[Maximilian]

What if the intent is to space the children? Is that valid? What if there are only two bedrooms in the house and the couple is going on the fourth child? Is that valid? What if the husband is expecting a decrease in pay? Is that valid? What if the wife is having trouble raising so many children, she finds the task daunting? Is that valid? What if the couple is in the middle of a move to another city soon? Is that valid? I'm not trying to be cute, I'm really not.

Your sincerity is more than clear. These are excellent questions. The reality is that once I have taken these decisions into my own hands, rather than leaving them in God's hands, then the questions never stop, and there really aren't any good answers to them. This is literally true, since the Catholic Church has never provided concrete answers to your questions, and has deliberately steered clear of answering the obvious question "What precisely qualifies as 'grave reasons'?"

The only really good answer to your questions is to place my entire confidence in God's divine providence, and for me to realize that I made my choice on the day that I said "I do" -- on that day I made the choice for fruitfulness and generosity and submission, and I no longer have to reconsider my decision on a month-by-month basis.

I just have a problem, to a very large degree, with Letter of the law Catholics, and the NFP issue brings it to the fore more than any other Catholic issue I can think of. It is the splitting of hairs and that's where our discussion has gone here.

Your insight is valid regarding the tendency towards being a "letter of the law Catholic." I know I've often felt that temptation. The solution is not to split hairs ever more finely, but to accept as many children as God wants to send you. If you come to Mass at a traditional Catholic chapel, you will meet many families who are doing just that. They have given up splitting hairs and following the letter of the law, and have given their lives over to God.

However, this one issue still confounds me to no end. Maybe one day the proverbial light bulb will illuminate in my soul.

Perhaps the light bulb will go on when you read Pope Pius XII's beautiful "Address to Large Families." Given in 1958, the final year of his pontificate, it contains not even a whiff of legalistic hair-splitting. Instead it describes in beatifully poetic language the joys of obeying God's law by "being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth."

http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=5370&longdesc

[Conservative til I die]

Perhaps the light bulb will go on when you read Pope Pius XII's beautiful "Address to Large Families." Given in 1958, the final year of his pontificate, it contains not even a whiff of legalistic hair-splitting. Instead it describes in beatifully poetic language the joys of obeying God's law by "being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth."

The Catholic Church has endorsed NFP. Do you take issue with the Church on this? Or is only Pius's teaching legitimate because it took place before the dreaded V2?