AmericanPapist Comments
Thank you for clarifying the difference between intrinsically evil "in marriage" and contracepting an act of violence. I'm shocked that Fr. Fehlner says this. It's like the contraception/premarital sex debate: The use of nonabortifacient contraception for premarital sex is probably socially responsible, but the church shouldn't HAVE a position because premarital sex is grave matter in itself. So, with rape, the act of violence is evil enough in itself. Contraception (that doesn't kill) is a RIGHT of the raped woman. Anyone who knows the Theology of the Body would conclude this so I disagree with him when he says "many popes taught this". JP2?? I don't believe he would have. Love must be free and rape is neither free nor love.
I agree completely, Pamela. I find Father Fehlner's reasoning difficult to square either with HV or Theology of the Body.
One more example of why some Pope is going to have to use the ex cathedra infallibility charism on this issue but in detail concerning the myriad of issues that pop up around it so that Rome will be more prone to comment immediately...even prior to such local debates between bishops and theologians which are less likely after infallibility. The Popes have it as a charism and in my view it is way underused. And as to the ordinary magisterium and infallibility, it seems to require far more unanimity than is present for 40 years and canon 749-3 seems to require that such infallibility in the OM be clearly manifest.
I'm going slowly here. There are credible voices on both sides, nay nearly every side, of this one.
bill bannon,
Making the Church's teaching on contraception, a teaching dissented from by the vast majority of Western Catholics, infallible could have dire consequences at the present time. If it were enforced it would certainly cause a schism (possibly an enormous one). If it weren't, the dogma of papal infallibility would be greatly undermined in the minds of both laity and clergy (and with it countless other dogmas).
No, what is the intrinsic evil here is not that it separates the unitive and procreative dimensions of intercourse but that the high dose birth control that is plan B IS AN ABORTIFACIENT! This must be understood! And no amount of specious reasonings can change that FACT! Contraception is directly counter to the Author of Life and no matter how conception occurs the intrinsic evil is in the abortive acts.
As a pharmacist with a conscience clause in place such that I never have to dispense such drugs, I will say that Fr. Fehlner is correct. And the Holy Father's Theology of the Body does not say differently.
There is much 'human thinking' in all this. And 'situation ethics' because we are horrified at the act of rape. Yet our society encourages it everywhere in many ways. Human reasoning was behind the transferring of abusive homosexual priests from place to place when the horror should have been the loss of souls and thus those criminals taken from the priesthood. But instead human reasoning prevailed.
What did Our Lord say to St. Peter when St. Peter was using 'human reasoning'? "Get behind Me, satan".
Sound judgment, Edward. My comment should not be construed to mean that one can't square Fr. Fehlner's reasoning with HV and TotB; just that I can't.
As far as popes exercising their "infallibility charism" more often, there are two things at play. One, as suggested by Anonymous, is prudence. It may not be wise or helpful to always immediately exercise the charism, and popes must consider this aspect carefully. Second, the charism isn't available "on demand." The Holy Spirit works on His own timetable, and only popes know when and how to distinguish their private judgments from revealed Truth.
Finally, my imperfect understanding is that a teaching of the Church can be understood to be infallible without being pronounced as such ex cathedera. More specifically, I would be surprised if HV is not an infallible teaching, which is why dissent is so sad and disappointing. But literally, as suggested above, HV applies only to conjugal (i.e., marital) acts whose unitary and procrative aspects cannot be separated. Pamela raises a good point in that given the immoral nature of sex outside marriage, is it even sensible (i.e., prudent) for the Church to express an opinion as to whether contraception in this case is a mitigating, aggravating or irrelevant factor; I'm honestly uncertain. I have always assumed that HV applies both inside and outside marriage -- at least to non-rape cases -- but I admit that a careful reading of both its literal language as well as its careful reasoning calls that assumption into question -- which is not to say it might not be right, just that I'm not very confident about it.
magdalen,
I think you are being very unfair. I am not aware of one poster on this blog who claims that abortion is an acceptable option in cases of rape. Not one. Accordingly, there is not situational ethics at all. What has been discussed, very thoroughly, is whether Plan B does in fact operate as an abortifacient. The weight of the current evidence seems to suggest that it does not, which is why the intelligent discussion has centered on what degree of certaintly is required in order for use of Plan B to be morally permissible. But now you claim to know the answer, and it is simple!
"B IS AN ABORTIFACIENT! This must be understood! And no amount of specious reasonings can change that FACT!"
I'm glad you have cleared that up. Now maybe you would be kind enough to share the studies that debunk Thomas's summaries and related reasoning.
Mike
Humanae Vitae was introduced at its press conference twice as non-infallible by Monseignor Lambrushini who taught in one of the Rome schools for priests for years.
The schism of sorts over it already took place at the moral level which one can see in polls on observance...partly because of that non infallible nature of the encyclical. Just 14 years prior, ex cathedra had been used for the Assumption... 1954...so that the people of that time...1968...thought it would be used again in a matter more critical to some of them than it is now because observant Catholics of the time only had the non dependable rythmn method and many were from the Family Life Movement who wanted change and who already had multiple children.
Ergo....it will remain as very non observed in this current doubtful state as to the infallibility of the issue in general (see canon 749-3) until there is an intervention of a de fide level.
The issue however requires obedience under pain of mortal sin in line with Vatican II's Lumen Gentium 25's "religious submission of mind and will" unless a person had a deep,studious and prayerful dissent...that latter concept... in line with approved and imprimatured seminary moral theology tomes (Way of the Lord Jesus-Grisez) postdating Lumen Gentium 25 and rounding out what theologians claimed LG 25 did not state and allowing for that kind of dissent which may be rare or no (only God knows)...sincere dissent may be in one person and rash disobedience may be in the next person on the same issue with the same empirical result.
On whether the Spirit blows where He will on the issue of using ex cathedra, that is speculative theology and one ought to also consider Timothy 4:14 on the issue of control over graced talents or missions...which can be neglected which means they can be chosen and not neglected:
"Do not neglect the gift you have, which was conferred on you through the prophetic word with the imposition of hands of the presbyterate."
Weston states, "Further, John Paul II was quoted in L'Osservatore Romano on Oct.10, 1983 making this statement: 'Contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful, as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God.'"
How does one counter that?
I would ask for the full context of the remark, both in terms of the rest of the document or speech (to find out if what he appears to be saying is what he was saying) and what the form of the statement was (to determine its weight, i.e., to find out if it was, in fact, binding in any way).
If you Google the quote it only appears on Lifesite's website. I'd really like to see the full L'Osservatore Romano article, and know where and when John Paul said that (and what else he said) before giving it too much credence.
Okay, Google was hiding some results. The quote can be found here at the top of the page:
http://www.tldm.org/news6/
contra...ntraception.htm
It says it was to a group of priests, which while not nearly as much context as I would like makes one thing clear: this wasn't a public teaching binding on the faithful. The actual public teachings of the Church on that page (and there are many) all put the probition of contraception in the context of marital intercourse.
What about the other quotations that Weston cites?
One found here: http://www.vatican.va/
roman_curi...demecum_en.html
Another, more authoritative, found here:
http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0...NG0222/
__P8.HTM
It seems the first question is "Is contraception intrinsically evil?"
Contraception in marriage is intrinsically evil. The official Church teachings against contraception, including even the Vademecum you linked to, are always in the context of marriage and the marital act.
It seems something that is intrinsically evil is such whether it occurs in marriage or not, as the conditions would not warrant a change in the evil. Hence, it is called intrinsic.
The objective ends of the marital act are twofold whether within the context of a marriage or without. Indeed the ends, union and procreation, occur within marriage or not.
In the case of rape, the union is a forced union. It is highly morally reprehensible on the aggressor's part. Yet, a bodily union of the lowest sorts it remains. Procreation can, of course, still occur. So, in the case of a forced rape, the twofold aspects of the marital act appear present despite the horrendous circumstances.
When JP II cites Paul VI and says:
"With regard to intrinsically evil acts, and in reference to contraceptive practices whereby the conjugal act is intentionally rendered infertile, Pope Paul VI teaches: "Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (cf. Rom 3: 8 ) — in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general". #80 http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0...22/
__P8.HTM#$3P
He seems to be saying, if an act is intrinsically evil, it can never be done for the protection or welfare of one person or many.
So the question seems to be, does contraception, or consciously separating the union and procreation of an act of intercourse, marital conditions aside, constitute an intrinsic evil. Or in the words of Paul VI, does contraception "of its very nature contradict the moral order, and...must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general." If by its nature it contradicts the moral order, then even in the case of rape, it would not be permissible.
Bill
Google "nuns rape Congo contraception" and gradually you will arrive at articles like this:
http://findarticles.com/p/articl..._37/
ai_71250738
part of which follows"
"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."
"What happens in rape is not free," Johnstone said, explaining the logic of the 1960s-era Vatican statement. "It can be regarded as an unjust attack, and thus the woman is justified in using chemical means in repelling the effects of the attack."
Johnstone noted that although the Vatican exception for the Congo pertained specifically to nuns, from a moral point of view "it makes no difference whatsoever" if the woman is in religious life. Hence, he said, other women in grave danger of rape would have the same liberty."
_________________________________
Part of the trouble though is that John Paul II found slavery to be intrinsically evil also in "Splendor of the Truth" but how then was it allowed by God in the Bible to the Jews: both enslavement of their countrymen who had to be released after a time but also the enslavement of foreigners who did not have to be released.
One notes that John Paul in 1999 verbally also called the death penalty "cruel" which would make it intrinsically evil...and God commanded it numerous times in Scripture.
Usury (understood simply as interest on a simple loan) was once thought for centuries to be against the natural law and yet turned out to be not properly defined....something Calvin noticed in 1545 wherein he agreed with us on accepting extrinsic titles for business loans but parted with us on forbidding interest on simple loans whereas Luther went more strict than us on extrinsic titles and agreed with us on simple loans.
In short 300 years after Calvin knew that the interest on a simple loan was alright unless the recipient was poor, we agreed with him in answers to dubia from Rome and thus we were in fact incorrect on interest being intrinsically evil which Aquinas got from Aristotle who said that money by nature was not fruitful.
John Noonan noted that the "intrinsic evil" route (valid sometimes) solves perhaps too much for the legislator in that it does away with complex situations. Someone has noted that legislators like clarity and theology likes nuances....and Popes are both legislators and theologians. If they live in a confusing age, they are going
Two things. One women have a right to self-defense, period. Having the means to disable the unjust aggressor who would rape her would do more to reduce the number of rapes than providing millions of women with contraception "just in case".
Secondly, since women are only fertile for a few days per cycle, Plan B is not ALWAYS an abortifacent, but CAN be, depending on whether or not the woman has ovulated yet.
Since the threat of rape is largely contingent on social conditions (i.e. the presence of evil men) I think the Church would do more to stop evil and promote good by preaching the right to self-defense on the part of women and the DUTY of defense for women on the part of Christian men than they would by merely quietly or not so quietly distributing "just in case" contraception.
The problem in Africa with nuns being raped was not that there are "too many guns" but that there weren't enough! Not enough in the hands of their brothers, fathers, cousins, uncles to DEFEND their honor and lives.
If we preach that women are on their own - and oh, here's a pill - rape will continue to be a problem. If instead we preach the right to self-defence and the duty of the community to aggressively defend women against violent men, then the number of rapists and those so inclined will drop.
Ave Maria!
Tom Peters and commenters,
Thanks for your post and the comments. It is true that many people with good intentions are on both sides.
One of the points that Father Peter is making is that the local bishop's do not have infallability. If the Connecticut Conference says one thing but Nebraska's says another then what good is that? Ironically when I was listening to Fr. John Hardon this morning at our community breakfast he racalled the dissent concerning Humanae Vitae and mentioned that even many episcopal conferences dissented against the encyclical including ... the US conference, the one quoted in the post.
But ultimately the deciding issue will be the intrinsic evil of contracepting, whether supressing of the gift of fertility is ok under any circumstances irregardless of the abortifacient issue. Only when we get that straight will we put a nail in the coffin of the culture of death, which all started with contraception.
Fr. Peter makes many distinctions in regard to intercourse, marital vs. extramarital vs. rape, Active contraception (i.e. Plan B wich is merely an extra strong dose of "the pill," ) vs. passive (stopping the sperm from reaching the ovum), and whether or not a child is a blessing even in rape.
Fr. Peter is saying that in rape it is ok to use passive means but active ones are inhernently contracepting and can never be condoned. All these things need to be thought through carefully in order to have a contructive debate and to avoid rash judgment.
Fra Roderic Mary, FI
Joe
Unfortunately this present Pope thanked the president of the Phillipines a year ago for doing away with the death penalty entirely... which is not the position even of the catechism article on that matter even though it too is way biased toward non violence in that area. You will not live long enough to see a Pope who actively promotes self defense with guns but I admire your spirit...although rapists can pick times when there are no guns around and I always marvel when I see a serial rapist doing his evil in very rough parts of the NY Bronx where many men are carrying pistols though not in line with NY's laws. I marvel that such a man would risk being killed by men in the area...but remember, rape is a crime of stealth and not of boldness like bank robbing.
Ave Maria!
By the way, there is a new post at AirMaria on this: Fr. Peter vs. Plan B the Battle Continues
Friar Roderic
Can you explain why Rome is not immediately involved in such a prominent controversy...as to giving an answer if in fact lives are at stake?
Ave Maria!
Bill,
I do not know much about the doings in Rome. I would imagine if they are going to make a statement they would want to formulate things accurately, clearly and with due consideration to prudent pastoral concerns and the like. This is a good time for prayer.
God Bless
Thomas,
It is not true that "in cases of rape, there is no unitive dimension for contraception to separate from the procreative." The conjugal act is unitive by nature, whether the act takes place within or outside of marriage or even under violent coercion.
Every conjugal act is by definition ordained to marriage; however, the fact that it takes place outside of marriage or even under violent coercion does not vitiate its nature qua conjugal act. For example, an act of fornication is a sin against the Sixth Commandment, but it is not a sin against nature, as is sodomy. In the first case there is a unitive dimension; in the second there is not. Certainly in the case of fornication the unitive dimension or meaning of the act is reduced, but its nature is not changed.
An act of rape has the added dimension of evil due to the violence involved, but with respect to the Sixth Commandment is not contrary to nature. It is still a conjugal act, and the unitive dimension is still present, though limited by the violence. The act still retains its nature, though the intention and violent circumstances render it horribly vicious.
This is not a materialistic view of sex or one that is at odds with the Theology of the Body. The body has by its nature a "nuptial meaning," and hence, every completed act of heterosexual genital intercourse by its nature has to some degree a unitive dimension. The physical commerce of man and woman in the act of intercourse is by nature unitive. It is for precisely this reason that the generative dimension is also a possibility. Only where the generative dimension is entirely eliminated is the unitive also completely destroyed.
As far as my reading takes me, John Paul II does affirm that lust "limits" and "reduces" the nuptial meaning of the body, and I suppose that violence does the same. But may we say then, that the nuptial meaning is entirely vitiated in the act of rape and that there is no unitive dimension present in the act?
HV indicates that "marital rape" does attack the unitive dimension, but in no way suggests that it is completely destroyed (13). How could it, since our whole problem consists in the fact that the procreative dimension is still present. There is no conception without union, and even physical union alone has a conjugal meaning.
So JPII states: "Contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful, as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God."
Even as a result of an act of rape, God sometimes immediately creates a new immortal soul in the body of the victim. To frustrate that possibility by deliberately rendering a raped woman infertile would still be an act of contraception, and does, in fact, separate the unitive and procreative dimensions inherently part of the conjugal act.
Chainmaille
Then why did the Vatican permit nuns to use contraceptives against rape in the 1960's:
http://findarticles.com/p/articl..._37/ ai_71250738
let's try that link again
http://findarticles.com/p/articl..
._37/ ai_71250738
You'll have to just copy and paste it
into your address section.
The link is gone; here is the relevant text from it:
"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."
"What happens in rape is not free," Johnstone said, explaining the logic of the 1960s-era Vatican statement. "It can be regarded as an unjust attack, and thus the woman is justified in using chemical means in repelling the effects of the attack."
Johnstone noted that although the Vatican exception for the Congo pertained specifically to nuns, from a moral point of view "it makes no difference whatsoever" if the woman is in religious life. Hence, he said, other women in grave danger of rape would have the same liberty."
bill, you'll understand what i mean (and don't mean) when I simply observe that a theologian's posting to a roman school is no proof, at all, of orthodoxy in general or correctness in particular.
there are way too many points above to comment on, but as it keeps coming up, i'd really like someone to find an OFFICIAL citation to the vatican's alleged permission to congo nuns.
Edward
The below article at the CBS site has other named not unnamed figures...Curran de-chaired but not contradicted in this by a Rome theologian R. Luno... who spoke similarly (are we to believe that Rome never corrected them or CBS or NCR publicly if they were clearly incorrect either on the incident or the position)...and the last paragraph would indicate from him why a directive to the Congo would not necessarily be traceable via a paper trail (Fr. B.Harrison elsewhere has shown how a John Paul II statement on torture in a Geneva speech never reached the Acta Apostolicae Sedis).
From CBS:
"Curran cited an example from the 1960s: The Vatican itself condoned giving contraceptive pills to nuns at risk of rape by fighters in the Congo to prevent pregnancy.
If the issue were anything other than condoms and AIDS "they'd have no trouble with the 'lesser of two evils,"' he said in a phone interview. "They're so on the defensive on this that they're unwilling to recognize that traditional Catholic principles would allow this."
Rodriguez Luno is a Spanish adviser to the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He accepts that Curran's argument is supported by church texts dating back 200 years.
He reasons that sex outside marriage is already a sin against the Sixth Commandment, which forbids adultery. "If you transmit a fatal illness, that's also a sin against the Fifth Commandment," which says "Thou shalt not kill."
"If you use a condom, you don't eliminate the danger, but you diminish it, so the offense against the Fifth Commandment is lessened a little. It would diminish more if you stopped this behavior, but if you don't want to, what can you do?
But he said if the Holy See promoted such an argument it would inevitably provoke the headline "The Vatican says yes to condoms!"'
====================
Ergo Edward, I doubt that you will ever find a paper trail for the event but you do find several named theologians either referring to the incident or accepting it as being within tradition.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2...ain608255.shtml
I'm afraid so, too, bill. Which sets all my Spidey-Lawyer senses a-tinglin', like what office in "the Vatican" said it, and in what words, and with what qualifications, etc. 500 people repeating hear-say is still hear-say....alas. Best, edp.
It would help to actually read my post Bill. I wasn't calling for the death penalty for rapists but for the arming of women. So the Pope cheering a state for deciding to incarcerate felons for life is not germane to my point that the Church still maintains that everyone - including women - have the right to self defense which includes the right to incapacitate an unjust aggressor.
If would-be and actual rapists get the news that women are arming themselves how many do you suppose will cease and desist? More or less than the number who would cease and desist if they hear the news that the Church now allows women to pop a Plan B in the event they're raped and survive the attack?
Joe
I agree with your plan but in New Jersey for example and non rural northeast states generally like Connecticut, to obtain a carrier's license demands that you are weekly involved with the transport of a lot of cash. In New Jersey, even a New York cop would be in trouble if he carried a pistol into the state. I'm waiting almost a year for a simple in house long gun ID here for my Mossberg... on the NY harbor where in house defense is an issue.
Edward,
You are onto something. The press tends to use the word "Vatican" to sensationalize every tantalizing bit of info coming out of Rome, whether the source has any real authority or not. I have yet to see any statement at all from the Holy See on the Congo matter. Regardless, the permission referred to, even if it was given, is hardly magisterial teaching.
Remember the Vatican astronomer who took Cardinal Schonborn to task and then lost his head? I remember one news source's spin of the story: Vatican rejects Cardinal's position on Intelligent Design.
Joe,
Hear, hear. I especially concur, with the obligation of men to defend women.
Bill
Do I understand you correctly? (much earlier) Are you saying HV was not infallible, and therefore it can be descented from? Or at least not a mortal sin? What did this mean: "it will remain as very non observed in this current doubtful state as to the infallibility of the issue in general until there is an intervention of a de fide level." Are you saying people will choose not to observe it because it's infallible? If yes, would this not be the same as a priest choosing to get married anyways? After all, that is only "a current discipline". It's not infallible. Please clarify. Thank You
Pamela
Priests getting married or not getting married is not a matter of theology but of what the Church calls
a regula disciplinae...a rule of discipline which priests know of prior to choosing that life. Peter was married and so it seems were others in the original clergy but later Rome made it a rule to not marry in the West for priests. Rome didn't say it was intrinsically evil (Catholic priests in the Eastern rite can marry and are still Catholic)....Rome was saying it is not expedient in the West. No one forces anyone to become a priest in the West.
So that area has no relation to the sexual issue of birth regulation which is not a regula disciplinae but a matter of moral theology.
Now to the area of birth regulation, Catholics under pain of mortal sin must obey the Popes on the matter of birth control even though it is not infallibly defined in a manner that would satisfy Canon 749-3 "§3. No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident." That is why no one has been accused of heresy just on the issue of birth regulation.
They must obey not because of infallible definition but because Lumen Gentium 25 from Vatican II stated:
"This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking."
Several Bishops at the time of the writing of this above passage asked for an emendation in that they said that as written, no errors of a Pope could ever be corrected if everyone to a man was giving religious submission of mind and will in areas that were not infallibly defined.
For example a series of 4 or 5 Popes in a row after Ad Exstirpanda (1252?)demanded that secular authorities burn heretics and if they did not, they..the secular authorities would be excommunicated (see new advents encyclopedia... Inquistion). Popes expressed themselves in those days not through encyclicals which only appear after the printing press if you've noticed...but they expressed themselves in action oriented letters called bulls which were not theological but implicitly carried a theology beneath the actions.
In any event, their attitude toward heretics turned out to be condemned in Vatican II which required freedom of conscience for everyone...not that that is always salvific but that force should not be used.
But had you lived in 1252 and said to your parish priest that the Pope was wrong for burning heretics, the parish priest would have thought that you were a heretic to say such a thing against the P
continued:
"the parish priest would have thought that you were a heretic to say such a thing against the Pope in that time slot...but now in 2007, you would be correct and the Popes now would agree with you even though you would have be chased out of town back then by angry Catholics.
The bishops who asked for the change in LG25's wording had a great point but according to Fr. Francis Sullivan who tells the anecdote, they were not contradicted by the Theological Commission at the Council but were simply referred to the moral theology tomes on legitimate dissent.
What is that? That means that a very sincere and careful Catholic can theotetically disagree (and so act)... disagree with a view that has not yet been infallibly defined but he or she had better be morally sure...and not simply doing it out of rashness. The moral theology tomes give the conditions for such dissent and perhaps the most conservative author would be Germain Grisez in Way of the Lord Jesus Volume one who does include the topic and his book postdates LG25 and is approved for seminaries....and requires that someone who dissents on an important topic: pray, seek counsel, study, and sees a higher source like the scriptures as being contradictory to the disputed position. Fr. Haring so dissented on birth control based on passages in the epistles. Fr. Karl Rahner dissented not privately but publically and was the editor of the Enchiridion Symbolorum (prts.28-31)which requires the highest level of knowledge of Church dogmatics and he was later referred to by Archbishop Amato of the CDF as orthodox after his death at a Lateran conference."
"Fr. Haring so dissented on birth control based on passages in the epistles" Oh really? Which ones?!
This is sophistry. The Romans had contraceptives and abortion - and yet the early Christians did NOT follow the common practice.
Just because a teaching is hard to understand or live doesn't mean we should throw in the towl and let people imitate the surrounding culture and yet that is precisely what alot of modernist theologians would have us do: just go with the flow of the majority party of the spirit of the age?
It's really choice for these theologians who first helped confuse the faithful and then who led them into active use of contraception by omission and comission to then turn around that use the argument that since "a majority" of Catholics contracept to call it sin would be bad and lead to schism.
A majority of bishops were Arians in the 5th century but that fact didn't make them right.
But getting back to the original scenario: this is akin to the stem cell debate; on the one hand there's the hugely complex issue of using embryonic stem cells vs the non-problematic and more immediately productive adult or umbilical cord blood stem cells. It should be a no-brainer for Catholics to push hard to outlaw embryo-killing research and promote other types of research.
Ditto with coming up with a way to REDUCE rape on the front end rather than on the 'back end'. If this means working to overturn local laws that restrict the right of women to keep and bear arms, then let's get to it.
Besides, if the goal is to reduce rape (by reducing rapists) arming potential victims (with information, self-defence training and self-defence tools such as mace, tasers, and firearms) stands a better practical chance of achieving this goal than merely preaching that "in certain cases it's OK to contracept" and then expect THAT teaching to not be hyped by the Media and transmogrified into "the Church is OK with contraception, period" which is exactly how it'd be played.
The Anglican's tried to limit contraception to married couples in the 1930's with all sorts of 'safeguards' but it didn't take long for people to just start using it wholesale - leading to the loss of faith and rise in more immorality which is a surefire phenomenological proof that it's not amoral or moral.
If this were OK in God's eyes then its use would produce good fruits; that's not been the case in the general population so why would it be the case for Catholics?
Joe
Instead of trying to mix Catholicism with professional wrestling, why don't you...you....do some research on why Bernard Haring dissented. No one is paying me to do long posts to respond to rudeness and to fill in what you can very well read on your own with some effort that extends beyond the effort needed for internet flaming.
Argumentation is not wrestling. It's not "flaming". It's called "I give you my reasons, you give me yours, and possibly we learn something".
If you assert "The war in Iraq is unjust" and I counter "Not according to Catholic Just war theory it's not" we can disagree. But the thrust of the argument will be directed towards factual statements of what is the Catholic Just war theory and questions of fact as to whether the US is following those rules or not.
And since there IS an answer, we presumably could come to some agreement eventually.
So too with respect to Fr Haring and other dissenting theologians whose teachings, if they have any moral weight at all, must be based on REASONS that are matters of fact and not assertions of opinion.
Fr Haring's work - like most theologians of his type - was not challenged point by point. It was just allowed to stand as though asserting something makes it right.
For Theologians however the bed rock upon which they start their ponderings is what is given in revelation NOT what they can cook up on their own to placate the consciences of a given age.
So for example, since it's a given - in scripture - that God chose "in the fullness of time" to become human as a man and to call God "Father" it is not open to us to re-imagine the Incarnate Word or the First Person of the Trinity as female.
It might feel nice to do so and win someone awards, but it's not possible given the 'giveness' of revelation.
With respect to sexual morality, there are some actions which are always wrong and always will be wrong no matter what - no matter the age, culture, subjective feelings, "relationships" or expansive feeling about God, others, and oneself. All extramarital sex for example is forbidden. On divine authority. No amount of "theological speculation" is going to annul the 6th Commandment.
Haring - like many theologians simply asserted something about moral theology that could not be squared with revelation - there are no scriptural passages allowing contraception and there are no 'traditions' of the Fathers permitting contraception either.
So where could he go for the material upon which to build a case for a change in the moral teaching? If it's not in scripture, and it's not in tradition, and indeed the Magisterium has deliberated and spoken repeatedly on the matter....
It's apparent that Haring and all the rest would have to construct an argument from silence and fill in the blanks with speculation and theory - which means their speculations rise and fall on questions of fact.
It's easy to claim "allowing us to do X will make us a more loving couple" but the last 38 years have proven phenomenologically at least that allowing Catholics to contracept has not been a boon for their marriages, their faith, or their families.
Now it's unseemly to call deceased theologians on their wishy washy, feel goodism so most don't. They assert something that helps
Argumentation is one thing; bad tone and then making assertions that depend on an inaccurate paraphrase of what the other person has just wrote in black and white is not argumentation. And guessing at what Fr. Haring actually wrote is laziness.
All of which means you are not doing sufficient reading either of Haring or of the theologians who did debate him (contrary to your guessing that they didn't debate him) in the periodical Theological Studies where Germain Grisez also debated this topic since his position was the opposite of theirs...that birth control was settled in the ordinary magisterium which is very hard to prove in line with canon 749-3 due to Pope Pius IX's Tuas Libenter requiring more consensus of theologians in the OM. You are guessing at what he averred and you guessed at the fact that no one debated him. If you want to really know rather than guess, go to a nearby well stocked Catholic college library for that periodical and go to the 1970's when the debates took place in that quarterly which was well known to theologians and bishops as a venue for such debates at that time for the topic. Surmising and guessing only requires emotion; knowledge requires work and extensive reading.
You seem to be giving this theologian authority he never had - other than the respect of his fellows. Unfortunately an argument from authority (renown, praise, peer plaudits) is the weakest of arguments.
I know many debated him and I know the terms of debate but the basic premises upon which he and others based their arguments were a) not scriptural, b) not tradition c) at odds with settled Magisterial teaching including HV and d) not persuasive on their own face if the goal of a Christian life is to become holy and "perfect, as My heavenly Father is perfect".
If the goal of our lives is to feel good about ourselves, our relationships, and our interactions, then maybe his arguments would matter. But that's not what we exist for. Side-stepping the crucial 'ground' of an issue is a very basic debating strategy and it works wonders in many a theological debate.
He - and others were no doubt erudite and nice guys. But their arguments were not then, and are not now, after 38 years of Magisterial development, persuasive.
One can't read HV, then EV and come away with a 'honest' disagreement about contraception being OK.
Maybe one day you will actually read the men you criticize.
Forgive my ignorance. Your arguments reference writers and documents I know nothing about.
I will tell you plainly that I, a practicing Catholic woman, was a fornicator and birth control user. It was only when I inadvertantly got pregnant that I started to see myself as a mother, and I wanted to be a good mother. Thank God for His patience, I eventually repented, ceased fornicating and stopped using birth control. I never would have changed if it had not been for my child. Her life gave me a new life. Who could have imagined? What seemed to be a terrible crisis turned out to be an incredible gift.
Theologians (and many others) can argue, it seems, forever, but to me, the simple truth is obvious. Contraception is intrinsically evil, whether the marriage act takes place inside marriage, outside of marriage, or in rape. It would be far better, it seems to me, for many of us to stop the arguing and accept the truth with humility.
I am truly thankful for Fr. Fehlner for speaking so clearly on this issue. God Bless You, Father.
Kate
The point my longer post made was about the concept (promoted in moral theology tomes postdating the Council and that have Church approval)... that when an issue is as yet not infallible so as to pass muster under canon 749-3, some people...not you in particular...may dissent and only if they go through a process that includes prayer,counsel,study etc. Do not like Joe leave the noted steps out of that process when you speak or write of it as though rash disobedience is identical to prayerful sincere dissent. To caricature what I have written by leaving out the steps (prayer etc.)which I noted would be to misrepresent what was said...wouldn't it?
Again, forgive my ignorance.
I simply was trying to say that a fundamental shift is needed in society's collective mindset. Babies are not hinderences that ought to be avoided; they are precious gifts from God. Once we begin to think that way, we do not need to go through any steps. We simply need to open our arms to love. This is not oversimplifying. It is opening oneself to God's will and the mystery of love.
Kate
Again, the reason some theologians have difficulty with that view is that your situation is not the situation of all people all over the world. Years ago for ten years I sent money to India for a widow who was left with 4 children in a country...India... that does not cover widows and children the way our social security does. With 4 little children and no work experience that would earn good money, and her husband having just died of a brain aneurism, she was then destitute which would not happen here in the US or Europe. In the US she would be covered by social security and so would the children...given her widowhood. But in India she then had to give her 4 children to a Catholic orphanage or they would have starved and she then took a job as a domestic nearby the orphanage so as to be close to them.
So while US and European women pershaps can generally look at more children as a blessing, in some cultures they are also a source of great anguish should anything happen to the other spouse.
Prior to modern times, a similar fate was true in Europe and we know this because inter alia Tomas Sanchez a moral theologian of the Catholic Church during the baroque period stated what would never be stated now in a moral theology book in Europe. He said that parents did not sin if they sold one of their children into servitude in order to have money to feed the other children. Which means that Europe in centuries past was like the desperate situation that is true now in many parts of the third world where destitution is a real possibility for any of the lower classes.
Then too outside of your situation also, there are other situations of parents who have one child with ongoing medical bills that they will always owe money for and that too is a situation wherein they cannot afford to think along the lines of your view if they are ever going to be debt free.
So theologians have to consider not just the ideal situations but the onerous situations also which one never hears of on the internet in these discussions because if any of us can afford the internet every month, then we are not in bad straits economically just in view of that one monthly bill alone.
Theologians must consider the world and the poor in such questions and even at that they can arrive at opposite answers.
Mr. Bannon,
Thank you for sharing the story; it is inspiring, and God bless you for helping the mother in India. It would be a wonderful thing if we all were more generouse with our wealth.
I understand the burden of a large family is too much for some couples, and NFP is a way to regulate the number of children.
But what of your appeal to pity the poor? How would that mother in India have answered if someone asked her which of her children shouldn't have been conceived? In the eyes of each one is the reflection of God. Even if a child must be given up for adoption or handed over to an orphanage, a parent (even if they suffer pain at the loss of the physical presence of their child) has the supreme consolation of knowing that their child is in God's care. It is a far better thing to give birth to a child and give it up then to deny the child life at all.
Opening our hearts to love is a simple surrender to the will of God. If I am poor, I, in humility, gratefully accept the contributions of wealthier memebers of God's family. If I am rich, I, in an act of love and responsibility, contribute to the needs of the poor. God provides and God repays.
Kate
God provides spiritually with perfection not physically with perfection and that is why 25,000 people died per day of starvation in 2003. And that is why Christ was finally robbed of his very clothes and watched men gamble for his cloak at the young age of 33. That is why
Hebrews 11:38 says of some prophets and heroes: "The world was not worthy of them. They wandered about in deserts and on mountains, in caves and in crevices in the earth."
Go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Str...Street_children
There are between 100 million and 150 million street children and by 2020, there may be 800 million. The US is very different. There are mysteries here. Why does a Donald Trump never miss a meal despite his egotism and an African child dies with a distended stomach. One of the results of Adam's fall is apparent absurdities that we will only see the reasons for...on the other side. Perhaps the starvation of African children is united by God to the sacrifice of Christ and made to atone for all the sins of that child's family. I do think there is something nice like that behind the veil.....but on the other hand, we cannot gloss over the starvation as anything less than a physical evil in light of that good result that God can draw out of it. He drew a good result out of Judas' sin but Christ spoke very frighteningly of Judas...."it were better for that man had he never been born."
Mr. Bannon,
Forgive me for attempting once more to point to love. I am a sinner, not a learned theologian.
It seems to me that the words you quote, "He drew a good result out of Judas' sin but Christ spoke very frighteningly of Judas....'it were better for that man had he never been born.'" mean that Judas will experience severe consequences after death because of his sin.
It is not appropriate to infer that it would be better that some people should not be born because they may experience suffering in this life.
St. Faustina writes in her Diary, "Suffering is the greatest treasure on earth; it purifies the soul. In suffering, we learn who our true friend is. True love is measured by the thermometer of suffering. Jesus, I thank You for the little daily crosses..."(342 and 343).
In love, we are all called to alleviate the suffering of the poor. To deny any child the right to life or to thwart their conception is not a loving response. Better that we all share our wealth with the poor than that one child be denied life because of contracepive devices.
It is obvious, Mr. Bannon, that you enjoy the process of argumentation. I didn't wade into these comments to engage you, but to offer my support to Fr. Fehlner. I believe most emphatically that his words are true and that we would all do well to heed them.
"To deny any child the right to life or to thwart their conception is not a loving response. Better that we all share our wealth with the poor than that one child be denied life because of contracepive devices."
If that were a moral duty, would we not be required to marry the first available person as soon as we turned of reproductive age? Life begins at conception, not later, and not earlier.
Hey, in all this debate about the licitness of Plan B, the fact is that even if it is only abortifacient or not at all, it is harmful to the health of the rape victim. What kind of kindness is it to give a woman the risk of a stroke, blood clot or cancer?
For the birth control pill, a woman must have a physical before getting a prescription and it is over a three week period, whereas the MAP is taken as a massive dose at least once or twice.
What ever happened to concern about the health and well-being of women? It sounds like another way to exploit and degrade a woman since having a baby seems to be the gravest sin of the modern era. And women somehow are defective and weak and are not strong enough to carry a child to term! This is what I hear in this action by the Connecticut bishops. Women are designed to give birth and it is not harmful to her health to be pregnant.
It is preferable to the pysicians and hospitals that a woman become seriously ill, rather than give birth. Plan B is another means of keeping women slaves to their exploiters. Instead of protecting the woman from thugs, they give her a harmful poison!
Kate
No... the inference was not that at all but that evil whether eternal or temporary is still evil and is not to be hall-mark-carded into being a "treasure" in St. Fautina's words...you'll notice at the end of her quote she then refers to being thankful for "little daily crosses"....not to starvation which she never exerienced.
Kate,
Thank you for your insightful comments. I agree with you. It is never moral to do evil so that good will come of it. I also learned something from Fr Fehlner's statement -- and am seeing the wisdom of his and others' position that the conjugal act is inherently unitive and procreative, regardless of whether or not it takes place as it should within marriage, including situations of rape. (W/re the unitive aspect, I remember St Paul writing that if one sleeps with a prostitute he becomes one flesh with her. 1Cor6:16) If God deigns that a human life will result, who are we to say no? This does go against our way of thinking, I agree. Yet it seems correct.
I know unequivocally that we cannot look at situations (poverty, large families, war, natural catastrophes, etc,) and say that some of these may at times justify committing an intrinsically (by definition, not situationally) evil act, ie contracepting. These situations call for faith in God and the just (hence obligatory) involvement of moral people to the best of their individual abilities within the confines of the totality of their obligations. If moral people do not act, morality is still obligatory in responding to hard situations. I am always amazed when I read about the ancient Hebrews who went with their families to death rather than apostatize, and about Christian martyrs.
John
So you would advise a rape victim that she has just been "one flesh" with her attacker despite her screams and vain attempts of pushing of him... based on what Paul said about a man and a consenting prostitute?
"It is preferable to the pysicians and hospitals that a woman become seriously ill, rather than give birth. Plan B is another means of keeping women slaves to their exploiters. "
The Connecticut situation doesn't involve anyone proposing that women be given emergency contraception without their informed consent.
In 1Cor6:16 Paul is explaining why members of the Church must not frequent prostitutes as it would be choosing to take "parts of Christ's body and join them to the body of a prostitute." Augustine made it clear that rape victims are not defiled in the same manner by their rapist.
Bill,
So you would advise a rape victim that she has just been "one flesh" with her attacker despite her screams and vain attempts of pushing of him... based on what Paul said about a man and a consenting prostitute?
According to St. Thomas (ST 2a 2ae, 154, 12), rape, while bears a heavy measure of deformity relative to the conjugal act, it is not a sin against nature, as is the case with sodomy and contraception. This fact does not speak to the psychological experience of a victim of rape, nor should it. Catholic moral principles look first to the metaphysical nature of the act, and then to the intention and circumstances of the act.
Because rape is not a sin against nature, i.e., against the nature of the conjugal act, it is fundamentally unitive and generative, though it is a grave offense against the unitive end of the conjugal act.
Not only does the teaching of HV and CC forbid us to separate the ends of the conjugal act, it also forbids us from acting in a way that frustrates either end.
Father,
There are two Rome centered theologians (a moral theology teacher at the Alfonsiana and a past advisor to the CDF) quoted way above in this thread already cited who do not agree with St. Thomas on rape or what you are deducing from Humanae Vitae in the case of rape and both refer to the Vatican giving permission for contraceptives to the nuns in the Congo during the 1960's as common knowledge both in a CBS news report and a NCR report and there is no similar extant denial by Rome.
Who should we follow….you are them? My point is that should groups headed by this priest here and that priest there are besides the point. We have a Pope and he should drop everything ceremonial and enter such events and not leave this to be a ten year debating socieity amidst Catholic priests and laity and Connecticut Bishops. Two weeks ago the Pope inaugurated bronze doors. We know that he has thing he could drop.
St. Thomas was incorrect on a number of issues as you well know (cites at end) original sin reaching Mary and her then being cleansed of it/ asking for the marriage debt as venial sin when procreation not explicitly willed (the paying the debt was ok)/ and women being virtually useless as helps in life outside of childbearing/ money being barren by nature hence interest was against the natural law.
It may not be good to let women's well being in rape hinge on him or Augustine who gave us similar errors. The church has the charism of infallibility, let the Popes use it and not neglect it (I Tim4:14) no matter what hard work it requires and no matter what dents in their usual schedule it makes on the sexual issues in general.
But my immediate point is this: we are debating something that the Pope should come in on and settle quickly by making a decision in Connecticut since according to your side, lives are at stake which does not allow for long theological debate of people like us who do not count with the Connecticut Bishops. Christ drove the money changers out of the temple with no prudential meditations and He did it fast since it was an emergency…the gentile section for praying within the temple precincts was being abused.
Canon 131 gives the Pope power that is "supreme" and "immediate" and canon 133 gives him power over each church and groups of churches.
There is no reason for him not to enter these disputes since this is an emergency unlike the Latin liturgy issue or others where his absence is not critical for awhile and which can be dealt with…. with long ruminations.
In the large sphere but not centuries from now, on this issue we need explicit infallibility that passes muster under canon 749-3. The "theologically certain" in this area is known to everyone as not working amongst the Catholic laity itself about 90% of whom dissent either sincerely in accordance with moral theology tomes or rashly with no prayer, counsel or study. It would behoove then for the Church to move the issu
continued:
Church to move the issue into the infallible realm. The several theologians who believe it is infallibly settled are either unknown outside Catholic publishers or are few like Grisez and Ford...and that reality does no where suffice the test that Tuas Libenter (below) applied to such issues that remain ambiguous in the ordinary magisterium wherein Pius required the common universal consent of theologians which is now notoriously absent herein.
_________________________________
Cites for statements made above.
St. Thomas...Question 49/ article 5 in the supplement:
" Consequently there are only two ways in which married persons can come together without any sin at all, namely in order to have offspring, and in order to pay the debt; otherwise it is always at least a venial sin."
That is now refuted by the 19th and post 19th century acceptance of the natural rhythms which was only explicit in answers to dubia in the 19th century.
On women as virtually useless, first we have Augustine and then you will see Aquinas accept it and shorten it:
“ I don’t see what sort of help woman was created to provide man with, if one excludes the purpose of procreation. If woman is not given to man for help in bearing children, for what help could she be? To till the earth together? If help were needed for that, man would have been a better help for man. The same goes for comfort in solitude. How much pleasure is it for life and conversation when two friends live together than when a man and woman cohabitate.” De Genesi ad litteram 9,5-9 Augustine.
Aquinas, ST, Pt. I. Q.98, art.2 Moreover, we are told that woman was made to be a help to man. But she was not fitted to be a help to man except in generation, because another man would have proved a more effective help in anything else. (On the contrarty..section).
The immaculate conception error of he and Augustine you know of and again was linked to Augustine erring in the area of sex and stating that original sin was passed because of the pleasure involved and Mary's parents had pleasure like everyone else....Aquinas citing Augustine:
"Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i): "All flesh born of carnal intercourse is sinful."
Reply to obj4/art 2/ ques.27/ pt3"
Pope Pius IX, Tuas Libenter, Letter to the Archbishop of Munich, Dec. 21, 1863:
“For, even if it were a matter concerning that subjection which is to be manifested by an act of divine faith, nevertheless, it would not have to be limited to those matters which have been defined by express decrees of ecumenical Councils, or of the Roman Pontiffs and of this See, but would have to be extended also to those matters which are handed down as divinely revealed by the ordinary teaching power of the whole Church spread throughout the world, and therefore, by universal and common consent are held by Catholic theologians to belong to faith.”
Bill, not solely on what the words of Scripture say -- as we know that the interpretation and application of Scripture is the province of the Church Herself alone-- but based on that interpretation and, when that seems unclear, then my own conscience in light of all the arguments. Consentual prostitution, consenual fornication, and rape are all a desecration of the marital act, of its unitive and generative aspects both, yet I do not think desecration implies non-existence of either of these aspects. Kate's comments focus on the love of human life, on God's love for us each, and on our love then for human life no matter the circumstances of that life, in any stage. It is a profound joy to me to hear her comments.
John
The procreative does not exist in the sterile and in the elderly and both can marry in the Church. So it is possible for one aspect to be totally missing. If a girl is raped, a certain number of Catholic voices in this thread including two high level moral theology teachers in Rome
do not see the unitive as existing in rape. Who should we follow... you and several fathers.... or them? The Pope should drop everything of lesser import and settle it in Connecticut. The abscence of real emergency Pope involvement for 4 decades in the sex abuse horror deeply wounded the Church but not a soul will say it because the Church is also a financially and career dependent entity for clergy and Catholic writers and Catholic school teachers. That's one reason there are so many fictious names of posters on the Catholic blogs. I'm not dependent on Rome for a cent; it's always been the other way around. Centuries long prudential ruminations by Rome are only appropriate in matters that don't need speed...like questions of liturgy.
Bill,
In the post-menopausal and otherwise physically sterile, the marriage act is valid in that the sterility is naturally (though by disease or age therefore of a fallen nature)present. However it is not licit to artificially inhibit the naturally present generative aspect of the marriage act, whether or not the marriage act is engaged in within holy matrimony. This is to contracept a human being who is for some reason willed by God in that He allows the conception to occur, a human being that is half (so to speak) the offspring of the woman, and half of the rapist who is still a human being, though dysfunctional and more, loved and sought by God. The progeny of these two humans loved by God is a human loved by God. Who are we to decide that human's existence is not wanted by God? Not to say that rape is a natural act, as no action against God's laws is true to the created nature of the perpetrator, but the conception is a natural act if God allows it to occur.
The Church is very human and causes much sorrow. We can only pray much, and prayerfully and respectfully and with much humility make our concerns known to our shepherds, and each in our small or large way must be the most faithful to Jesus as he/she can. The sorrow would drown us if we could not have hope and the weapons God gives us in the Church -- prayer, doctrine, fasting, sacrament. But I am saying nothing you don't know, only repeating it for comfort sake.
Ave Maria!
There is a new post on AirMaria from Fr. Peter on Plan B Contraception
Fr. Peter Fehlner's Last Word on Plan B
John
I'm sure most women not all....would be revolted to see a child that partly looked like their attacker. And hence they have a right to listen to the clergy already cited who really don't agree with you as to the unitive taking place in rape.
Nor do I think you or any group of priests are going to start a home for children born of rape in Catholic hospitals.
Any woman who finds herself in this dilemna is not going to look to the internet for a solution and so far, there are voices of Rome faculty/ moral theology level credentials who do not see it your way or the way of various priests in this country who reflect your view.
Frankly since 90% of Catholic women don't listen to Rome on birth control to begin with, we are only talking here of those in the smaller percent who do obey Rome in this area and they themselves on this have two very different groups that they can choose from as it stands....yours and the named Catholic teachers above who do not see the unitive as having any prescence in rape.
And Rome will have to clear up this report one way or the other on the 1960's reported permission to nuns in the Congo to use birth control in rape situations.
But we only have a right to do what is moral to do.
What I or groups of priests or whoever does is not a prerequisite to argue in defense of human life. That said, many pro-life crisis interventions, orphanages, schools, single parent outreaches, etc historically were founded by Catholic religious and clergy and other pro-lifers, and new foundations continue today.
We should though not listen to this person or that person, but to God ultimately, and only to persons insofar as they accurately reiterate the Church's teaching on any particular subject.
But two Catholic high level priests who taught in Rome and mentioned in this thread disagree with you on what is moral and what is Church teaching as to rape and the unitive. One a moral theology professor at the Alphonsiana in Rome and the other was an advisor to the CDF...the heart of doctrine enforcement at the Vatican. And I see nothing on the net indicating that they were ever corrected by Rome and common sense goes by such indications of silence otherwise we would forever be creating reality based on imagining ourselves as the only one to listen to and thus Rome secretly agrees with us but just happens to do nothing in line with that synchronic empathy.
In short if the Pope agrees with you...he will act in Connecticut and reverse them because he like you will see lives as being at stake...in light of that, why would he delay? Or he will at least reverse them because it looks problematic to some of the brethern and he could do that based on the principles revolving around scandal....that one is not responsible for the scandal of the unreasonable but one is responsible for the scandal of the weaker brethern.
But if he does nothing at all in regard to Connecticut, then he is more familiar than you think with the ideas that were mentioned by the two Rome authorities mentioned above and who disagree with your view.
Hi Bill B., you could certainly have earned your keep in classical Greece as a sophist. There are just a couple of things I'd like to point out in reference to your previous threads.
1) "...northeast states generally like Connecticut, to obtain a carrier's license demands that you are weekly involved with the transport of a lot of cash." Untrue. It's quite easy to obtain a CT CCW license. As long as you submit fingerprints, proof of firearms safety training, and surrender some cash.
2) Wikipedia is not a scholarly source. Relying on it or CBS when arguing details-as you do so well-is foolish.
Bill, why do you comment as if the issue is I vs two theologians? That is interesting. There are many voices on both sides of this issue, as on many critical issues, and Rome doesn't speak so quickly. Ever. My point is that ultimately we have to, with well-formed conscience, decide what is moral to do and then do it. Jesus says to seek and we shall find. God says
"Who among you fears the Lord, and obeys the voice of his servant, who walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the Lord and relies upon his God?" Is50:10, and again "I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, 'Seek Me in chaos.'" Is 45:19 What does this mean then with so much confusion. I understand it this way. God says in 2Chron7:14 "If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven." and again James1:5 "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him." These are all promises of God -- I count on them -- but as with all His promises there is an "if." If we obey His commandments and seek Him with undivided heart, He will lead us to the answers we need. Yet, until we have certitude each in our own consciences, we must not act or, if circumstances require immediate response, we must take actions that can be reversed. Bill, this is all we can do, but it is a lot, it is literally everything -- it is God's faithfulness and love that leads us, if we love Him to the best of our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies.
This all is why I say where there is doubt, we must not do irreversible harm, and where we in our hearts have certitude, we must act, though slowly still and with caution. If we have access to tried-and-true spiritual direction, that would be even better.
What I mean to say is that God will not abandon us, if we do not abandon Him. If we do not hear a small still voice telling us we are not obeying Him in this or that teaching that we well know, He will lead us onto teaching that we do not yet know, which of course we test by subjecting it to the Church's teaching authority.
John
Then where is the Pope, John? How come he is not there with you in this world of insight that you now couch with passages from Isaiah.
Your principle on acting in doubt does not resemble that of the Church:
" This all is why I say where there is doubt, we must not do irreversible harm"....." we must take actions that can be reversed". You are stacking the deck in your favor with a novel approach and I hope no woman is ever advised by you in this matter of rape.
Now go to a Catholic library and read actual moral theology on acting in doubt....there is doubts of law and doubts of fact but there is something also called suspicion of fact due to excessive fear.
For example, you are having bacon and eggs and someone walks into the room and says that the bacon can give you cancer. Does John now have an obligation before eternity and God's judgement to remove the bacon from his plate and throw it in the garbage or commit mortal sin of self destruction? If you think so, welcome to the world of scrupulosity and your life will be hell with every suspicion presented to you from every study that is placed before you by people, pill box liners notes written by lawyers, and by the media.
For me it seems downright irrational to believe that one pill taken twice in 24 hours can vitiate a uterine lining that has been building for four weeks and the physician Mary still seems like the sanest voice I've read on this.
Damage that can be reversed?Aquinas did irreparable damage with his support of just titled slavery in the Supplement of the ST in the section on marriage (it's on line) ...just titled slavery for those born to slave mothers although the decretals which he cited also supported that and 600 years later while the Sulpicians were selling a slave mother and child, the diary shows that they sold a second child of that mother a month later....see A Church That Can and Cannot Change John T. Noonan,Jr. University of Nortre Dame Press page 91. Bishop England when he defended just titled slavery as according to natural law then had Aquinas and the decretals on his side despite bulls which were only really about new native slaves or the trade.
Pope Nicholas V did irreparable damage in giving Portugal the right to take the lands of undiscovered non baptized people and enslave "enemies of Christ". Take a look at Rio if you go to Brazil and its thousands of street children.
Probably most saints did irreparable damage with their opinions like Augustine saying that asking for the marriage debt was always venial sin if children were not intended but paying the debt was ok. So from the 5th to the 19th century he had Catholics thinking that they were committing venial sin in asking for the debt....irreparable damage ....and he is a saint. Aquinas hardened the damage by copying Augustine word for word in that matter.
Where is your (we not do things that cause irreparable damage). How did these me
extra,
Dismissing those with whom you apparently disagree as "sophists" is not a substitute for argumentation.
Although certainly not perfectly reliable, Wiki and CBS beat no source hands down. If the reports regarding Vatican permission were false, one would think that at least some report somewhere might be located that says so. While Bill may not have proven his case, he has made a fair one that cannot be dismissed by hurling sophomoric insults.
Mike
Thanks. It's quite a inadvertant compliment. He apparently wants to catch me on something and he is down to pistols in Connecticut and wiki.
Bill,
Do you have any idea if their is a written document issued by the Vatican in reference to the Congo affair? I think that is a pertinent question. If there is one, it should be relatively easy to produce. If there is not, then then other questions should be raised.
Chainmaille
There is no way that the Vatican would have put that in written form but simply would have made a phone call to the superior of the order.
For example, look at last year's commotion when word leaked that certain Vatican figures had been asked to look into condoms and AIDS. There were a couple of ultra brief news reports and denial that they were liberalizing in that area but no explanation of what they were really doing and then that was followed by zero transparency as to what really happened and what were the instructions. Do you think you would find a written document on that as a reporter?
Bill, the Church is human and can cause much sorrow. The sorrow would drown us if we did not have recourse to prayer, doctrine, and sacrament. This sorrowful history is too true today still, and was happening even when Jesus still walked with His disciples before the Church began. That is why we cannot simply follow one person or group, but must each weigh everything with our consciences formed in light of Church teaching, as best we can. Ultimately God is God, and He is in charge. If we are faithful to God, He is faithful to us, and often also when we are not faithful. The first pope Peter made a hugh blunder when he would not associate with noncircumcised Christians as soon as the Jewish Christians came on the scene. Paul had to advise him. (It is interesting that God never allowed Peter's first opinion on this matter become doctrine in an example of God speaking.) All the people you mentioned were either Popes, theologian, or saints.
Where is this Pope on this particular issue? I do not know -- in particular cases, Rome speaks slowly. Who are we to look to then? God ultimately, in light of the totality that Rome has already said. And what is the ordinary man in the street supposed to do when faced with a dilemma? And how many dilemmas there are for him to discern! What if he has little or no education, or no recourse to learned discussion? God does not forsake anyone, but especially the poor and lowly, and makes Himself available to all who search for Him. A general rule of thumb is needed that can be referred to in latent and surprise situations. In deciding what is the right thing to do, taking the path of lesser adverse consequences is reasonable and moral. It does not have to become scrupulosity as you seem to fear it could. It is reasonable caution which is a good ordinary rule of practice.
Why kill or stop a conception already on its way if this is not necessary to save the mother's life, and if it may be God's will that it proceed. I fear that is assuming God's place. The immoral act is the rape, not the baby's existence. The baby's existence is up to God I believe. And I would unhesitantly give the baby, the mother, and myself that chance to not do anything irreversibly against God's will. The only exception for me, as I said, would be that an irreversible action is necessary to save another's life.
Oh, forgot to say that we also are the Church, so if there is sorrow it is partly of our making also in our own large or small ways. I cannot say the Church has caused sorrow without recognizing my own faults and sins.
This discussion is becoming redundant, perhaps? Maybe not.
John
Peace...I hope no woman listens to you on the stopping conception part in rape given the cites from Rome experts I've seen.
In the first AIDS conference at the Vatican in 1989, Cardinal O'Connor was virulent against the idea of condoms for AIDS persons. In 2001...eleven years later, 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....thus they were not using contraception since the days were infertile but they were staying alive and obeying scripture which tells married couples not to separate sexually for long except for prayer lest the devil enters in. Catholic fans of the Josephite marriage even for younger people.(not practitioners themselves...but fans on behalf of others they never met) never noted that they were contradicting what God said in the epistle aside from not noticing that Joseph was old and Mary was free of concupiscence according to Aquinas especially after Christ was born:
ST Third Pt. question 27
"it is to be believed that entire freedom from the fomes redounded from the Child to the Mother. This indeed is signified (Ezekiel 43:2): "Behold the glory of the God of Israel came in by the way of the east," i.e. by the Blessed Virgin, "and the earth," i.e. her flesh, "shone with His," i.e. Christ's, "majesty."
There is no way that the Vatican would have put that in written form but simply would have made a phone call to the superior of the order.
For example, look at last year's commotion when word leaked that certain Vatican figures had been asked to look into condoms and AIDS. There were a couple of ultra brief news reports and denial that they were liberalizing in that area but no explanation of what they were really doing and then that was followed by zero transparency as to what really happened and what were the instructions. Do you think you would find a written document on that as a reporter?
I can't imagine why you would use this as evidence of anything, other than that no one wanted a paper trail because no one wanted to be held accountable.
This is an event for which there is only anecdotal evidence that allegedly took place before the issuance of Humanae vitae, during a period in which many theologians and prelates hoped that the pill would be judged licit. There is no document, and no one to verify the truth of it, accept an indirect witness who supplies us with only a thread of information. Nor does it seem that this alleged policy has been followed since.
As I say, even if it did happen, as likely an explanation as any would be that whoever granted the permission knew that they were acting on their own authority, and once the deal was squelched, whatever evidence existed just disappeared.
The Vatican neither confirms or denies the matter. So what? That does not mean anything. That just might mean that Rome did not want to embarrass the culprit.
In any case, I really have a hard time fathoming how this is evidence of a Church policy. Saying that this is the best we have to go on, is like saying, since we don't have any better evidence lets follow a rumor.
Chainmaille
How can you...a fiction...be worried about another alleged fiction?
Give your real name and I'll answer you. You write under a fictitious name and I'm supposed to debate you as to whether an incident was fictitious when you yourself obviously fear giving your correct name much like Vatican officials often insist on anonymity when talking to Catholic news services...and then we are supposed to see secrecy as never happening when you are a prime example of it being de rigeur for clerical circles. During the pervert scandal, priest after priest in this area would talk to the news media only under the stipulation of anonymity and suddenly, you find furtiveness unusual....and you are an example of it. Are we the Church or a cloak and dagger society?
Hi Mike, I'm sorry if you mistook my comments to Bill as being insulting. They weren't intended to be. As you indicated, Bill has proven no case. He's provided no concrete evidence that the Vatican was part of some contraceptive conspiracy. You've further illustrated that this discussion has broken down to the importance of being perceived as right in the absence of reason. And speaking of "sophomoric" these kinds of "debates" are best carried on in high school gymnasiums.
Peace to you too, Bill! Thanks for the discussion also.
extra frate
Maybe an adult using extra frate as a name is "sophmoric"....a charge you delivered as you declare your innocence in the same short post about not being insulting. So you need the innocence but you wish to continue the disparaging talk without actually putting effort into a long post....isn't that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Here is the article from National Catholic Reporter that seems fictional to fictional visitors ...what is stopping any of you fictionally named people from picking up the phone and calling the Alphonsiana...or is it that you can't use your real names there either:
"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."
--------------------------------
So an expert from the Alphonsiana is not a good witness but a group of internet posters with fictitious names is a credible group.
But the chief point is not even the Congo but the theology of both the above expert and R. Luno the advisor to the CDF....the Congo is separate from their theology and their theology permits of a rape victim repelling the rapist's sperm even though a group of men with fictitious names object...men who are not advising the CDF or teaching in Rome in a Pontifical facility.
Bill,
That you should compare anonymity on a blog with the alleged legitimization of a moral policy for the whole Church by a phone call , or to the dereliction of duty on the part of clerics in this country, is an absurd stretch.
I make no claim as to the veracity or lack thereof regarding the "Congo transmission." My whole point is that no conclusion can be drawn from the anecdote.
Here is the article from National Catholic Reporter that seems fictional to fictional visitors ...what is stopping any of you fictionally named people from picking up the phone and calling the Alphonsiana...or is it that you can't use your real names there either.
You suggest that we "fictional" visitors have called the news article fictional. That simply is not the case. We simply don't give it any more consideration than we would ordinarily give a sketchy forty year old news story.
I appreciate the effort you must be expending to put out the number of long posts that you have. Nevertheless--and I am sure it is unintended--some sophistry has slipped in.
Chainmaille
We'll see about my sophistry and your insults on Judgement day when "the work of everyone will be made manifest for the day of the Lord will declare it; for that day will be revealed in fire...the fire will assess the quality of everyone's work".
Bill,
Yes, indeed, I fear and tremble--more than you can imagine--but not for pointing out an erroneous argument. With all due respect, your last comment illustrates precisely my point.
Pointing out a bad argument is different than using the word sophistry as a parting barb in word form. Twice I have seen clergy leave parishes and barb the parishioners right at the very end of their departure speech while for months they never said a critical word about parishioners.
It's like a clerical syndrome that must have something to do with staying nice as long as possible and then shooting right at the end with that 9mm. Passive aggression burping out in the final 5 seconds.
My exchange with you has hardly been passive aggressive.
My comment: Nevertheless--and I am sure it is unintended--some sophistry has slipped in, was intended to be clear. I admit that the modern use of the word "sophistry" includes the intention to deceive. I was explicit in my meaning--that the defect of your argument was unintended--or so I thought.
I do believe that the argument I criticized was irrelevant rhetoric, and not altogether unoffensive in its own right.
I am sorry for offending you by speaking in a discourteous manner. I wish you well.
"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
This is the most current item I have found on this issue.
Thank you, John 14v15 for providing important information in a loving light. While it is obvious the Mr. Bannon loves to argue, the issue is really what is best for the mother? If I were a woman who was assaulted by a rapist, I hope that I would be in the care of someone who had compassion for me - not someone who would hand me a pill and send me on my way.
In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II writes about Levinas' work on the philosophy of the face. Among other things, JPII writes, "It is through his face that man speaks, and in particular, every man who has suffered a wrong speaks and says the words, 'Do not kill me!' The human face and the commandment 'Do not kill' are ingeniously joined in Levinas and thus become a testimony for our age..."
When a mother looks into the face of her child who was conceived as an act of rape, she may, as Mr. Bannon points out, see the rapist. She will also see herself and the face of an innocent child. I have heard testimony from women who chose to give up for adoption the babies they conceived after a rape. They were completely at peace with their decisions. There are, of course, mothers who actually keep these children. There are real, live human beings who say, "I was conceived because of rape, and I'm thankful my mother chose life."
Is it non-academic and emotional to consider the impact on women? Sure, but it is REAL. Women often pour out their hearts to their close female friends - the regret of abortion, the pain of the decision to undergo sterilization or to use birth control - when they finally realize what a great gift children are. Priests also hear these regrets whispered in the confessional.
A woman's heart is a tender thing, and only a loving response, a life-giving, life-affirming response will help to heal it after a rape.
Thanks, Kate. What you say inspires. That is interesting. Thanks.
Kate
I admire how you combine love talk with ad hominems or zingers but that is the internet Catholic tradition and it must be upheld... but your general point is off base, contracepting a rapist's sperm is not aborting a child. There are women who have post partum depression from bearing a child that looks like them and their husband; those women in particular would probably go into proplonged mental illness if they bore a child that looked like their attacker but I suspect you are not interested in them or you would have brought up their case in particular.
The question, not answer so far, is whether in instances, does Plan B also thin the lining of the uterus with 2 pills in 24 hours and then it should be opposed and so far I am most inclined to the internist, Mary who said no it does not.... and who posted here but was driven away from here it seems by someone calling her "Pope Mary"...another net-catholic zinger from the side that stands for ...of course....love. So if the experts on love can drive away all the internists with trailer stop zingers, that will of course conduce to their side having more and more adherents though it may reduce the quality of Tom's blog in the long run to allow such name calling.
Bill, I don't think it is fair to so publicly state a suspicion that Kate is not interested in the mother's well-being.
How a woman will respond to a baby born in such circumstances is always an unknown, the woman can be helped if such a thing happens to her, and the woman ultimately is in God's hands, not ours to respond to with another evil act, if indeed such contraception is. There is reason to consider this question first. Fr. Peter Damien Felhner has re-introduced this aspect into the Plan B debate -- ie morality of artificial contraception in any circumstance -- and states that Church teaching considers contraception always intrinsically evil. It is at least a point for all to consider. I know you and I have concluded our discussion of this, but I just don't think you're being fair to Kate and I think Fr Felhner's statement has gotten lost in the debate.
John
It would be wrong if I could read the secrets of hearts but I can't and so the normal reader will take it just as an opinion not on a particular mother as you misdirected...but on a class of women who have post partum depression.
The 2002 edition of “Catholic Health Care Ethics, A Manual for Ethics Committees” published by the National Catholic Bioethics Center of the USA has a section entitled “Pregnancy Prevention After Sexual Assault.” In that section in chapter 3 there is provided a moral analysis of this issue as written by Peter Cataldo, PhD, Staff Ethicist and Albert Moraczewski, OP, PhD, STM, President Emeritus of the Center. Here are some of the points they cover:
"A question arises. How can the catholic moral tradition consistently hold that the deliberate suppression of fertility is morally unacceptable in some cases but not in others? The morally decisive difference between deliberately suppressing fertility as a defensive measure against unjust aggression and deliberately suppressing fertility only for the sake of preventing fertilization (e.g., direct contraception) rests on these facts: 1) the suppression of fertility in the case of sexual assault is in response to an involuntary sexual act, and 2) the suppression of fertility in the case of contraception is part of a voluntary sexual act. Thus, the presence or absence of voluntariness (i.e., free consent to the act of intercourse) is an essential condition that determines the moral difference between what are otherwise two similar physical acts. […]
The Church’s prohibition against contraception and direct sterilization is, among other things, premised on the fact that those for whom the prohibition applies freely engage in sexual intercourse (see Ashley and O’Rourke 1997, 303; Grisez 1993, 512; Connell 1964, 1966 [my note: this is a reference to Fr. Francis J. Connell, CSSR, who was a distinguished and well regarded top USA moral theologian of the 1950’s.]; McReavy 1964). […] Pope Pius XII explicitly stated the link between the voluntary use of the reproductive powers and their inherent goal: ‘… the Creator Himself, for the good of the human race, has indissolubly bound up the voluntary use of these natural energies [of sexuality (the bracketed words here are of Cataldo and Moraczewski)] with their intrinsic purpose … .’ (Pope Pius XII 1944, 62). It follows from this statement that the Church’s prohibition against contraception also rests on the same foundation of freedom of action.”
At www.library.ubc.ca/archives/pdfs/ubyssey/
UBYSSEY_1965_10_07.pdf
is offered the following from “The Ubyssey”, VANCOUVER, B.C.,THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1965:
In the authoritative Catholic Church publications, Studi Cattolici (Catholic studies) three theologians of Rome published their findings on the question of the use of the Pill as a defense against a sexual assault.
Father Francis Hurt, a Jesuit professor at the Gregorian University, the main Rome seminary, said "that a human being in certain circumstances is justified in suspending various bodily functions, causing temporary blindness, deafness, indigestion, or interference with lung or even heart action.
In like manner, given the circumstances of threatened rape, the female victim would be justified in defending her self by arresting the germination function of the egg cell.
Msgr Pietro Palazzini, the secretary of the Vatican's councillar congregation, the section concerning the Catholic bishops of the world, shared the Jesuit's View. He said a nun would be justified in small self-mutilations, such as injections to cause facial carbuncles, in an effort to disgust a rapist and that a suspension of a procreative function would be even more easily justified.
The discussion was promoted in part by sexual abuse of nuns in the Congo several months ago and by danger of new race riots in other parts of the world.”
At the time, however, the Vatican was unaware of the potential abortive nature of the Pill, as I understand.
Note on Msgr. Pietro Palazzini:
From the internet: “On August 28, 1962, John XXIII appointed him [Palazzini] Bishop of the titular Church of Cesarea in Cappadocia. […] He was elevated to the cardinalate by Paul VI during the Consistory of March 5, 1973 ....”
Palazzini was a scholar and prolific writer producing many works from the 1950’s till the early 1970’s. Some of his works include: Dizionario dei Concili, 6 volumes (1961-1968), edited by Pietro Palazzini and Giuseppe Morelli; author or co-author of an important four volume work on moral theology; Editor of a major Dictionary of Moral Theology; Editor for the Italian Catholic Encyclopedia for the sections on jurisprudence, moral theology, and sociology.
He also worked with St. Josemaria Escriva and was a supporter of Opus Dei. He lent support too to those who favor the Tridentine or classical Roman rite of the Mass.
At http://www.christusrex.org/www2/.../es4-28-
96.html
there is a 1996 article on the question of the Pill as taken by nuns as a defense against rape:
"The question of nuns taking the Pill as a defence in trouble spots around the world was openly authorised long ago in the case of the Congo by Cardinal Pietro Palazzini - even if the Pope's authorisation of the prelate himself was never publicised.
[the Vatican did not know about the potential abortive nature of the Pill, at the time, however…]
Three years ago, the question was raised again in the case of nuns working in Bosnia. The Pope side-stepped the question and, in a letter to the Bishop of Sarajevo, effectively left the decision up to the conscience of the individual.
Cardinal Palazzini, who is now retired, was quoted yesterday as saying that in the case of nuns, or any other women, the important factor at stake was the right of self-defence."
In the Summer 2007 issue of “Human Life Review” Stephen Vincent writes regarding the USCCB Ethical Directives for Catholic Hospitals that “Msgr. William B. Smith, professor of moral theology at St. Joseph's Seminary (Dunwoodie) in Yonkers, N.Y., claims that the document is ‘normative’ but not binding on individual bishops or health facilities. […] Msgr. Smith allowed that Catholic hospitals have a legitimate desire to treat rape victims with compassion and protect them against post-rape pregnancy, ‘but principles are true in pleasant circumstances or unpleasant circumstances. If it were up to me, emergency contraception would never be given in Catholic facilities’ due to the possibility of abortion.”
At any rate, in my mind, for a contraceptive to be licitly given as a defense after rape, a knowledgeable person would have to be morally certain that the contraceptive used would not reasonably risk causing an abortion. Moral certainty would exist if one has serious reason to hold that no abortion will result from using the contraceptive and no serious reason to the contrary.
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