Question:  Does the Catholic faith view birth control as optional or completely discourage it?  Are condoms, pills, IUD's, permanent (tying of tubes, vasectomy) procedures all shunned?  If so, why?  Does it have to do with Catholicism believing Christians need to populate the Earth?  Why aren't there huge Catholic families anymore if birth control is forbidden?

Answer: Birth control. It's like you say that word and everyone brings out their boxing gloves. Hostile topic, for sure. For people who don't understand Catholics, the view is that the Church is all up in our sex lives and lording over them...and that Catholics just have all the babies forever and ever, amen.

And for people who use birth control, they typically think that Catholics will (hiss, hiss) throw up their hands to form a cross and start backing away.

So, what's the story?

First, yes, the Catholic Church is against any form of birth control. Now, before you go off scoffing at the "out-dated" church, take a moment to hear the reasons. They're good reasons and I can't list them all here because it's a really long list, but it all boils down to human dignity and love and almost nothing to do with populating the Earth. Though, if you are the ones having all the babies because you are open to life and don't believe in abortion, well, then I guess you contribute to populating the Earth.

1. The reproductive system is truly fascinating. I wish in my high school health class, I had learned about my body and all the ways it communicates to me about my fertility and my cycle. Instead, I was told that birth control is the way to go and "just stay safe." Instead of teaching us the wonder of our bodies, most people are completely naive and ignorant when it comes to understanding our reproductive system. Sure, we all know that you put a man and woman together, they get busy, and a baby could be the outcome. But, that's just surface level stuff. Our bodies operate with a rhythm (Oh my!  She just said rhythm! How outdated can you be!) that does exactly what it is supposed to do. When we take birth control we are trying to stop what happens naturally. When, in any other situation, do we do this? We would never take a pill that makes us blind or causes us to lose our hearing. We would never insert a device into ourselves in order to stop our heart from working normally or our liver from doing what it does. But, we do with our reproductive system. We are stopping a perfectly healthy system from performing as it is designed to perform. We see commercials all the time of lawyers looking to make a buck off of people who have been injured by some form of birth control. I, myself, had extreme life-threatening reactions to birth control pills. I've known men that after having a vasectomy can't perform anymore because of damage. None of this would happen if we let our bodies perform as they are intended. Our country is obsessed with what we eat and if it's organic or not, but we have no qualms about putting artificial hormones and devices in our bodies. The Church recognizes the dangers associated with these different preventive measures and desires all people to be as healthy and well as possible.
2. Obviously, the Catholic Church wants sex to only be within marriage, so if that needs discussing we will leave it for another time. The Church believes sex has two purposes: Bonding and babies. In marriage, we promise to give our all to our spouse. We promise to give them everything we have, but when we use birth control, we hold back a part of us. We say, "I'm willing to give you most of me, but not all of me." If there is a barrier between us, then we are not giving all. Unfortunately, in our culture, we want the bonding/pleasure part of sex, but not the baby part. Can you imagine if your husband flipped that around on you? "Honey, I don't really want to have sex with you in order to bond, I want to have sex with you to make a baby. I'm gonna hold back on the bonding part and let's just make this as mechanical as possible to get the achieved result." I don't know about you, but I would be crushed beyond words if my husband said that to me. The Church believes that each marital act should be open to the possibility of life. "WHOA!  HOLD ON, LITTLE DARLIN'!  I'M NOT ABOUT TO HAVE 20 BABIES." The Church doesn't ask that of you. It asks that you are open to life if you are blessed with it. The Church asks that you prayerfully discern the size of your family. There are no Church soldiers knocking on doors to make sure that you are having a baby every time you turn around. There is no set number of kids every Catholic family is supposed to have. The Church understands that not all couples are called to have super large families. There may be serious reasons not to have more children: Health issues, financial issues, marital issues. Often times we turn things into negatives that are real positives. Our culture has turned the Church's stance on birth control into a negative by saying, "The Church just wants to control everything and keep women down!" Not true. The Church wants each marriage to see children as the "supreme gift of marriage" and to not close their bodies off to each other in artificial ways.
3. Birth control doesn't solve the problem of having unwanted births. We were told that birth control will free us up, let us decide when it is right to have children--all the perks of sex without the consequences. Except, that's just not how it's panned out. How many of us, that have used birth control pills, got pregnant while on the pill? I'm raising my hand if you can't tell. Nearly every woman I know that has used the pill or is using the pill has gotten pregnant on the pill. The 99.7% effective stat is deceiving. Just think about it this way, that's a 0.3% chance you'll get pregnant each time you do the act, not a 0.3% chance over your whole life.  The math on that means that if you do it 10 times, it already drops to 97% effective. After a hundred times, it becomes 74% effective. This means that 1 in 4 women, after only 100 times during a fertile period, will become pregnant.  After 1000 times, the pill will be only 5% effective. This is all if the user is using it perfectly. Take away perfect usage and those numbers drop even more significantly.

[Upon further research, after several readers challenged these stats, the point I was trying to get across remains. However, I made an unfounded assumption about the data. I thought "99.7% effectiveness stat" was calculated based on the number of times a couple had sex. However, the researchers never take this into account. They only calculate the number of pregnancies that occur in a year while on birth control compared to the number of non-pregnancies that occur over that same year. So, unfortunately, no one that I can find provides the information to actually calculate the effectiveness of contraception for each use during a fertile period. However, we can still say that while the "Pill" can be up to 99.7% effective for one year, over the 30 years (ages 15 to 45) that a woman is fertile, she has a 9% chance of getting pregnant...if she uses it perfectly. And, we know how often that happens...  

For more sexually active women, this number would increase. So, in summary, the corrected number is closer to 1 in 10, instead of 1 in 4 women will become pregnant while using the Birth Control Pill perfectly.] Unfortunately, the 99.7% stat puts people into a false sense of security. Not to mention that most birth control measures do not prevent STDs. In reality, birth control tries to solve one problem (which isn't really a problem--babies aren't problems) and it creates numerous other problems. One of the biggest issues that Pope John Paul II foresaw was that birth control measures could lead to the using of people simply for pleasure. I think you have to look no further than our hook-up culture to see that he was right. If you mostly take away the responsibility that can come from sex, people start to see others as merely an object for pleasure. Now, you could argue that sex is supposed to be fun and pleasurable and that the Church is just being a kill-joy. The Church would agree that sex should be those things and...life giving...and just with your spouse. Love leads to life on so many different levels, doesn't it?

I could go on and on, but for the sake of time, I can't. I used to take birth control pills. I started taking them when I was 17 years old. I did it without even thinking about it. It was just what I did because that's the environment our culture has created. You just do it without asking questions. Those pills left me lying on a restaurant bathroom floor, delirious, foaming at the mouth, and weak. This happened on more than one occasion. Now, my husband and I practice Natural Family Planning and, no, it's not the rhythm method. It is based on concrete science and is highly effective when used properly.  Most people turn their nose down on NFP, but rarely, if ever, have those people researched or inquired about it. It just sounds all Catholicy and therefore it must be awful.

As I started exploring the reasons why the Catholic Church advises not to use birth control, it seemed like a beautiful message. Give your all to your spouse, prayerfully discern the size of your family while making sure you aren't holding back because of selfish reasons, and don't hurt your body by stopping it from doing what God intended it to do. You may not agree with this, but remember, the Church is in the business of getting people to heaven. They are interested in holiness, not worldliness. The world often touts one thing, but Christianity follows a narrower path.

‍So, in conclusion:

1. Yes, the Catholic Church is against birth control.  But, so were all Christians until the 1930s.
2. No, the Church does not kick people out for using birth control.
3. The Church does not require you to have as many children as you possibly can until your womb closes shop. They ask that each couple be open to life, welcome all blessings, and pray together about the size of their family. The Church understands that not all are called to have large families. Some couples struggle with infertility, some with miscarriages, and many other issues that most of us aren't privy to. My family looks like a small Catholic family, but we have suffered through ten miscarriages. You just never know the reasons why a family has fewer children. Also, there are large Catholic families and for the most part, they deal with sneers and snide comments all the time about their choice to have large families. Many people steer clear of having large families because our culture treats them like immature, irresponsible free-loaders. I thought we lived in a country that worshipped at the altar of choice? All except when people chose life, right? Spend some time with a large family; they are some of the most joy-filled, fun-loving, awesome families I've ever known.
4. Do some Catholics use birth control? Yep. There are lots of Catholics that go against what the Church teaches. That doesn't mean the Church is wrong. It just means for whatever reason, that person or family has chosen not to follow the teachings of the Church.
5. Does this mean that the Church thinks that couples who use birth control don't really love each other? No, but they do believe that you can take it to an even deeper, more fully sacrificial love.
6. Is NFP hard? Yes, it is sometimes, but sometimes what is good for us is not always easy. I have the assurance that I am putting nothing harmful in my body, my husband and I have grown in our ability to communicate, especially with my fertility, and there is never a barrier between us. That brings great peace of mind.