Which law to follow?

"We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. (14)". Basically what the Pope is saying here is; all methods of birth control, for the purpose of regulating the number of children, is prohibited. Now, myself being confirmed a Catholic (how much of a Catholic I am is debatable), doesn't know many other Catholics in my community that abide by this law. In fact I can only think of one person I know that abides by it, which would be my grandma and she had eleven children to prove it. Growing up my mom said something that's stuck with me ever since. She said "Catholics follow all the rules that the Church sets. People that don't want to follow them are lazy and that's why they join another religion." Now this was always really troubling to me, because I knew I didn't follow all the rules and as I got older I found that my parents didn't follow all of the rules either. I mean I only have one other sibling and all though I'd love to think that my parents abide by the rule and abstain in order to limit the number of children they have, I know it's the birth control pills my mom takes.

But what if you were a Catholic that happened to live in China where there is a law that limits the children you're allowed to have, to two? What happens if you're caught in between two laws? I mean the pope also says that sex is a big part of marriage, it's what brings a couple closer and it's their right to engage in such intimacy. But should that couple have that taken away if they're limited to not only the number of children they can have but also the options to control that number? What choice does that couple have but to bite the bullet and abstain from sex? Even if they're biologically and economically able to support children, in order to follow both of these laws they'll have to compromise somewhere.

I guess my problem with what the pope has to say about birth control is that his solution really puts a stressor on a married couples' life. If they want to stay true to the Catholic church they've got to put more effort into staying true to the Church than true to each other. Which is really what the main goal is, but to me and to most other's out there that's not what married life is about. I mean if you don't have the funds to maintain all the children you'll have from having sex then you've just got to abstain. If you don't choose to follow the rules then you're going to have the guilt of disobeying the Church and sinning.

But we're all sinners, we can't not sin. That's what makes us human. From the beginning with Adam and Eve, Eve chose to sin. She chose to eat the fruit. We as humans have the burden of choice. We can choose freely, but with those choices comes consequences. In the case of the Catholic church and it's views on birth control, we've got a choice. We can use contraceptives to limit the number of children we have, but the consequence is disobeying the Catholic church. Or we can have as much sex as we want, but this will lead to children and perhaps the consequence would be too many children to be responsible for. Or we can abstain from sex, the consequence might be unhappiness in marriage.

So what I'm getting at here is that we as humans have choice, we just do. You can choose to follow exactly what the Catholic church says or you can choose not to. It's really up to what you believe, it's not an issue of whether the church's laws are unreasonable and out of date or whether you think that the church is wrong for presenting us with these issues. The point is, you get to choose. Just like I chose to disagree with the pope's view on birth control, you get to choose whether you have sex before marriage, whether you have kids, whether you're going to use birth control, etc. If you choose to follow what the church says, well then that's great, and if you don't then that's great too. If you've got a problem with any of the church's claims, wonderful. If you support all the church's claims, more power to you. That's the beauty of choice. To each their own.