Follow-up

I would like to clarify that my aim in the post about Fatherhood was not to call men who practice artificial contraception "dogs".

It's a simile-- men who practice NFP: wolves in the wild::men who practice artificial contraception:domesticated wolves (a.k.a. dogs)

The point is not that they are like dogs. The point is that domestication in wolves has the same effect on wolves as artificial contraception has on men. It renders them less than God created them to be. When wolves become domesticated, they cease to be fatherly. When husbands place a barrier between themselves and their spouse, between themselves and God, they make a choice to be less than God created them to be. They may be decent men in every other respect, but they have chosen an empty way in the marriage bed.

Fr. Euteneuer makes this case poetically in his latest e-letter:

The marriage bed is the altar of the domestic Church. Just as the priest brings new life spiritually, (zoe), to the Bride on the altar, the husband brings new biological life, (bios), to his wife on the marriage bed. In confecting and administering the Eucharist the priest brings new life to the family of Heaven, and the husband brings new life to the family on earth. In each case God is directly involved. Only through the Holy Spirit at the hands of the priest can bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ; and in human intercourse, only God can create a soul through the union of husband and wife.

The more one meditates on this Bridal mysticism the more staggering and beautiful it becomes, and the more the horror of contraception comes into relief.

In Genesis, when God set about to create man He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," (Gen 1:26a). He spoke in plural. God is not a lone male figure, but a family: the Trinity. He went on to say, "Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground," (Gen 1:26b), here also indicating man as family. Man as species, man complete as one flesh. He also shares His dominion with man.

In the image of God, man not only images what God the Holy Trinity is, a family, but also images what God does: love and give life.