[T]he fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called.
Humanae Vitae, paragraph 12
The sexual relationship between husband and wife expresses their married love by becoming “one body” (Genesis 2:24) and “one flesh” (Mark 10:8, Matthew 19:6). Their sexual union, designed by God, is intended to be both unitive and procreative. Through sexual intimacy, spouses express their love, strengthen their emotional and physical connection, and foster unity. Their marital relationship remains open to the potential for creating new life.
Both aspects are essential; marital love cannot separate the unitive from the procreative aspect.
Use of contraception removes the procreative aspect from marital love. It is like a wife telling her husband “I give all of myself to you except my fertility, ” or a husband saying “I love and accept all of you except your fertility.” By using contraceptive methods, couples place a barrier between themselves, withholding the total gift of self by withholding fertility.
On the other hand, Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a system of understanding a couple’s combined fertility, respect the love-giving (unitive) and life-giving (procreative) nature of the sex, supporting God’s design for married love.
The Catholic Church supports this sacred, dual purpose:
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.
The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed., 2363
Both dimensions—unitive and procreative—are intrinsically good and integral to the act of marriage.
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