The purpose of sex is procreation. God designed the marital act to be both pleasurable and fruitful, allowing man and woman to naturally “be fruitful and multiply.” While pleasure is a good and natural part of God’s design, anything pleasurable can become addictive if not governed by self-control. Thus, we are all called to exercise temperance and avoid excess.
The Church teaches that contraception is morally wrong because it contradicts God’s original design for the marital act, which is meant to be both unitive and procreative. In contrast, the Church promotes Natural Family Planning as a moral way for married couples to responsibly space the births of their children while still respecting the natural law and practicing chastity within marriage.
Examples:
Use of condoms or withdrawal: In these methods, the couple deliberately prevents the transmission of life, they choose to block the “seed” during the marital act.
Natural Family Planning: The couple, while aware of the woman’s natural fertility cycle, chooses to abstain during fertile periods if they have serious reasons to postpone pregnancy. However, they remain open to life, since they do not alter or interfere with God’s natural design.
See the difference:
In the first example, the intention is to eliminate the possibility of procreation altogether.
In the second, the couple simply works with the natural rhythms of the body as designed by God, without inserting artificial barriers or altering the act itself.
The key phrase here is “being open to life.”
Married couples may not always engage in the marital act with the goal of conceiving a child, but when God chooses to bless them with one, they joyfully accept His will. Their openness to life is shown by their refusal to use contraception, trusting instead in God’s plan.
The Rosary Dad 
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