Couple tells family synod of their contraceptive use

Tuesday, October 14th, 2014

A French couple has admitted to the synod on the family that they used artificial contraception after the birth of their third child.

But Olivier and Xristilla Roussy said their experience with contraception was not a good one.

After their third child was born, Mr Roussy said, Xristilla was exhausted; they thought that using the pill for a few months would help their marriage, “but it had the opposite effect”.

He said his wife was always “in a bad mood, desire was absent and her joy disappeared”.

In addition, he said, they both “understood we closed the door to the Lord in our conjugal life”.

So they resorted back to Natural Family Planning, but this too, was not always easy, Mr Roussy explained.

Sexual desire increases during a woman’s fertile period, but talking to one another and exercising discipline teaches trust and tenderness, he said.

“We have found these methods are reliable,” he said, “even though we must admit that when we did not contain our desire, an infant came nine months later.”

At the synod, Brazilians Arturo and Hermelinda As Zamberline asked that the Church stop giving “contradictory advice” on contraception, which only aggravates confusion.

The Zamberlines, married for 41 years and with three children, admitted that many Catholic couples in Brazil don’t feel troubled by using artificial contraception.

The couple said natural methods of family planning had an “unjust reputation of being unreliable”.

But they said such methods were often badly explained and thus badly practised.

Introducing the couple to the assembly, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris warned of the demographic consequences of a widespread “contraceptive mentality”.

In the first week of the synod, a married couple would give an address to start each new session of the gathering.

Sources