AmericanPapist Comments
Has there ever been substantial ethical findings about the simple fact that the pill manipulates (and I would argue mutilates) a perfectly healthy body, or the very least a perfectly healthy reproductive and endocrine system?? Those are ethical issues in my book, not to mention the many side effects and cancer risks. Whatever happened to trusting in God, rather than taking DRASTIC measures of precautionary protection into our own hand? God will protect the nuns, and if evil prevails, he can make good come out of it. If we put thousands of nuns on the pill, statistically I'd be willing to bet they would have a better chance of succumbing to the side effects than getting pregnant.
Thomas
Don't use Curran to dismiss the report..he also believes in God....should we then disbelieve in God because Curran also does; the professor at the Alfonsiana also noted the incident (if I disbelieved him, I'd spend the bucks to phone him) but more importantly, he at the Alfonsiana noted that (post HV), he saw the principle as valid...that is more important than the incident itself.
Why is the lack of transparency in the Congo matter seen as unusual since it has to do with sex.....Rome was non transparent for 4 decades on the sex abuse horror and she was non transparent in 2006 on the commission by Benedict to the director on health to look into AIDS and condoms. In that matter Vatican officials leaked some details under condition of anonymity...why did they need anonymity if we are a bastion of transparency.
Secrecy is de rigeur in this area by Rome sometimes with a very good reason since both in the Congo incident and in the 2006 AIDS matter, the media will report the fact of birth control permission....without reporting the nuances of theology that have to do with rape or preventing death in the case of AIDS.
The drawback to secrecy is that when a change not in principle but in surface matters does come, we get several thousand far right Catholics leaving and opening a seminary and electing a Pope from Kentucky.
When the South African Bishops permitted condoms several years ago to Catholics with AIDS if they used them on non fertile days (thus there was no contraception)...that makes sense to normal people and is a sign of the last days to another group of Catholics. So Rome always is worrying about how to break such news to the more conservative in such a way that that group will not sin in the area of schism.
The NCR report on the Alfonsiana moral theology professor post dates Humanae Vitae:
"Yet Redemptorist Fr. Brian Johnstone, an expert in moral theology at Rome's prestigious Alphonsiana Academy, told NCR that in the early 1960s, the Vatican gave permission for religious women in the Belgian Congo to use contraceptives as a defense against rape.
"It was seen as a protection against pregnancy arising from unwanted, unfree sexual intercourse," Johnstone said.
Referring to Humanae Vitae, the 1968 document of Pope Paul VI that reiterated the church ban on birth control, Johnstone said the document "prohibits the inhibition of procreation in the context of free sexual intercourse."
This is a rather thoughtful article on an important matter. However, I am left wondering whether there is a real (as in logical or speculative) distinction to be made between conjugal love and its acts and the kind of thing that is called "love" or "love-making" between non-married persons, which does not seem to be addressed here. While most of the article has to do with whether the Congolese nuns were granted Vatican-based permission to use anti-ovulatory contraception, I think much of the same discussion can take place on a theoretical level without regard for whether or not the nuns got the green light.
Here's how I think the reasoning might unfold ...
As Catholics, I think we would argue that there is such a distinction to be drawn. So, I don't think that we can pass our conclusions about contraceptive sexual behavior in the context of marriage onto those in the non-married state. As a matter of fact, H.V. was addressed to married persons and those who care for them as pastors. And, the passage that has to do with the need to ensure that *conjugal* acts remain open to life concerns married persons. I don't think it has to do with non-married persons.
In the case of non-married persons, it seems to me that the larger concern would be that these people are engaging in sexual behavior outside of marriage. I would go so far as to remark that the unitive dimension of the sexual act is not available to them, since the sexual act is happening outside of marriage; thus, it is disordered in a radical (vis-a-vis radix) manner.
Nonetheless, it does seem to me that one concern remains. That concern consists in the fact that the contraceptive in use could function as an abortifacient. It seems that vigilance would have to be exercised to ensure that it does not work in that regard, if that is possible.
Nonetheless, for what reason should we be concerned about this matter? After all, the knowledge of moral norms does not rest on extreme situations, much to the chagrin of the life-boat ethicists. In answer, it is the case that in a number of pastoral situations non-married couples could present themselves to a pastor with the full intention to continue having sex. One of the members of the couple might have led a fast life, so to speak. And, he or she might be the carrier of an STD. In this kind of a situation, I think that the pastor would have a moral reason to encourage that member (or both of the members) to use a condom and a contraceptive, even while he would continue to work with the couple to help them to come to the truth. But, it would be irresponsible for the pastor to allow the one member to communicate the disease to the other member or to allow a chance for a child to come into the lives of those rather confused persons.
**Fr. Martin Rhonheimer of Opus Dei has written quite well on these matters. His article is locatable on the website of The Tablet. To find it, just search for the author's name once on the website
bill. re yours on Curran, i'm suprised. you don't usually nit-pik. to require bloggers to reiterate every single qualification in each post is to be tendentious and pedantic. here, doubting curran's objectivity on matters related to the pill is in no way to leave oneself open to doubting him the existence of God. Curran has never questioned Church teaching on God. He has FREQUENTLY doubted Church teaching on contraception. the context of this diucussion is obviously contraception.
1. Each of these "citations" is, of course, still hear-say. 2. theologians who work for the "Vatican", e.g. Cdl. Palazzini, are not "the Magisterium". 3. Fr. Rhonheimer is credible, but he is being subjected to very strong rebuttal by equally credible moral theologians.
Bill,
Please give the sex abuse cases a rest. Even if it were a valid argument in this case, it's been used as a "get out of jail free" arguement far too often.
Anon
It is a long leap from dissenting on birth control to fabricating an historical incident that could be refuted immediately and loudly by Rome in their very own press which never happened. How did that refutation never happen should be your real question. Let me guess....Rome was being prudent and slow to act.
We have a problem with conspiratorial theories when faced with shifts in our paradigms....ouch.
Dean
Never tell an Irishman to give something a rest....he'll write a book on it the next day. It was entirely relevant to the point of transparency as not being typical of Rome on such sexual matters. Heck...when did you ever hear a sermon that went into detail on the details in the Song of Songs which God inspired and is totally neglected in sermons and Catholic books. Even He has trouble getting some sex related things out their in discussion.
I'm not sure that HV could overrule a previous directive authorizing preventive contraception against rape: isn't the teaching in HV stated in terms of contraception in marriage?
As I said in the article, I'm not calling into question the legitimacy of the USCCB ERD. I agree with their reasoning.
However, I think when people defend the USCCB ERD "ad extra", they should do so using pricinples of moral theology, not the historical precedent of the congo nuns, which is on shaky documentary grounds.
Neither can you make anything of the Vatican NOT denying that it happened - the Vatican DOESN'T speak out on lots of things. As I said in the article, you can't make much from a negative.
I'm probably going to devote upcoming essays to the condom/HIV question as well as explaining the SUPPORTING arguments for giving contraception to rape victims.
...that in the early 1960s, the Vatican gave permission for religious women in the Belgian Congo to use contraceptives as a defense against rape.
Is there any documentary proof to support this statement? Have the religious women allegedly given this permission been contacted?
I could believe it if someone said that a bishop had given the permission but until I see something in writing I won't believe that the Vatican gave permission.
Sharon: http://www.americanpapist.com/20...ns-
receive.html
There were a number of years preceding Humanae Vitae where there was much confusion about whether the Church was going to change it stance on contraception. The famous 'lay commission' that recommended this change etc.
What in fact happened was that Paul VI and the Church were specifically looking to make a decision on the Pill. (Not on contraception per se) but because the Pill worked a bit differently than standard definitions - it didn't permanently mutilate as tubal ligation and it didn't seem on the surface to block the natural act as barriers methods. I do believe the lay commission recommended that the Pill be allowed. Paul VI rightly rejected their recommendation.
Why this was even a question seems silly now. But it was during that time that this Congo thing first surfaced. One reason, I don't think that the Vatican allowed this is because if they had wouldn't they have made it more public. Also those bringing it up usually used it to defend other circumstances. The classic one was the woman with 10 kids who had a drunken husband who always demanded his rights after drinking the paycheck away.
Someone asked why didn't the Vatican deny. At the time the Vatican didn't comment except in broad strokes about a lot of junk being said. That's still true today. I think Paul VI etc. probably thought Humanae Vitae was his answer to this and much more that was being said. No Contraception (pill included) period end of question.
I have been told by Fr. Edward J. Bayer STD, a sound moral theologian, that the mission doctors told the nuns they could use the Pill to avoid pregnancy stemming from rape. At that time, the mission doctors were unaware that the Pill is potentially an abortifacient. They regarded it only as an anovulant. In fact churchmen in Europe were extremely slow to realize the abortifacient potential of hormonal birth control. That ignorance may have colored their less than enthusiastic response to Humanae Vitae.
John F. Kippley
Natural Family Planning International
www.nfpandmore.org
Bill,
First of all, I probably could have stated things better. What i should have said was the sex abuse scandal has been over used as an arguement to the point that I start deducting points from any statement using them as a point.
As far as the Irish thing goes, my aunt Patty has enough will for 3 people. Gotta love her!
Dean
But what is the moral argument in favor of unmarried people being allowed to take the pill?
To say "so and so said it was OK" is not an argument. Unless so an so is Our Lord, a Council, or the Pope speaking as such.
It is solid teaching that any use of the sexual powers outside of marriage is illicit. Are we talking then of the moral idea that we 'may as well hang for a sheep as for a horse'?
"Hey, the kids are going to do "it" anyways....so...."
St. Maria Goretti probably would disagree with the assessment that it's better to suffer a rape and live than give one's life for the faith but I suppose we can't ask women religious to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice can we?
Is the fundamental argument one of choosing 'the lesser of two evils' or the establishing of a moral principle whereby it's morally good to 'mitigate' an inevitable, unavoidable evil by some means that in another case is intrisically evil?
From my perspective, whatever we decide here has ramifications across the moral universe and cannot be restricted to 'sex'. If it's OK for sex, it'll be OK for everything else. Nuclear war included. So tread lightly.
Now with respect to the case of the Nuns - or consecrated virgins or any woman (or boy);it's a given that rape victims are innocent of sin insofar as they are forcibly invaded.
But it's not enough to be innocent. We want to mitigate their suffering or the 'effects' of their violation, right?
Well, this would seem to follow the classic self-defense model of moral theology.
The intent/goal of those who propose Contraceptive consumption with respect to rape is to defend against 'unwanted' pregnancy' - NOT to defend against rape itself as that's just taken at face value as 'inevitable' and 'unavoidable' (which in the contingency of life seems to require some justification but let's keep it simple).
The means proposed are either a chemical that alters their physiological ecology such that they are rendered temporarily infertile, or - in the case of condoms - a barrier (which suffers from the disadvantage of the need for the violator to cooperate).
Obviously there's a difference between a body-altering chemical and a plastic barrier system. (Or a .357 magnum revolver pointed at the would-be rapist). The first two means of 'self-defense' don't remove the threat, they merely mitigate its effects.
But at what a cost?
Nuns would need to regularly take the pill or religiously keep barrier systems on their persons at all times so as 'to be prepared' for these 'inevitable' and 'unavoidable' rapists that attack too suddenly and without warning for other more 'effective' instruments to be used.
But then why stop with nuns? The same self-defense argument would wash for unmarried virgins and married women as well....
If it's OK for Nuns in danger of rape to 'go on the pill' then the same argument is good for ALL WOMEN -inasmuch as al
In an article in the Nov. 1996 issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review, John Grabowski indicates that the Vatican has approved the use of contraceptives for women religious in danger of rape (as long as they're not abortifacient), but he doesn't cite the exact source.
The situation envisioned would be something like war or imminent danger, like the slaughters in Rwanda which were often accompanied by rape.
Such a case is merely protecting oneself from an aggressor and is morally licit according to Catholic teaaching. Consider how Pope John Paul in the theology of the body explained the immorality of contraception. He used ideas like the language of the body in which spouses give themselves wholly to each other. By withholding their fertility with contraception, they are not making a complete gift of self.
But a rape is in no sense a conjugal act. It is an act of aggression from which a woman has the right to protect and defend herself, and that includes contraception as long as no abortifacient method is used.
The theology of the body as Pope John Paul explained it sheds a lot of light on this whole matter.
The Pope also went into a lot of detail on the Song of Songs!
I found the article you site on the internet:
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Peri.../11-96/1/
1.html
I still believe that the assertion that the Vatican approves... is bunk. It is a type of Catholic urban myth which John Grabowski continues in this article. John Grabowski has 24 footnotes in this article. The assertion is made in footnote 24. It is the only assertion he makes that has no citation. It is just put forward without telling you where he got this information. To me that is telling: I am taking the liberty of cutting and pasting the footnote:
24 Even those open to the traditional teaching and John Paul II's attempts at recasting it might wonder about the language "intrinsic evil" sometimes applied to contraception in official Catholic teaching (cf. Humanae Vitae, no. 14; The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2370). Such a designation is curious given the fact that the Vatican has approved contraceptive use for women religious in danger of rape and contraceptive measures for the treatment of rape victims prior to conception in Catholic health care facilities. A formulation which might better accommodate the teaching and praxis of the Church in this regard is that contracepting a conjugal act is intrinsically evil, since cases of rape are obviously in no sense conjugal acts.
I also went to the Vatican website and searched for this Catholic myth. You can't find anything there that would in anyway say that woman who think they might be raped or have been raped could have recourse to contraception. And they do have documents etc. that talk about systematic rape in war torn countries. That would have been the place to say "OH by the way you can use contraception if you are raped..."
Michele
Maybe this bothers you because we tend to have a paradigm that is a completed set of emotions, values, issues,ideas and history that are arranged in a framed picture of the Church. We don't like framed pictures to change. If a framed picture in my house changed weekly, I would be very upset. If a boat in a seascape kept moving once a week, I'd be checking to see if my insurance covered psychiatry. Our paradigm hardens and soothes us and then along comes a detail that is in effect...the boat moving in the picture.
I came across a blog in which Dave Armstrong was talking with Shawn McElhinney and Dave noted that the Church was always against slavery...wasn't it he said...and then he added that that is why he had come to Catholicism because the Church was always consistent.
I was stunned. Dave is very intelligent but apparently he got his entire concept of slavery and the Church from apologetics sites that merely list the bulls in which Popes opposed usually new native slavery or the trade. But none of them until the late 19th century opposed the canons which Aquinas cited in the Supplement to the ST on just titled slavery which unfortunately, the Church merely copied from Roman law and which supported the slavery of those born to slave mothers. That is why Bishops in the US like Bishop England still argued in the 19th century that slavery was according to natural law....and both Bishops and religious orders had slaves in the 19th century which can easily be found in a Catholic library in the periodical of the Catholic Historical Society. But it is never mentioned in Catholic schools and so virtually few Catholics are aware of it.
On AIDS and Rome...a similar issue concerning the non rights of some sperm... see below but copy and paste the address if it is not all blue or the link will not work to that topic:
http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2006/05/04/News/
Vatican.Debates.Contraception-1900751.shtml
South African Bishops in the early 2000's permitted Catholics with AIDS
to use condoms if the Catholics would use them only on the infertile days which they could ascertain with NFP.
That way they were not separating the procreative from the unitive because there is no procreative on the infertile days just as there is no procreative in the elderly and sterile who are allowed to marry in the Church. Their position is more Biblical than a blanket prohibition since the epistle says that couples should not stay away from each other sexually except for awhile for prayer and then come back together lest the devil enter in. AIDS does not remove that biblical reality. You yourself or your husband could get AIDS from a bad blo
continued
from a bad blood transfusion as a cop can from needles in a criminal's pocket or a nurse can from quickly passed dirty needles.
Just a note:
Fr. Brian Johnstone, CSSR, has been living in Washington, D.C. and teaching at the Catholic University of America for over a year now.
To bad my point wasn't that a set of Bishops hasn't done this or that.(There were national conferences of Bishops and Theologians that missed the boat on Humanae Vitae in the 60's and 70's etc.) And a national conference of Bishop is not by any rights a true Ecclesial Body.
My point was that I don't believe that the Vatican has ever had directives on rape protocol (And believe me if they did it would be in every newspaper from here to Kingdom come - not buried somewhere) and the idea that the Vatican gave the Congo nuns permission to use contraception is Catholic Urban Myth. Nobody can cite anything from the Vatican. You site Catholic conferences of Bishops and Theologians. Big deal - I can do that.
I repeat Catholic Urban Myth.
It is also quite clear that the Vatican has never given permission for condom use in Aids cases. I would assume a very thoughtful person who mistakenly contracted aids (blood transfusion) would never want to give the person they loved or anyone else this horrible disease. And there is only one way to make sure that doesn't happen - complete abstinence. Nuns are abstinent, priests are abstinent lay people who never marry or are widowed are abstinent, young people who haven't married are abstinent. Heaven forbid that a married couple would have to be abstinent for health reason. What do you loose your will power when you get married.
Michele
Is the stated position of the professor-priests who commented positively on preventing the rapist's sperm also an urban Catholic myth...the Alphonsiana moral theology professor and the advisor to the CDF? That is....even if you were correct about the Congo never happening, a number of approved and not heresy indicted theology teachers
supported the concept within the Congo incident whether the incident happened or not....and they do not seem to have been corrected by Rome.
Bill,
I never stated that it was an urban myth that some Theologians approved of this concept of giving Congo nuns contraception to prevent rape pregnancies. I question if this was a real incident (?) or a made up worst case scenario to try an gain approval for contraception. Even if it was a real incident - I certainly think that the statement that the Vatican approved of it was an Urban Myth. No one has ever cited a Vatican document or directive that approved of this even while repeating this Urban Myth.
I didn't know that there was a designation in the Church - 'approved and not heresy indicted theology teachers'. One of my favorite older Theologians in a book published in the mid to late 1960's once stated that he thought that contraception might now be OK because of a letter by the Irish Bishops. I still love everything else he wrote but I think he was misguided on that point. Everything else in that book was great and this was in an appendix at the back of the book. If I named him you would think he was a 'approved and not heresy indicted theology teachers' but even someone that great can be wrong.
Michele
The Vatican unlike the US government does not have to give to the press...even the Catholic press... their directives in written form and they can sequester them. Here in the US there is the Freedom of Information Act which at that has limits and which the Vatican does not have. It is simply against common sense to think that the Vatican would not denounce a report by using L'Osservatore Romano or Civilta Catolica.... a report that was in CBS, NCR and reported too by Peter Hebblewaite...a very well known Catholic writer and was referred to by Rome moral theologians as having happened...were that report untrue.
But you're not believing that it ever happened is why each Pope has to juggle a number of swords: Sword #1...e.g....is it good to protect against AIDS on the infertile days if the science is correct that condoms or two of them surely do in fact block all sperm with the risk being similar to any of us driving each day on the highway....Sword #2 will a percentage of conservative Catholics take yes as the capitulation of Rome and then sin by schism which is technically more mortal in gravity than sexual mortal sins....Sword #3...will casual Catholics take the precedent in a sound bite manner as permission to use all birth control at all times.
Popes each day must juggle a number of swords and often the public solution is to let things happen slowly. In 1645, conservative Catholics would have spoken very ill of a Catholic if he took interest on a personal loan to his uncle who spent the money on a mere restful trip to Venice. Today not even conservative Catholics would see that as usury. Rome let that one change very slowly by 1830 even though in 1545, Calvin already knew that it was alright but Luther agreed with Rome that it was not and Luther was more strict than Rome on extrinsic titles in business loans.
Sword juggling goes with the papacy because there are groups who will take change incorrectly and who may sin thereby.
I would like to see more discussion of poster "joe"'s Nov. 2nd comment here. Can the more learned among us examine his post please? I tend to agree with him. I have heard the "nuns allowed to use contraceptives" story before and it has always given pause for thought. I tend not to believe it since, as joe also thinks, it can't possibly be ok for the nuns and not other Catholic women in dire circumstance, can it? What am I missing here?
This is the paragraph from the bishops' document that Thomas cited in his article. I think we need to read it, since it is integral to our conversation. If you follow Thomas' hyper-link, the paragraph below can be found in the third part or section of the document.
"Compassionate and understanding care should be given to a person who is the victim of sexual assault. Health care providers should cooperate with law enforcement officials and offer the person psychological and spiritual support as well as accurate medical information. A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault. If, after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization. It is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum."
Anonymous,
I agree that the paragraph is relevant, but I think the problem is that Michele and others simply disagree with it. In their view the CT bishops are wrong. Period. Full stop.
They read HV as standing for the proposition that contraception is always wrong, even though that it does not quite say this.
The debate on these threads have morphed from Plan B's alleged abortifacient qualities to a rape victim's ability to take actions to prevent conception. Personally, I find the first debate more interesting insomuch as its difficulty is accentuated by scientific uncertainty. I think the bishops are right on the second question, because their reasoning corresponds to HV.
Until Rome says otherwise, it is reasonably clear that a Catholic rape victim can in good conscience take non-abortifacient contraceptive measures. Nothing in HV says to the contrary.
The most current internet news item w/re AIDS and Catholic condom use:
"In 2001... the South African Bishops Conference allowed married Catholics where one had AIDS to use condoms on the non fertile days and simply avoid sex during the fertile days"
-- On Dec. 20, 2006 the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican sponsored in Rome a one-day conference on how governments, the church and pharmaceutical companies are partnering to help provide care, support and treatment for the nearly 40 million people with HIV/AIDS. "Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, told conference participants that chastity is seen as an absurdity "in a pansexual world that ridicules it."
He urged individuals to "have the courage to proclaim clearly the virtue of chastity" as one of the many Christian virtues that lead to true happiness.
The cardinal told reporters that a Vatican study on the use of condoms within marriage when one partner was infected was still under review by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Currently there is no official church position on the use of condoms by married couples to prevent the transmission of a virus, though the church opposes the use of any artificial means of contraception -- including condoms -- that would interfere with the transmission of life within marriage.
Cardinal Lozano said in November that, at the request of Pope Benedict XVI, his office had written up and handed in "a large study" on the argument to the Vatican's doctrinal congregation. His office was still waiting for a response to the study from the congregation and the pope, he said Dec. 20."
Catholic News Service, 12-20-2006
I view the question of condoms to prevent disease transmitted by consensual sexual relations to be different than the question of condoms to prevent conception as a consequence of rape. One cannot dismiss the unitive nature of the former act; whereas I simply do not see a unitive aspect to the latter act.
Fr. Peter Damien Fehlner's recent statement that the Church teaches that contraception is intrinsically evil and thus is not permissible even in cases of rape is cause to reconsider the use of Plan B at all. When I meet with teens to whom it was made quite clear they were unwanted pre-birth and throughout childhood by their families and even some by the larger community, I give them this scripture from Wis.11 Verses 24 to 25
[24] For thou lovest all things that exist,
and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made,
for thou wouldst not have made anything if thou hadst hated it.
[25] How would anything have endured if thou hadst not willed it?
Or how would anything not called forth by thee
have been preserved?
They believe from this that God at least loves them and wanted them to exist. This gives them hope.
I agree with what Mike wrote above and would like to make a distinction.
If you follow the logic of Pope John Paul's theology of the body, it is clear why the Church teaches that contraception is wrong. The reason is that it is an artificial separation of the unitive and procreative aspects of a conjugal act. He says that the "language of the body" says one thing in bringing about sexual union, but by contracepting one is withholding the gift of fertility. So it's like telling a lie with the body.
By definition rape is not an act that is freely consented to, but is forced upon a woman. There is absolutely no unitive meaning there. So, to prevent conception if possible in this case does not introduce any division between the two meanings of the conjugal act. It is simply not a conjugal act in any sense. To prevent conception (not, however, in a way that would be abortifacient, but just to prevent an egg from being fertilized) is not contraception in the moral sense. It is preventing conception and nothing more.
So it is not accurate to say that the Church gave a "dispensation" to the Congo nuns. The Church can't give a dispensation from the moral law but only from man-made laws. The Vatican statement (if it really happened) simply made clear that to prevent conception after an act of rape is not what we mean by contraception.
If a woman who was raped chose not to try and prevent conception, she is making a heroic choice. But that is not a burden that the Church can place on women. Many, probably most, women would not want to conceive a child after a rape. Catholic moral theology--and sound, orthodox moral theology--cannot and does not require more of people than the moral law itself demands.
Sister, I agree completely. I think the inquiry as to whether Plan B is an abortifacient is extremely important, because we can all agree that abortion is never an acceptable option.
It may prove to be the case that Plan B is an abortifacient and therefore morally impermissible. Where I depart from some commentators is that if Plan B is found to be an abortifacient, I would view that as unfortunate insomuch as I view assisting a woman from the further assault and trauma of an unwanted conception resulting from rape as a moral good.
I do sense that some commentators actually desire a determination that Plan B is an abortifacient, which, if true, would be morally perverse.
Of course, some people would actually be upset if it is determined that Climate Change isn't really a problem or second-hand smoke is essentially harmless -- so go figure.
Yes, about Plan B, I don't really know all the ins and outs of it so I don't want to say something that might be wrong. But if it is abortifacient it would be wrong.
The debate about Plan B is a little hard to follow because there are bishops' conferences saying it is OK.
Anyway, I found a good quote about my position on preventing pregnancy after rape. It's form "Catholic Sexual Ethics" co-authored by Dr William May, who is a very fine moral theologian. He teaches at the John Paul II Institute and is entirely orthodox. He says: "The efforts of a woman to prevent the sperm of her assailant from fertilizing her ovum is not a contraceptive act. To say that it is legitimate for her to seek to prevent conception in this way is not an exception to the universal prohibition of contraception. Contraception occurs only when one who chooses to have sexual intercourse seeks to prevent the act from having its fruitful outcome. But abortifacient procedures after a rape are morally of a very different nature; they are not defenses against an unjust invasion but attacks on an innocent person--that is, they are acts of abortion and therefore are not permissible."
The problem here is that to be effective in mitigating one possible outcome of rape a nun (or any other woman of child-bearing age) would need to be taking contraception pills ROUTINELY since it's asserted that rape is sudden - too sudden for the sisters to flee, fight back, or avoid.
But giving them blanket permission to go on the pill won't stop rapes, it'll only mitigate one possible side effect.
So again, how is this a moral teaching? The perfectly Catholic conclusion to a scenario whereby religious women are in danger of rape is to DEFEND THEM from would-be rapists or give them the means to defend themselves, not just give them condoms or pills and toss up our hands.
It's not like there are zero Christian men (their fathers, brothers, cousins, nephews, priests...!) in Africa who could defend the convents. And it's not like in today's world fire arms are more expensive than a regular and permanent regime of contraception for whole communities of women religious!
Mitigating evil vs. precluding the evil from occuring is the question. After all, it's not a given that nuns are inevitably raped. The obvious answer is: better to preclude a non-sure evil than allow it to occur and merely mitigate some aspect of it.
Put another way, it's a moral obligation for the Christian people to protect the innocents BEFORE they're harmed not merely make it a policy to clean up the mess afterwards.
What was the howl of anger after the recent priest scandals again? That the bishops sought to avoid scandal (mitigate the evil effects) rather than utterly remove, defrock, incarcerate the offenders such that their offending would cease and no more innocents would suffer!
But when it comes to sex we think the moral principles can be different?!
In short, the whole thing ducks the key issue of self-defense and the moral obligation of others to defend those who perhaps can't defend themselves. It's a failure to protect the innocent wrapped up in theological posturing as though this approach is moral and enlightened when in fact it's barbaric for shepherds to leave their sheep in harms' way - or to disarm them or disallow them from self-defense.
Contraception is not the answer to the key problem: an innocent being raped. So again, if we want to be all hypothetical - if the Church is able to air-drop ANYTHING to the Nuns in the Congo, it'd be far better to airdrop them some shotguns or rifles than a crate of contraceptive pills.
Consider the absurd moral principle being promoted: what is illict in a marriage is licit outside of marriage...in a choice between stopping a non-inevitable evil or merely reducing one effect, it's morally acceptible to simply mitigate, reduce, one potential bit of it rather than stop or preclude the evil from occuring.
Of course theologians desperate to push the envelope in a 'hard case' which will then be used a precedent for 'other cases' (like "vaccinating' virgins against STDs) don't realize that doing so opens a whole world of non-sexual moral theories.
Nuclear war for one. Most analysts believe that inasmuch as mankind will never put the nuclear genie back in the bottle, we'll eventually have another nuclear exchange somewhere, sometime in the future. So it's 'inevitable', 'unavoidable'. Now then, using the new "it's OK to mitigate rather than preclude evil" policy, is it not completely moral for the USA and all other nuclear powers to convert their warheads over to neutron bombs - so as to mitigate the fallout that's inevitable? If not, why not?
Only didn't every theologian on the planet come out against the Neutron bomb?
The U.S. and other nuclear powers would be the perpetrators of a nuclear strike. They would be akin to a rapist wearing a condom, not to a nun using birth control to prevent rape-induced pregnancy.
Fine, the analogy is flawed. However the key point about mitigating vs. avoiding evil is still there, unanswered by those pushing the Pill as a "solution" to the danger of rape.
Putting women on regular contraceptive regimes does NOTHING to reduce rape - indeed it makes rape MORE likely in addition to adding all the other toxic side effects of artificial hormones to their otherwise healthy bodies.
It is not moral to do evil that good may come of it.
So if there are dangerous men about threatening religious women with rape, the moral solution is to protect them from the rapists in the first place, not "from pregnancy".
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