….I would like to remove the word artificial from artificial contraception. All contraception is artificial, but that’s not why it’s wrong. It’s wrong because it is violating God’s purpose for sexuality, both purposes. The purposes are to procreate and to form a unitive bond, a powerful unitive bond, with the individual with whom you’re having sex, who should be your spouse.

God told us from the start. It’s interesting, the first commandment is it’s not good that man should be alone. He didn’t make him a buddy. He made him a female, who was to be his wife. They’re meant to leave their parents and form a union for the rest of their lives. Two shall become one. That’s really, pretty much the first commandment, two shall become one. Why? To be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. I mean, this was all given before the fall.

God is a lover, and God overflows with love. He wants human beings to love, and He wants us to make acts of complete self-giving to other people, particularly to your spouse. The way you make a complete gift of yourself is to allow this fertility. There’s a part of the sexual act, actually to reverence it, and to say, “This is an incredible thing, that I might become a parent with another person, and that I’m willing to engage in this with you means I’m making a lifetime commitment to you.” That’s the bonding. The bonding isn’t the pleasure. The bonding is the lifetime commitment that you make to the other person in this act….

The above comes from a Sept. 16 interview with Janet Smith, author of Contraception, Why not? conducted by Eric Sammons, editor of Crisis magazine. The title of the interview is “The attempt to undermine Humanae Vitae.”