The contraceptive culture refuses to acknowledge that in God’s plan, sexual union is intended to be exclusively a marriage act, and that within marriage it ought to be a renewal of the marriage covenant. That is, it ought to be a recommitment of the love, fidelity and permanence pledged “for better and for worse,” in which it is recognized that “for better and for worse” includes the openness to the imagined “worse” of possible pregnancy. St. John Paul II had this to say in his 1994 Letter to Families: “In the conjugal act, husband and wife are called to confirm in a responsible way the mutual gift of self which they have made to each other in the marriage covenant. The logic of the total gift of self to the other involves a potential openness to procreation: in this way the marriage is called to even greater fulfillment as a family.” (n 12.12) (emphasis in original)
John F. Kippley