• Letter to Families, 6
• Christifideles Laici, 52

8. Three Levels of LOVE
• Agape, philia and eros refer to three
levels of love - which could
correspond to man‟s spirit, soul and
body.
• The third- which speaks of the highest
level of love - is agape.
– This is the love of God imparted to us by
the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).
• This word has primary reference in
marriage to the union of the spirit of
one with that of the other.
• It is a self-giving love - the love of
Calvary‟s cross. Zac Poonen (1971)

9. Agapan (agape)
• Means, "to value, to have a
concern for, to delight in and to be
faithful to"
• In reference to the love that should
exist between a husband and wife,
this would mean that
– each partner should value the other as of
infinite worth;
– they should have a concern for each other;
– they should delight and rejoice in each other;
– and they should be faithful to one another.
Zac Poonen (1971)

10. TWO SHALL BECOME ONE
• God made man alone first; and it is
significant to note that He Who
considered everything He created up
to the first half of the sixth day as
"good", (note the repetition of "God
saw that it was good" six times in
Genesis 1:4-26), now states that it is
"not good" for man to be alone (Gen.
2:18).
• As the poet John Milton (17th c.) said,
"Loneliness was the first thing which
God‟s eye named not good".
Zac Poonen (1971)

11. TWO SHALL BECOME ONE
• God then proceeds to make the
woman, to be Adam‟s wife and
helper. After this is done, He now
looks at His creation and uses the
superlative "very good" to describe
what He now sees (Gen.1:31).
• A married couple made all that
difference to God‟s creation!
Zac Poonen (1971)

12. Purpose of marriage
(1) Companionship
• God wanted Adam and Eve to live in
constant recognition of their need of
each other, and together recognize
their dependence upon Him. Each of
them was to live for the other, and both
were to live for God.
• God intended them to be spiritually
strong through such a fellowship.
Zac Poonen (1971)

13. Purpose of marriage
(2) Procreation of Children and
Establishment of a home
• In Genesis 1:28, we see God‟s first
words to this newly-married couple:
– “They were to be fruitful.”
• The procreation of children and the
establishment of a home was another
reason why God instituted marriage.
• The sexual function was created by
God primarily for this purpose.
Zac Poonen (1971)

14. Purpose of marriage
(2) Procreation of Children and
Establishment of a home
• The Bible places great emphasis on
the home as a center of Divine
worship and service.
• The ordering of a home under the
headship of God is a thing that
brings much glory to Him.
Zac Poonen (1971)

15. Purpose of marriage
(2) Procreation of Children and
Establishment of a home
• God gives couples children not only
to gladden their hearts but also that
couples might bring the children up in
His fear, so that the children can be
faithful witnesses to Him in their
generation.
• This is stressed again and again in the
Scriptures (Psa. 78:5-7).
Zac Poonen (1971)

16. Purpose of marriage
(2) Procreation of Children and
Establishment of a home
• To build a home that glorifies God
and testifies to His faithfulness and
His care is the calling of every
Christian married couple.
• The establishment of a home that
glorifies God is undoubtedly one of
the prime purposes of marriage.
Zac Poonen (1971)

17. Purpose of marriage
(3) Sexual fulfillment
• The command to be fruitful (in
Genesis 1:28) carried with it the
implication that Adam and Eve were
to have sexual union.
• Marriage is the God-ordained means
by which man and woman can find
complete fulfillment of their sexual
desires.
Zac Poonen (1971)

18. Purpose of marriage
(3) Sexual fulfillment
• Sexual fulfillment in marriage
involves far more than just physical
satisfaction and pleasure.
– If that was all there was to it, then
man would be no better than an
animal.
• The physical aspect of sex is not
despised in the Bible.
• Sex as created by God is sacred
and pure.
Zac Poonen (1971)

19. Purpose of marriage
(3) Sexual fulfillment
• The sexual union of husband and wife
must always be the symbolic climax
and expression of a far deeper union
that already exists between them in
their inner selves.
– It should be the physical expression of
the agape-love that they have for one
another.
Zac Poonen (1971)

20. Purpose of marriage
(3) Sexual fulfillment
• The marriage-bed must be a sacred
altar on which the husband and the
wife, through sexual union, express
their desire to give themselves in
sacrificial service, each for the other,
in every department of their life
together.
Zac Poonen (1971)

21. Symbolism of Marriage
• One of the most glorious revelations of
Scripture is that the husband-wife
relationship is symbolic of the
relationship that exists between Christ
and the Church (Eph. 5:22-23).
Zac Poonen (1971)

22. CONTRACEPTION:
„A Lie in the Language of Love‟
EXCERPTED FROM SWEAR TO GOD: THE PROMISE AND
POWER OF THE SACRAMENTS
Reference: First Comes Love, 2006
By: Scott Hahn

23. Married love is a reflection
of God‟s love
• If married love is a sacramental sign of
God's love for His people-as both Old &
New Testaments of the Bible testify-then
the act itself must accurately reflect that
love.
• It must be faithful, monogamous,
indissoluble, and fruitful.
• This is the foundation of all traditional
Christian sexual morality, though it will
surely come as a surprise to many
Christians today.

24. History of Artificial Contraceptives
• Until 1930, Christian churches-without
exception-condemned contraception in the
strongest terms.
• The Protestant reformers– Martin Luther,
John Calvin, John Wesley, and all the rest
– went so far as to call it "murder.“
• The anti-contraception laws-which were on
the books in many states in the U.S. until
the 1960s-were largely the work of
evangelical Protestant legislators.
• At present, only the Catholic Church
continues to oppose RH bills promoting
contraception.

25. Contraception:
“A Lie in the Language of Love”
• Pope John Paul II has rightly called
contraception "a lie in the language of
love:“
• Sex, according to Catholic faith,
should be an oath in action, a
complete gift of self, an embrace in
which a man and a woman hold
nothing back from one another.

26. The Marriage Covenant
• Marriage is a covenant, involving an
exchange of persons.
• Every covenant has an act whereby the
covenant is enacted and renewed; and
the marital act (sex) is a covenant act.
• When the marriage covenant is
renewed, God uses it to give new life.
– Kippley, Sex and the Marriage Covenant

27. Life-giving Love in
Marriage
• The marital act (sex) demonstrates
the powerful life-giving love of the
covenant in a unique way.
• All the other covenants show God‟s
love and transmit God‟s love, but it is
only in the marital covenant that the
love is so real and powerful that it
communicates life.
– Kippley, Sex and the Marriage Covenant

28. Contraception: A Lie in
the Language of Love
• The innate language that expresses the total
reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is
overlaid, through contraception, by an
objectively contradictory language, namely, that
of not giving oneself totally to the other.
• This leads not only to a positive refusal to be
open to life but also to a falsification of the inner
truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to
give itself in personal totality.
- Familiaris Consortio 32.

29. Sex and Christian Morals
• Sex, for a Christian, is a gift of an
entire life, and so it belongs only in a
lifelong, exclusive marriage.
• Sex, for a Christian, is a covenant
exchange, an exchange of persons:
"I am yours, and you are mine."
• Marriage is what makes sex
sacramental and covenantal.

30. Sex and Christian Morals
• The total gift of self rules out the
possibility of divorce, adultery,
premarital sex, and contraception.
• For contracepting couples do hold
something back, and it's perhaps the
single greatest power two human beings
can possess: their fertility, the ability to
co-create with God a new life, body and
soul, destined for eternity.

31. Sex and Christian Morals
• The sexual act says in its ecstasy:
"I give you everything." But
contraception renders that
communication untrue.
• For sex is a sign, a sacramental sign.

32. Sex and Christian Morals
• The marital act (sex) is the act that
consummates the sacrament of
marriage.
• And a sacrament is a channel of
divine grace, which is the very life of
God.
• So when people mess with the
"sign" of sex, we're not just
changing the way we talk about
love; we're ceasing to love.

33. Sexual union is an oath in
action
• The root of the word "sacrament" is
the Latin word for "oath." When
married couples make love, they place
themselves under solemn oath: to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth. (So help me, God.)
• And what is the truth we tell under the
oath sign of marriage? We say that
God is one, and God is a Trinity.

34. Nuptial Love as a Sign of the
Trinity
• When God made man, male and
female, the first command He gave
them was to be fruitful and multiply.
• This was to image God- Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, three in one, the
Divine Family.
– Kippley, Sex and the Marriage Covenant

35. Nuptial Love as a Sign of the
Trinity
• So when “two become one” in the
covenant of marriage, the “one” they
become is so real that nine months
later they might have to give it a
name!
• The child embodies their covenant
oneness.
• The two become one flesh, and soon
they are joined by a third; yet they
remain one family.
– Kippley, Sex and the Marriage Covenant

36. Human Love: a Sign of God‟s
own Life
• By God's design, marriage is the
only relationship that reveals the life-
giving power of love.
• Human love, with its fruitfulness,
vividly manifests God's own being
and inner life.

37. Marriage is a sign of
God‟s Life here on earth
• Marriage is a sacramental sign of
the Trinitarian life we hope to
share forever in heaven: "In the
joys of their love and family life [God]
gives them here on earth a foretaste
of the wedding feast of the Lamb"
(CCC, n. 1642; see also Rev 19:9).
• All that is the truth the married couple
tell with their bodies in the sexual act
without contraception.

38. TEACHINGS OF THE
CHURCH MAGISTERIUM

39. Marriage:Ends & Obligations
• 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. ..
• The conjugal love of man and woman
thus stands under the twofold obligation
of fidelity and fecundity.
- CCC 2363

40. Fecundity:An End of Marriage
• Fecundity is a good, a gift, and an end
of marriage. By giving life, spouses
participate in the creative power and
fatherhood of God (CCC 2398).
• “It is necessary that each and every
marriage act remain ordered per se to
the procreation of human life.“
– Humanae vitae 11

41. Regulation of Procreation
• For just reasons, spouses may wish to
space the births of their children.
• It is their duty to make certain that their
desire is not motivated by selfishness
but is in conformity with the generosity
appropriate to responsible parenthood.
• Moreover, they should conform their
behavior to the objective criteria of
morality.
- CCC 2368

42. Responsible Parenthood
• The regulation of births represents
one of the aspects of responsible
fatherhood and motherhood.
• Periodic continence, that is, the
methods of birth regulation based on
self-observation and the use of
infertile periods, is in conformity with
the objective criteria of morality.
– Humanae vitae 16

43. Contraception: an intrinsic evil
• “Every action which, whether in
anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its
accomplishment, or in the development
of its natural consequences, proposes,
whether as an end or as a means, to
render procreation impossible" is
intrinsically evil (Humanae vitae 14).
• Legitimate intentions on the part of the
spouses do not justify recourse to
morally unacceptable means (for
example, direct sterilization or
contraception) (CCC 2399).

44. Contraception: an intrinsic evil
• The Church affirms that the illicitness
of contraception is an infallible
doctrine.
• “The Church has always taught the
intrinsic evil of contraception, i.e., of
every marital act intentionally
rendered unfruitful.
• This teaching is to be held as
definitive and irreformable.”
- Vademecum for Confessors, 1997

45. Contraception
• Gravely opposed to marital chastity
• Contrary to the good of the transmission
of life (the procreative aspect of
matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-
giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect
of matrimony)
• Harms true love
• Denies the sovereign role of God in the
transmission of human life
- Vademecum for Confessors, 1997

46. Direct abortion is gravely
contrary to the moral law
• God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to
men the noble mission of safeguarding
life, and men must carry it out in a
manner worthy of themselves.
• Life must be protected with the utmost
care from the moment of conception.
• Abortion and infanticide are abominable
crimes.
- Gaudium et Spes 51 § 3