Harper and Morgan: please tone down the harsh comments toward each other. Thank you.
I’m not referring to your response to the Neuhaus quote, David, just to the personal comments you and Morgan have addressed to each other. It’s not bad to come on strong, but rude personal remarks and questioning others’ motives is going too far.
I’m a substitute moderator until Cade’s scheduled return next week.
I agree. My post was inappropriate. I have changed it.
A debate is a debate. While the question is phrased as a real-life personal issue. If not, the question could simply be raised as debate for the sake having one…
Whatever the Church teaches - keep it simple. I don’t know what that happens to be. I avoided marriage for the sake of everything to do with marriage on a normal daily schematic of things, let alone life-changing occurrences and tragedies. I salute anyone who can be brave enough to get wedded and put up with the difficulties. I replaced marriage with a coffee addiction and which suits me better.
The argument: One could argue that if a couple got married without prior knowledge of complications during pregnancy and which would be the probable reality, after which the couple is vowed to one-another, and love (eros) is to be shown during that marriage because otherwise you are really just good friends, rather than man and wife, then you have a right to engage in physical relations without the risk of death. You are married.
The difficulty: …However, a child can be born were you not to make it physically impossible. And so one would be replacing the death of a spouse with the death of a potential child. And one cannot kill.
I think the conclusion is to do with ‘killing indiscriminately’. You are not having an abortion; you are killing the possibility of naturally having a child and only because you kind of have to. And you are already married and neither of you suspected these particular trials.
‘Pastoral care’, a term I think sounds a bit fruity, might lead to such an answer as adopting as this way you honour the death of a potential child while being able to stay married. This answer, though, is not on behalf of the Church (necessarily, because I don’t know what the teaching is until grabbing a recap) but is rather a line of reasoning one could take up with the Church. God doesn’t do deals, while this would honour the concept of family.
You say the problems only began when you had your third child and so neither of you definitely knew of obstructions prior to marriage and therefore the above would seem appropriate. All the same, despite this rationale, changing yourselves, interiorly, is to be replaced with another less severe method to avoid (at all costs) a pregnancy - look up NFP.
And too, you should pray throughout so that any outcome is likely to be an answer. Only God can know for certain what will happen in any circumstance; by not bringing absolutes into your life and marriage it is a lived declaration that you intend to keep God as the one in charge.
For the record my story was not made up. My wife did have a blood disorder which resulted in her almost dying after giving birth to our third daughter. She was in intensive care for three days after almost bleeding to death.
I think you seriously need to pray about it, go overboard, ask others to pray for your future, maybe go on a sort of pilgrimage, together, and not take any risks or make any major decisions until having done so.
I can’t believe you haven’t been kicked off the forum for posting this.
I cannot imagine anyone more unqualified to be a moderator than Cade_One
Seeming attempts at the undermining of Our Lady’s Perpetual Virginity will get any Catholic, inclusive of my myself, riled. And I think that is why you got the reaction which you did. Nevertheless, those comments were not in order.
That’s nice of you to say that. Thank you for the comment.
I am grateful for this forum because it has served an important purpose for me: it has reminded me of why I left the catholic church.
The Church is pure. It cannot be apologised on behalf of; if it were anything less, one could not confess sins through it.
Therefore, your allegiance is to the Church and not to individuals - who come and go. Because individuals can sin, while Hell cannot prevail.
So, you leaving is down to you. You let others push you out.
Part of God’s kingdom is on Earth and therefore you have the dogmas and the writings of the saints and a treasury of prayers inclusive of intercessory ones to make sure you stay on course. Jumping ship is never okay, as an alternative.
And you have Scripture, itself. Everything you need to know is in there.
And the Sacraments, if in a state of grace.
No excuse to be leaving.
Can you expect an army to never have arguments within the ranks. What if they trounced off? How would that appear?
I am still Praying for you : )
I’m not Catholic, but I just wanted to reassure OP about the decision to have a vasectomy, if they haven’t done it yet. I had one a few years ago, and it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as most men would have you believe. Mild discomfort the first two days, but no real pain to speak of. I didn’t even need to ice it or anything.
Edit: One thing to look out for is whether insurance will cover it in whole or in part; I guess it’s a state-by-state thing, but mine was only partially covered by insurance. I think it depends on whether it is considered prophylaxis or not.
Christian Men should not be getting broken. It isn’t that we are scared of the pain, but rather that it is immoral.
You say that you are not Catholic. Do you identify as any other Protestant denomination? If so, which one?
No; I don’t identify as religious at all.
But God hasn’t left you.
On the contrary, God wants you more than ever!
God frequently will turn bad into good, he is very good at turning trials into triumph
In your case a scenario like the following would be a good example:
Your vasectomy fails.
Statistically this is far from a zero probability it’s actually about 0.07% or one in about 1400. Another way of looking at it would be several hundred failures that is a woman getting pregnant by a man with vasectomy over a several year period this is out of 1 million men with a vasectomy. Failures when they do occur, occur more frequently with men early on.
To continue with the way God turns bad into good: (remember this is totally hypothetical.) Your vasectomy fails and because of unusual circumstances, the doctors tell you and your wife that following through with the pregnancy is dangerous, but terminating the Pregnancy would be more dangerous; you both decide the safest route would be to have the baby.
And your wife gives birth to one of the most beautiful babies ever born!
… And you yourself becomes born again
Peace be with you
Mallen
You’re too intelligent to be catholic.
You keep saying “God” when what you really mean is the catholic church.
“Reverence, awe, and respect towards God is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” — Proverbs 1:7
“Broadmindedness, when it means indifference to right and wrong, eventually ends in a hatred of what is right.” — Fulton J. Sheen
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” — Plato
God is the giver and sustainer of life, and Scripture makes that unmistakably clear. Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, Manoah’s wife, and Elizabeth were all barren—or even far beyond child‑bearing years—yet they conceived when God willed it. Even Mary of Nazareth conceived not through human power but solely through God’s initiative, underscoring that life is always God’s work, never ours to control. Their stories remind us that no medical procedure can place human beings outside the reach of God’s creative power.
Because of that, a vasectomy, a change of denomination, or a disagreement with Catholic teaching doesn’t alter the deeper truth: life and fertility ultimately belong to God, not to us.
Catholic teaching on contraception isn’t “nonsense”; it’s a consistent moral vision rooted in the dignity of the human person, the meaning of marriage, and trust in God’s providence. Popular disobedience to a teaching doesn’t invalidate it—if anything, it highlights how countercultural and challenging the Gospel can be.
And perhaps the most important question is one of humility:
Are we receiving life as a gift from God, or attempting to control life and death in His place?