Married couples must harmonize their mutual love with the responsible transmission of life. Parenthood is an act of reason and responsibility.
A couple may choose to suspend their role as co-creators of life for a period of time.
Neither the Church nor Sacred Scripture have indicated the number of children a couple should have. Both have blessed large families that were the result of responsible parents exercising generous love. Large families are good, all things being equal, but all things are not equal for every couple.
Because of certain modern conditions, some married couples "find themselves in circumstances where, at least temporarily, the size of the family should not be increased"
(cf. Humanae Vitae - On the Regulation of Birth, Pope Paul VI, 1968).
"If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit (permitted) to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund (infertile) periods only, and in this way to regulate birth without offending the moral principles . . . ."
- Humanae Vitae, 16
