Let's say a couple intends to avoid infection and doesn't intend to contracept.
Isn't the aspect of the condom that might aid the couple in avoiding infection also the same aspect of the condom that would contracept? If this nature of the condom is effective in avoiding disease (intent), wouldn't it necessarily be effective in contraception (despite intent)?
The only time in which conception is possible is when the condom fails in its infection-avoidance aspect, its only consideration for use.
(Unless I misunderstand how condoms work..)
That might not render it intrinsically evil, but doesn't it render it.. silly?
Mike: I begin to think that you haven't read my NCBQ article with sufficient care if you think that I try to settle the argument about the prophylactic use of condoms in marriage by stipulative definition. I seek to show what it means to say that a marital act has to be of the generative kind and then show why condomistic copulation fails to exhibit the behavioural pattern requuired for intercourse to be of the generative kind.
The case against condoms used for contraceptive purposes has not (until Rhonheimer) been that they turn an act per se apt for procreation into one that is per accidens inapt for procreation. That's the case against the pill not against the condom. To say that a man who sheaths his penis with a condom in order to prevent the deposition of an ejaculate in his wife's vagina is intending a behavioural performance which is per se apt for procreation is just fantasy. Your speaking of a latex bag that just "happens to be in the vagina" grossly misdescribes the intentional character of what is taking place.
Condomistic copulation is an act per se inapt for procreation. What a couple fear if a condom breaks is that what they have done may literally become per accidens apt for procreation, but it would only be per accidens!
It is precisely because condomistic copulation is per se inapt for procreation that it is not unitive. For spouses enact their 'one body' unity by acting in a way which, if they are fertile, leaves open the possibility that their conjoined powers of reproduction cooperate in the conception of a child (see my NCBQ article at p.740). As Humanae Vitae #12 clearly teaches, intercourse has unitive significance only if it has procreative significance.
As it happens, I do think that your construal of Martini is excessively charitable to him. It's worth bearing in mind that his own expertise is in New Testament textual criticism, and that his moral theology is picked up from fellow Jesuits of his generation like Josef Fuchs.
Best wishes,
Luke.
Three points:
(1) The English word 'intention' is capable of being used in a number of different senses. In the current context, it is absolutely necessary to carefully elucidate which sense is being used. Without this, arguments which on the surface seem to prove something may in fact be failing. (The Catholic philosopher Anscombe pointed this out in great detail.)
(2) The principle of double effect does not come into play when one of the proposed actions is already known to be immoral.
(3) Trying to discover *why* contraceptive acts are intrinsically immoral is an excellent thing to do -- but is of no immediate help in the current context.
Mike, thanks for your considered response. It is, in my experience, the first attempt I have seen to articulate and justify the broadened definition of “vaginal intercourse”, a broadening which must succeed for the pro-condom argument to succeed in turn. That is a rather sobering state of affairs, considering the amount of ink and verbage that has gone into the justification of the pro-condom position over the years. Nevertheless, I’m not convinced that the attempt succeeds.
I have time only for a very brief reply to a couple of points.
Before commenting in particular, let me both agree readily that Prof. Gormally’s account is a much more profound expression of the anti-condom position than my own rather superficial journalistic piece, and disagree that our positions are as distinguishable as you have (in good faith) construed. I certainly would subscribe to his argument in its entirety, and would like to think that my “unitve” approach, if it is seen as such, is one that is thoroughly compatible with—and indeed implicit in, the “aptness” approach of Prof. Gormally. Whether LG sees it that way of course is up to him.
Re HH
“It doesn't seem plausible, at least to me, to claim that the mere touching of vagina and/or cervix by semen is always necessary to make conjugal intercourse unitively significant. Aside from how it causes certain feelings or might lead to conception, I don't find the mere touching to be morally significant in the slightest. So I don't think it would be fair to hold HH to the claim that the mere touching is morally significant as a necessary condition of unitive significance."
Fair or not, I do nevertheless hold this “touching” to be of great significance to the unitive dimension of marital relations.
First, an argument from authority. The Church has always held that this “touching” or ‘deposition of the semen’, as I put it, is of supreme unitive significance. Indeed, it is this touching which consummates the marriage. And importantly, this is irrespective of the subjective experiences or motives of the spouses. For example, if a newlywed couple are attempting contraceptive condomistic intercourse as their first conjugal act and, to their horror, the condom breaks, the resultant deposition will nevertheless consummate the marriage (provided there are no other impediments of course). And—it is my understanding—that, conversely, if they are using the condom prophylactically (against, eg HIV) and successfully, the marriage in the eyes of the Church is not consummated in this act.
Secondly: You say that there is more than one way to construe the claim that “a husband is not making a complete “gift” of himself to his wife.” True. But: how can a husband even set out to make a complete gift of himself in sexual activity that substitutes for completed marital intercourse? What at best is being given in these cases?
A possible reply is that the spouses are giving “pleasure” to each other and that
A possible reply is that the spouses are giving “pleasure” to each other and that generates the unitive good between them.
But this reply would be inadequate. It doesn’t respect the complementary (ie non-interchangeable) role of man and woman which characterises the sexual act. Essentially at the most profound level in the sexual act, the man is the donor of the gift, and the woman is the receiver of that gift. On the level of mere pleasure, both may be donors and receivers. It is only when we focus on the deposit of semen by the man in the woman that the man emerges in the sexual act as uniquely a donor and the woman uniquely as a receiver.
Thus, I agree there may be many ways in which a husband doesn’t make a complete gift of himself to his wife (and vice versa). But without the gift of the man’s substance, the gestures of the sexual act are radically incomplete: so much so that for all the language of the bodily activity involved, there is in fact NO gift from the man as man which is received by the woman as woman. The gestures are empty, and as John Paul II has said, a kind of lie. There is, as I have submitted, no real sex taking place, whatever the subjective experiences of the participants.
For these reasons, I hold that deposition of semen is of crucial importance to the definition of the sexual act.
…
You then [rightly] enquire as to the rationale behind the theologically standard definition of the conjugal act (the definition I uphold). Your reply: “…if “safe” conjugal sex isn’t real sex, that can only be because the husband is withholding the gift of his fertility from his wife by trapping his semen in a bag”.
First let us note that this proffered rationale simply doesn't account for all the ways the Church has defended the conjugal act. A man who has permanently withheld his fertility by undergoing a vasectomy, but who can nevertheless generate seminal fluid, is still able to perform the sexual act in the eyes of the Church despite his explicit and gravely immoral project. By contrast, the Church holds that a man who is impotent by way of being unable to generate any seminal fluid whatsoever is, however much he would wish otherwise, unable to perform the sexual act.
One may object regarding the vasectomy case: this is an historical event rendering the man chronically infertile. The man strictly speaking can’t withhold his fertility here and now in the sexual act because here and now there is no fertility to withhold.
My reply:
1. Suppose the vasectomy is reversible. Isn’t the man withholding his fertility here and now by choosing not to reverse it? Yet the Church would classify the act as one of genuine intercourse nevertheless.
2. ( A further variation) The Church would I’m certain hold that some new sort of spermicide that picked out all live sperm and killed them, but allowed the genital fluid to pass in the act, would not convert the sexual act into an act of pseudo-sex. But on your reading o
But on your reading of the traditional rationale, this would not count as an act of sexual intercourse, as it would be a clear example of the husband withholding his fertility.
My conclusion: whatever the rationale behind the traditional teaching of the Church, it can’t be that the genuine sexual act is one which precludes the “withholding of fertility”. I conclude, as above, that what the Church sees as the genuine sexual act is irrevocably bound up with the act as a giving and receiving. This approach adequately explains all the rulings and teachings of the Church in this area.
….
Re. LG
Two comments on the critique.
Without prejudice to LG’s own reply here.
1. I think it’s important to note that “inapt” is a word which has connotations of both causality and fittingness. A husband gynaecologist who impregnates his wife via IVF is performing a very effective “procreative” act. But it is not “apt”. [Let us set aside issues surrounding masturbation as a means of obtaining semen and imagine a syringe is used for the purpose.] This is because it is not “fitting” or, as is said, it is not carried out in the natural manner. And if we inquire as to what acts are classified as natural or unnatural in this context we arrive at an explanation that tracks the dimension of sex as gift – giving and unitive. In this sense, the unitive/gift-giving model I’ve relied on (more as a heuristic device than a fundamental preference of theology) is closely related to the “aptness” model – to which, as I’ve said, I subscribe as well. [I do hope that is not too vague a point.]
2. I simply disagree that “ejaculating inside the vagina” is an accurate or honest description of condomistic sex. In condomist sex, one is ejaculating into a (hopefully) impermeable latex bag.. Ejaculating into a latex bag is not, I suggest, a per se apt means of procreation. And there is, I would think, a morally significant difference between a woman and a latex bag.
I breezed through the comments and didn't see this point addressed (unless I missed it).
Doesn't this whole debate assume that condoms provide "safe sex"? If HIV transmission is still possible (or even likely) even with condom use (condom failure etc.), wouldn't this altogether make the whole discussion pointless?
More to the point. If I had AIDS, would I have sexual intercourse with my wife with a condom?
Answer: There is no way in hell I would expose my wife to the possibility of acquiring this horrible disease because my "marital needs" must be met. We would pratice abstinence for the rest of our marriage.
"The strongest argument against prophylactic condom use, it seems to me, is that it's psychologically next to impossible for a fertile couple to use condoms for that purpose without also intending to contracept. Who, after all, would want to pass AIDS on to a conceived child? That alone might cause the Pope to tell Catholics that abstinence, at least for fertile couples, is the only morally safe choice. But again, more work needs to be done in order to determine what, if anything, would be intrinsically evil about any and all use of condoms. So far, I just don't see it.
I fail to see why this situation must be considered immoral. If my intention is to not pass a deadly infection to my children, and the only way to do that is by means of preventing their conception in the first place, why would such contraception be evil?
Hugh and Luke:
You've taken the argument deeper than where I left it in my post. I need a day or two to ponder it; once I have, I shall make a new post.
FD:
The Church teaches that intentionhal contraception is intrinsically evil, and that what is intrinsically evil may never be done so that good might come of it or evil avoided. Given such premises, it follows that one may never intentionally contracept, even to save the life of another.
Best,
Mike
I find it interesting that people are ignoring what the Vatican has said on this issue in the past, because the Holy Office issued a decree back in 1941 in which it stated quite clearly that the conjugal act requires that ". . . a man in some fashion, even though imperfectly, penetrates the vagina and immediately effects, in a natural manner, a semination, at least partial, within the vagina, with this reservation that the entire male organ need not enter the vagina." [Holy Office, decree dated 12 Feb. 1941; see Fr. Nicholas Halligan, O.P., The Administration of the Sacraments, page 471] Now clearly, the use of a condom prevents the depositing of a husband's seminal fluid into his wife's vagina, and as a consequence, sex involving the use of a condom is not a true conjugal act; instead, is an abuse of nature, because it is a gravely disordered action that frustrates the proper completion of the marital act, which necessarily involves the insemination of the woman.
You don't mention the fact that a rubber will NOT prevent the transmission of AIDS.
All else is important, but sorta 'academic' compared to the real likelihood of death.
One need not go back to a 1941 Holy Office Decree on this question. Church teaching on this subject appears to be settled by Pope Paul VI’s official confirmation on 28th January 1978 of a CDF declaration dated 13th May 1977 which dealt with the question of what is required in order for a sexual act to be capable of consummating a marriage. See Sacra Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei, Decretum circa impotentiam quae matrimonium dirimet, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 69 (1977), p426, Pope Paul VI, Allocutio ad Tribunalis Sacrae Romanae Rotae Decanum, Praelatos Auditores Officiales et Advocates, ineunte anno iudiciali, die 28 ianuarii 1978, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 70 (197
, pp183-184. For more on this whole debate see McGrath Aidan O.F.M, A Controversy Concerning Male Impotence, Editrice Pontifica Universita Gregorina Roma 1988.
The basis for understanding what is and is not correct behaviour in sexual ethics is a correct understanding of the conjugal act. The conjugal act must be, minimally, an act capable of consummating a marriage. Deliberately ejaculating outside of a woman's vagina cannot constitute a consummatory act of a marriage and therefore cannot be a conjugal act. An ejaculatory act that is not a conjugal act is grave matter. The traditional teaching of the Church has always condemned ejaculatory acts deliberately aimed at places other than a spouse's vagina. The 1978 confirmation of Pope Paul VI clears up this matter and shows that a condom affects the act per se, not per accidens.
Kevin, I am unconvinced.
Sexual intercourse is characterised by the donation of sperm by the man and reception by the woman in the due vessel – the vagina. There is no donation in condomistic intercourse. In what sense does the woman receive the semen? The only thing that receives the sperm is an impermeable bag attached to the man. The woman is merely a passive environment for this man-centred activity. The definition of intercourse to which you subscribe does not accord equal dignity to man and woman. The traditional definition of sexual intercourse is characterised by complementarity.
I put my fist which is tightly closed over a coin, onto your hand and then withdraw it, with the coin still in my fist. Have you “received” the coin? Not in any but the most trivial sense.
Again, the 1941 Holy Office degree speaks of a “semination”. That is, a sowing of seed. When one sows seed, one casts it into fertile soil. Throwing it onto an infertile plastic sheet is not an act of sowing. Condomistic intercourse is not donation. Neither is it a semination.
Cheers
By chance came accross this forum and got interested. In response to Hugh's opinions I wish to make some observations for his attention as follows.
1.The fundamental precept of natural moral law is conceded to be that a human act is goo if and only if it promotes human goods such as life, recreation, truth, etc.Otherwise if it suppresses any of the human goods it is a morally evil act.
2.An intrinsically evil act is an act that is intended to suppress a human good thus causing a human evil morally speaking.
3. Human life is a human good just as human recreation, and specifically sexual recreation is a human good.
4. During an infertile perion of a woman sexual intercourse can never be contralife and hence never contraceptive.
5. Thus using a condom as a prophylactic strategy is not an act that can be described as intrinsically evil during an infertile period.
That is all about the intrinsicality of the evilness of human acts during an infertile period of a woman. Now about sexual act as a self-giving act, if I am to borrow the terminology from JP II's theology of the body.
1. A gift once given, for logical reasons, implies a permanent transfer of full ownership rights.
2. Some ownerships are partial, such as when we speak of use ownership, fruits ownership as distinct from substance ownership.
3. In marriage all the three types of ownership are there: use ownership implied in matrimonial sexual recreation, fruits ownership implied through procreation, and substance ownership implied through matrimonial permanence.
4. In view of the above it follows that sexual intercourse is first procreationally unitive and secondly recreationally unitive.
5. Thus, it doesn't seem to make sense to me to continue insisting on consomless intercourse in order for the unitive function of matrimony to exist.
Conclusion:
The teachings of Humane Vitae and veritas Splendor must be faulted and updated along these lines at least speaking philosophyically (I am a good catholic).
I was involved with a gnostic sect for a few years and one of their primary teachings was about "white tantrism."
Essentially, sex was primarly seen as a spiritually regenerative act. The number one rule: orgasm can never be attained. Instead, couples were to pray to their Divine Mother Kundalini throughout the union, separate before the orgasm, and then perform various breathing exercises and mantras in order to move the energy up the spinal column.
The idea was that we mirrored God in the sexual embrace. The power of the union, the Mother, could destroy the sins and also build spiritual bodies, but not both at the same time. For this reason, the couple had to choose between the two. Alternatively, they could just ask the Mother to do whichever was best.
Couples were encouraged to give the "kundalini energy" to the member who needed it most. Both were to pray simultaneously for the same purpose.
Homosexuality was thought to be spiritually useless in the same way that connecting two positive ends of a battery is useless.
Condoms were thought to be a waste because they somehow interfered with the generation of this energy. It was labeled a "crime against nature".
I thought about how "white tantrism" differs from the practice of using a condom. The gnostics say that tantra still allows for the possibility of life, as it only takes a single sperm to fertilize an egg, hence it can't be considered a form of contraception. This seems reasonable enough I suppose, but some of the other practices are questionable.
In any case, I'm looking for counter arguments. If you know of any, please share.
Thanks.
what about all the kids or young women who are raped? no abortion, no condoms no life
Without abortion, no life? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
What does any of that have to do with this post?
Please enter into the discourse; don't just insert random ideological slogans.
Sorry, comment appeared on main thread for some reason.
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