On Condoms: Breaking News

John Allen says a document is being discussed - but there is no "official" document until the Pope approves of course.

forthcoming Vatican document is set to state that use of condoms by a married couple, where one partner is infected with HIV/AIDS and the other is not, can be acceptable to prevent the transmission of the disease.

Sources say the document will insist that this position does not mark a break with the church's traditional ban on birth control, expressed in Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae. What would be approved is not contraception, they say, but disease prevention.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragàn, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, confirmed in an April 23 interview with the Roman newspaper La Repubblica that his office was asked by Pope Benedict XVI to prepare a document on the subject.

Speaking on background, an official in Lozano Barragàn's office told NCR that the document will sanction the use of condoms to halt the spread of the disease "inside marriage and the family, not outside of it."

The official said the document has been approved by the consultors of the Council for Health Pastoral Care, and is now awaiting review from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He said it should appear shortly.

Experts caution, however, that until the pope approves a document and orders its publication, anything can happen.

Clarifications from Cardinal Barragan:

"Both commandments must be taken into account," he said. "But these are very general principles. The study is being done reflecting on the different opinions of experts on the application of both principles to the concrete case of the condom in these specific circumstances.

"The theologians give their opinions. We, as a council, cannot say, 'I adopt this opinion.' We contribute the existing opinions to the dialogue that, on the other hand, are known."

Cardinal Lozano Barragán added: "The Holy Father will see the results of this dialogue and with the help he has from the Holy Spirit must tell us, if he wishes, where we must go. He might also think that it isn't the appropriate moment to pronounce himself.

"I repeat: What I think and my commitment is simply to be an echo of what the Pope says. I don't have a personal opinion as head of this dicastery. My official opinion is to reproduce exactly to the letter what the Pope says."

I would simply add that if it were all so simple as "no" - that's what we would have. But I maintain, based purely on nothing more than intuition (so you can stop reading now) that the particular situation addressed is probably one of circumstances in which we are far away from the ideals of the Theology of the Body or what have you. Of course, a spouse who truly loves would not even want to take the tiniest risk of exposing his or her spouse to HIV infection. If you were HIV-positive, would you risk infecting your spouse? Probably not. But I suspect the circumstances under discussion are quite different, and are circumstances in which coercion and other factors play a role. Tragically, but true.

Comments

[Fr Martin Fox]

I'm going to resist the temptation to comment on something before it reaches the holy father.

Really: if I can believe that bread and wine become -- in my hands, when I speak His words! -- His Body and Blood, even though I can detect no change?

Then, I can believe that the Holy Spirit will assist our bishops, together with our holy father, in these matters.

[Janice]

Amy,

You and John Allen are late to the party. Go to Catholic News Agency. They report that the Vatican is only STARTING to discuss it and that the CDF is the responsible discastery. Moreover, it doesn't look like it will be a green light for condom use anyway. Two prelates have spoken out on the subject, both negatively for condom use, now or eventually.

[Thom]

If true, this may be significant in ways people don't realize.

It will be a tacit acknowledgement that the Church of Europe is becoming the Church of Africa and Asia. The third world is the future of the faith, where new members are growing by leaps and bounds -- and people there are dying in extraordinary numbers because of the spread of HIV among those who are married.

The church there has to contend with challenges that are cultural, tribal, social and economic -- and vastly different from what people live with in Europe or America. Some of the African bishops have been pleading for years for some milder, more pastoral teaching on the use of condoms to accomodate HIV among married couples. Maybe this is it.

Also significant, I think, is that Benedict asked for this study, and seems willing to bend the rules. I can't imagine his predecessor would have done that. Not at all.

[JonathanR.]

"Willing to bend the rules"? That's a clumsy conclusion to come to just because a study was commissioned. Remember how Humanae Vitae came about?

[Marie]

Honest question: How many married couples -- in which one person is infected with AIDS and the other is not -- are NOT using condoms because the Church (so far) forbids it?

[meg]

Janice:

Amy blogged on this last week, and shut off discussion until we knew more.

[JP]

What Janice says sounds about right to me. I cannot understand how there could be any "permission" granted for condom use in marriage. It would be tantamount to saying that evil can be done for the sake of good--the object of the act here is a perverted (in the classic sense of that term) use of the sexual faculty, done for the sake of the good end of preventing the flow of HIV/AIDS. The claim that this would not be permitting contraception, but only disease prevention, is thoroughly garbled. Condoms are inherently contraceptive no matter what the intention of the agent. One can no more decide or intend that the use of condoms will not be contraceptive than one can decide that hitting your thumb with a hammer will no longer hurt (unless one means to use the condom as a balloon or a bungee cord for smallish animals).

It seems extremely far-fetched that the Holy See will publish anythingof the sort. And may I say that this "the Pope is going to allow x" hype is exactly the kind that preceded HUMANAE VITAE, only to the grave disappointment of many?

To revisit a point that was brought up on one of last week's threads: Why is abstinence not the obvious choice in cases like HIV/AIDS? Aside from the fact that condoms can be unreliable (which is a lesser point), don't those who are suffering from AIDS, and their spouses, have more urgent matters on their minds than sexual intercourse (full disclosure: I am not married myself, in fact, I am a member of a religious order). Samuel Johnson once said that the news a man receives that he is to be hanged in a fortnight concentrates the mind wonderfully. Shouldn't a similar "concentration of the mind" come over those who are in danger of death from AIDS, or whose spouses are in such danger? I hope that if I were a married man and I had somehow contracted HIV/AIDS, I would be far from pressing my wife for sexual relations. Abstinence is difficult and painful to be sure, but worse than dying from AIDS? Or having given AIDS to your spouse--knowing your restraint could have prevented it?

[Clayton]

Cardinal Barragan's interview with ZENIT seems a bit more measured than Allen's story.

I wonder if we learned anything from the period of study -- and attendant speculation -- that preceded Humanae Vitae.

[Thom]

Jonathan: you're right. He's not "willing to bend the rules." My clumsy mistake. Rather, he's willing to reconsider the issue, and wants to hear what others think.

But I still don't think even taking that step is something John Paul would have done. He would have considered the issue closed.

[Will Barrett]

I am going to paste some thoughts I've shared with others on this subject which is vexing I think (sorry that it is so long).

In discussions of this sort (i.e, discussions of condoms, AIDS and the Church's teaching) I wonder if we are forgetting another important moral consideration. In fact, I think it is the most important moral consideration and for some reason it never ever seems to enter into anyone's calculus. Isn't it immoral to put one's spouse (or even one's sexual partner) at risk of a mortal disease? Even if a condom will reduce the risk considerably how could one ever put one's spouse at the risk of such a disease?

Therefore, before asking what a married couple (or a non-married couple) who wants to have sex should do in such a situation, shouldn't we ask the prior question: Should this couple even be having sex? I for one think that the risk, however small it might be, of transmitting a mortal, albeit less deadly and more managable these days in the West (see for example Andrew Sullivan or Magic Johnson), of passing such a disease onto one's spouse leads to a moral duty not to engage in sex. The same of course would apply to any sexual partner. So the question of
whether condoms can or cannot be used is beside the point.

But what of the couple that disregards this risk and wants to engage in marital relations? I am not sure what one says. What do we do with someone who says, "Okay well I still want to have sex with my wife? I have AIDS but I want to have sex." Do we say well you have to have sex without a condom because using a condom obscures the nuptial meaning of sexual intercourse?

I agree ourb first response has to be to say that under the 5th Commandment you shouldn't have sex with your spouse because of the risk, even with a condom on. I understand we should expect people to choose that. But what if the person says, "Screw that, I am going to have intercourse." Or what do we say to the wife who is faced with such a situation? Do we tell the wife you can't force your husband to wear a condom because that will destroy the nuptial meaning of the sexual act? Hasn't the husband by committing adultery, getting AIDS, and now thinking he can risk his wife's life already destroyed whatever nuptial meaning there was? And if that is the case, shouldn't we tell the wife to protect herself because her husband is like an aggressor? Certainly when counseling the husband and wife we should say, "Look, the Cross requires that you forsake intercourse with your wife." That is the right answer and that so few people ever even think of that before saying use a condom is a failure of imagination. But what about this? My sense is that there is a non-negligible number of women in Africa who are faced with a situation where they are coerced into intercourse with their husbands; they don't have the freedom to say no. What do we do? And can the Church say anything that doesn't undercut her constant teaching?

[Liam]

It seems more likely to me that the study and any document(s) that might ensue in the (distant?) future is not so much about reaching a different conclusion as about amplifying the discussion of the current teaching so that it has a better chance of being understood as more plausible by the intended audience(s). In 1933 and 1968, there was not an STD of such epidemic proportions with such consequences as there is today in many parts of the world. The conclusions of the teaching may not change, but if the teaching is not amplified in such a way as to credibly address new facts, then it's less likely to be paid attention to. The Pope would seem to understand that, notwithstanding the faction within the Church that prefers to pretend that docility of the faithful is the more pressing need.

[AmericanPapist]

Allen is wrong - his story is based on comments already contradicted by Cardinal Barragan's interview yesterday with Zenit.

[Ian]

If the Pope approves such a document he will violate the precise words in Humanae Vitae and Casti Connubii, as I commented in Amy's earlier post.

Therefore, we would have proof that the Holy See is capable of making contradictory teachings on morality and faith. This necessarily imputes Error on the parts of Pope Paul VI and Pius IX, or alternately, Benedict XVI.

This undermines the dogmatic proclamations of Vatican I, which maintain the infallibility of the Pope regarding the teaching of faith and morals.

By undermining Vatican I, the Church would undermine all of the Ecumenical Councils.

If the Magisterium isn't merely hot air, the Pope should be incapable of approving the AIDS manifesto.

If memory serves me correctly, didn't NCR pull a similar stunt in 1968, claiming that the church was going to approve birth control just before Humanae Vitae?

[Brian]

For those interested, I posed this question to Fr. Levis at EWTN earlier this week. I have pasted my question and Fr. Levis' answer below.

Change in doctrine?
Question from on 04-24-2006:
I understand that this is just a rumor at this point, but is it possible for the Holy See to change position on the use of condoms in the case of married spouses where one spouse is HIV infected? On what basis could this teaching be reconciled with Humanae Vitae which states in paragraph 14:

"Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one."

I know we are just dealing with hypotheticals right now, but any insight would be appreciated.

Answer by Fr. Robert J. Levis on 04-24-2006:
Dear Brian, I am sure that the possibility of using the condom licitly in these instances has not been accepted by the Magisterium of the Church. In this instance it would connote the loss of the seed of life, always condemned by natural law and the Church. Fr. Bob Levis

[Marc]

JP wrote: "Condoms are inherently contraceptive no matter what the intention of the agent. One can no more decide or intend that the use of condoms will not be contraceptive than one can decide that hitting your thumb with a hammer will no longer hurt (unless one means to use the condom as a balloon or a bungee cord for smallish animals)."
One could just as easily say that hysterectomy is inherently contraceptive, yet hysterectomy for uterine malignancy is the classic example of the principle of double effect in action.

[F C Bauerschmidt]

People are acting as if this would necessitate a repudiation of Humanae Vitae and, apparently, the ensuing collapse of Catholic doctrine. While I am not an expert in moral theology, it seems to me that all the approval of the use of condoms by married couples in which one partner was HIV+ would show is that this is a case where the principle of double effect applies. This would hardly be a radical move.

[thomas tucker]

Ian- get a grip. The pope is indeed capable of teaching error. The charism of infallibility is very limited to specific circumstances.

[seamole]

If the Pope's intent is to sign a document allowing [i]coitus interruptus[/i], he will be frustrated by the Holy Spirit. One way this might happen is for the Pope to die before signing the document. Obviously, he needs prayers.

[Jeff]

Amy, Amy, Amy -- is that title for this post a Freudian bra...i mean, slip?

...condoms: breaking....

Humor or not, isn't that one of the key points to keep in mind? If you are not intending "openness to new life," the latex may have other ideas. . .

[JP]

This entire episode appears to be the result of those in the Vatican who wish to force The Pope's hand. IMHO, approving condom use for "couples" where one is infected with HIV is just a way to eventually get condom use accepted
for all.

If this is approved, there will be demands to expand it to other forms of disease, and to include unmarried couples both hetrosexual and homosexual. By making this issue primairily a health issue, the moral arguments are diminished.AIDS in Africa is primairily spread through rape. The UN has had condom distribution available in many African nations for years; it appears the rapists are just not interested.

In Catholic nations from Europe to North America,the incidence of HIV amongst married couples is low. Most of these couples also practice some form of birth control- what they want ultimatley is for the Church to dispense Hamanae Vitae and its attendent moral prohibitions.

[JP]

Marc:

There is no comparison I can see between the use of condoms in heterosexual sexual intercourse and hysterectomy except for the resulting infertility. The ACT of a hysterectomy is a surgical procedure removing a woman's uterus--it is not a sex act. And if one means it to be a very elaborate way of making sure one never has children again--sort of a gross alternative to a tubal ligation--then one is choosing a very burdensome thing to be sure.

If, say, a Catholic who thinks she is observing the Church's teaching on contraception is somehow able to sweet-talk an unscrupulous physician into removing her uterus (when there is nothing wrong with it) just so she can have baby-free sex, then that would clearly be wrong. Not just contraceptive, but a form of self-maiming. But that's not generally what happens in hysterectomy--in most cases, a diseased organ is removed. And yes, conception for such women is no longer possible. But that doesn't make hysterectomies contraceptive actions. They're legitimate surgeries.

It is contracepted sex acts that are at issue here, not morally legitimate actions that can by implication render someone infertile.

[Will Barrett]

Amy, you write: "Of course, a spouse who truly loves would not even want to take the tiniest risk of exposing his or her spouse to HIV infection. If you were HIV-positive, would you risk infecting your spouse? Probably not. But I suspect the circumstances under discussion are quite different, and are circumstances in which coercion and other factors play a role. Tragically, but true."

I think that is what we need to focus the discussion on. I am sorry but talking about losing the "seed of life" in these circumstances bespeaks someone so abstracted from reality that it is hard to take him seriously.

Again, spouses shouldn't be having sex if one of them has AIDS. But what if the husband is basically forcing his wife into it? Do we say, "Well, if you use a condom you are losing the seed of life, so you really should have sex without it, risk you life." I am an NFP using, Humanae Vitae loving, contraception hating, Catholic. But I just don't think it credible or required to say, "Well, you have to put your life at risk less you lose the seed of life." If your husband is basically forcing or coercing or pressuring you into sex, the nuptial meaning of the act is already shot. I can't see, but willing to be convinced, how we damage the Church's teaching by saying, "This isn't really marital sex anyway, so you can protect yourself." Would it be a little like the questionable teaching of the American bishops with regard to rape victims and emergency contraception?

I ask all of this because I am confused and I understand the concerns people have about the moral principles at stake here. And I think the overriding principle is, "You shouldn't risk your spouses life by having sex with or without a condom." But what do we do in the situation Amy details?

[Joseph Quinlan]

To say that one must "choose the lesser of two evils" does not mean that one is endorsing the lesser evil. I learned long ago that Augustine once taught (I'm paraphrasing)if you are tired of your current wife and decide to have someone on the side- don't kill your wife for expediency sake. Keep her and your new woman alive and hopefully well fed, etc. Amy's point that this teaching is for people living far away from the principles of the theology of the body is very accurate. The media will definitely spin this to say that the church now approves. I think that the older theological language of choosing the lesser of two evils is easier for the common person to understand then explaining double effect. Essentially this condom issue comes down to not killing your spouse.

[JPC]

Seems we have two JPs chiming in here. For clarity's sake, I'll change my handle to JPC.

[Rich Leonardi]

FC's comment about the principle of double-effect is somewhat persuasive and echoes/mirrors what Kevin Miller from HMSblog wrote about the matter last week. If he wanders over here, perhaps he can post it.

[Rich Leonardi]

FWIW, I think what everyone fears is what the usual suspects will do with this "exception," if that's what it proves to be, in our parishes and elsewhere.

[Susan Peterson]

As far as the hysterectomy scenario goes, I have heard that there were lots of hysterectomies done for this reason during the period when Catholics still thought they had to obey the church's rules about contraception and sterilization. Sometimes the doctor and the woman conspired to deceive the husband determined to follow the rules...sometimes a husband and a doctor conspired to decieve a woman determined to follow the rules...and sometimes the doctor took it on himself to decide the woman had had enough children and told her she needed the operation. This is anecdotal evidence gathered in conversations with Catholics maybe 10 years older than I am (I am nearly 56)and sometimes with their adult children who had heard the story. In one case, for instance, the woman had been RH sensitized.. and typically, had one healthy child, one mildly affected, one that barely survived...and the rest died in utero. (This doesn't happen any more, due to RhoGam, which came on the market late in 1968.) Pure calendar rhythm was the only method available (or at least well known, so practically available) at that time. Somewhere around the 5th stillborn the doctor told the woman she needed a hysterectomy and she chose not to seek another opinion. I think we can at least understand and sympathize.
Susan Peterson

[JPK]

Will,
What you describe- sexual assault- is grounds for a divorce. The spouse can also be indicted for such actions. Condoms are no guarentee that the victim will not get infected.

[Susan Peterson]

As far as the condom issue goes, American Papist had links to several documents and discussions of this issue. There are several ways of approaching it..several different ways of saying why it is wrong, and several different ways of saying why it could be right. It isn't a simple issue. I think discussion of it would be more profitable if we all read those documents first.
SFP

[JPC]

If I may multi-task here:

I respectfully disagree with Fr. Bauerschmidt. To call this an instance of the principle of double-effect is, it seems to me, begging the question. One of the traditional criteria for the use of double effect is that the means used must be good or at least indifferent--and it is precisely whether condoms can be good or at least indifferent that is in question. I think not, and it seems clearly stated in HUMANAE VITAE that it is not. Condomized sex, in the opinion of some Catholic philosophers and theologians, amounts to a kind of sexual perversion along the lines of mutual masturbation, which cannot be made good by any subjective intention of the agent.

Will Barrett's point is well-taken, drawing us back to Amy's original question. I don't quite know what to say, but there is a long-standing confessional practice of many priests (not the dissenting type, by the way) on a related point that might shed light. If a wife is approached by her husband for sex, and he insists on using a condom, she is not obligated on pain of sin to leave the marriage, or to resist his advance at the risk of physical abuse. The fault is not imputed to her, for what she consents to she does regretfully/unwillingly for the sake of the marriage bond, which is after all the sacrament involved and very important. I don't know whether there is a similar practice or teaching for husbands whose wives won't stop taking the pill--perhaps, though perhaps not, since men are the natural initiators of intercourse and are rarely in the position of being physically intimidated by their wives.

[Sonetka]

I'm not an expert on this issue, but wouldn't sex with a condom be inherently different from totally infertile (hysterectomy etc) sex because it doesn't qualify as entirely unitive?

[Lawrence King]

Brian wrote:

I posed this question to Fr. Levis at EWTN earlier this week....

His answer is the right answer, according to one of the approved schools of Catholic moral theology.

* Neo-Thomism / Casuistry (Grisez, Finnis): The physical act, considered alone, has a moral character. If it is immoral, it cannot be approved in any situation.

In this view, condom use in sex is always wrong, because the physical result is an alteration of the sex act. Intention is irrelevant.

* Thomism / Virtue ethics (Aquinas, Porter, Kaveny): An "act" is a combination of physical action and intention. This complete act is the unit that is morally judged. If it is immoral, it cannot be approved in any situation.

In this view, there is no act called "condom use". There is certainly an evil act called "contraception", which requires physical prevention of conception as well as the intention to prevent pregnancy.

So to a Thomist, using a condom to save a life is not a contraceptive act, because the couple do not intend to prevent pregnancy. Of course, they expect that pregancy will be prevented, but even so, they would be delighted if pregnancy occurred. One way to test this: if an alternative device were available that prevented disease but kept sex open to life, they would prefer that to the condom: they choose the condom because it's the only way to prevent the disease transmission. Ergo, no intention to contracept, so it's not a separate act, and by the PDE the condom use is licit.

Note: I certainly agree that condoms are not fully effective to prevent disease, but that's not the point here. To a Neo-Thomist, even if it were 100% effective it would be forbidden.

* Proportionalism (McCormick): An "act", including physical and intentional aspects, is only a pre-moral thing; it cannot be judged until you have weighed all the consequences. Thus no specific act is necessarily immoral in every circumstance.

Proportionalism, the third option, would consider even intentional contraception licit in some cases.

Veritatis Splendor condemned proportionalism but did not distinguish between the first two schools. It would be good if folks like EWTN didn't simply report their school's view as if it were "the" Catholic viewpoint.

[Lawrence King]

JBC wrote:

To call this an instance of the principle of double-effect is, it seems to me, begging the question. One of the traditional criteria for the use of double effect is that the means used must be good or at least indifferent....

That's where the distinction between the Thomist and the Neo-Thomist view is important. If condom use constitutes an act then it can't be justified by the PDE. If an act requires an intention, then it can.

I personally think the Thomist view is more reasonable, because that's what is used in a just war. In a just war, you can shoot an enemy sentry who has fallen asleep. Considered as a physical act alone, shooting a sleeping man in the heart would certainly seem evil.

It seems to me, therefore, that if you choose the purely-physical criteria of the Neo-Thomists you need to be consistent and totally revise your view of just war.

[Katie]

How many more times does one have to say it: why don't you check out the effect of Italian politics on church stuff. To recap: recent Italian elections gave the majority by a few thousand votes to a rag-bag communist, refounded communist, ex-communist, no-global, anti-clerical, semi-Zapaterist coalition led by Romano-Prodi with some Left Catholic friends. Given the slimness of the majority it is important for the Italian left to isolate Benedict or they are left with too much of an internal conflict in the coalition. In the last few days Benedict's main rival for the hearts and minds of Leftist Catholics in Europe and elsewhere, Cardinal Carlo-Maria Martini published a dialogue which he had with a newly elected Catholic Leftist politician in the Left weekly l'Espresso. In fact the Cardinal makes the front cover of this worthy publication with the title 'Cosi e la vita'. Martini expresses himself in a way which implies direct contradition with Benedict over ABORTION as well as condoms etc. What they are trying to provoke is a big split-up in the Catholic world. The 'they' here is the Italian Left. Martini is probably just a useful tool. Then along comes Card. Barragan, curiously enough, in another left wing newspaper, also speaking about condoms. But Barragan has had to go around 'clarifying' what he really meant for the last few days. Watch out for a future posting as Nuncio to the Galapagos Islands. If you want to understand the Vatican during the pontificate of Benedict, it will be necessary to pay some attention to Italy. The Pope is going to make his stand in Europe from Italy and not from London, or France or Germany. The left in Italy is pro-Palestinian, anti-American, ex-Communist or Refounded Communist and pro-gay marriage and pro-abortion, BUT they need the votes of the Catholic left-centre to form a government. That is what all this is about, Amy. Plus, as I say, knocking off Benedict because they really DO want the church out of the public square in Europe. Check Sandro for a more nuanced version!!!!!

[Will Barrett]

"What you describe- sexual assault- is grounds for a divorce. The spouse can also be indicted for such actions. Condoms are no guarentee that the victim will not get infected."

JPK, I understand that. I have made the point above that the moral principle we should be first espousing is that a husband and a wife where one is infected SHOULD NOT be having sex because of the risk however small of trasmitting a fatal disease. But I am dealing with a situation where that advice won't be followed in large part because of the husband's insistence and pressure. What then? It is easy to say, "It is grounds for divorce." What is the reality on the ground in Africa? We know here how difficult it can be for an abused wife to break free from the bond for a whole host of reasons. In good marriages, wives relent and have intercourse when they have no interest because of the insistence of their husbands. What about a less ideal situation? What then? That is the heart of the question here I think.

JPC makes a good point. And I think that a husband probably could be justified in making love to his wife even though she insists on using the Pill (though he wants her to stop).

[Will Barrett]

I hestitate on that last thought because of the possibility of the pill acting as an abortifacient (sp?).

[JPK]

If a spouse is infected -and let's say he was infected by a contaminated blood transfusion- but he insisted on his wife's submission regardless of the danger to his wife's life, does the spouse have an religious obligation to submit against her will? In this case, condom use is immaterial. The husband is not commiting a marital act of love, but an act of lust.

[Ryan]

Regardless of whether any of this actually comes to fruition, the news reports and continued "clarifications" will only increase the level of confusion and strengthen the personal argument to "use one's conscience" in these matters. My wife and I discuss natural family planning and forming a conscience as a couple with engaged couples in our diocese.

Sadly 99% of these couples are living together and using birth control. Imagine the attitude we get when we step in front of the group and explain the church's teaching on these matters.

Let's just say that we don't make many friends. But it is obvious that we do open a lot of ears and hearts to what the church has always taught.

What we don’t need is to dirty the already murky water and further confuse these issues by saying things like the act of sex must always be open to life, but use condoms when...

[JPC]

The distinction Lawrence King makes between the Thomist and Neo-Thomist view is strange to me. I consider the position I laid out above the Thomist view, not anything other than that. According to the Thomist view, the "object" of an action is an action itself--but it also is inexplicable without an end (or what some call "intention"). One is never forced to choose between an object and an intention--they are both always there in human acts.

I don't see how "requiring an intention" could make condom use licit, but I'm all ears.

And by the way, "condom use" is by no means a merely physical act. It's a voluntary act, proceeding from reason and will. That's the only way it can come up for moral scrutiny. Merely physical events never rise to the level of being either morally good or morally bad. It's a proportionalist ploy, usually, to construe "using a condom" as a raw physical event that can be pointing toward either good ends or bad ends; but according to Aquinas, it is an abstraction to talk about human actions as being merely physical. For Aquinas, human actions (=voluntary actions) are always already moral.

The way L. K. describes killing in war sounds not right to me. It is not that the soldier is doing the same thing that, under other conditions, would be bad. It is that in a war (a just war, let us assume), one is authorized by the guardian of the common good (i.e., the state) to take life. It's not just a matter of circumstance or intention/end--WHAT he is doing is totally different than, say, killing a civilian in peacetime. The object itself is different. (The word "object" is one of the most controversial in all the writings of Aquinas, by the bye. To this day there are disputes among the doctors over exactly what it means, but the account I've given here is consonant with Janet Smith, Servais Pinckaers, etc.)

[Ian]

Humanae Vitae 14:

Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, or that such intercourse would merge with procreative acts of past and future to form a single entity, and so be qualified by exactly the same moral goodness as these. 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 (18)—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. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.

And from Vatican I, Session 4, Chapter 4, Section 9:

we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that

• when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA,
  • that is, when,
    
    
    
    1. in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,
       
    2. in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,
       
    3. he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church,
       
    
    
  
  
• he possesses,
  
  
  
  • by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter,
    
  
  
• that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.
  
• Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable.
  

  
  

So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.

Who can justify the AIDS document given these statements?

[midwestmom]

"...can be acceptable to prevent the transmission of the disease."

Oh, if only that were true.

From the CDC website:
"The analysis demonstrates that the consistent use of latex condoms provides a high degree of protection against heterosexual transmission of HIV. It should be noted that condom use cannot provide absolute protection against HIV. The surest way to avoid transmission of HIV is to abstain from sexual intercourse or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and you know is uninfected."

[Rick]

The bishops of Southern Africa have taught for years that use of condoms within marriages with an HIV+ spouse is a matter left to the consciences of the spouses:

Message to married couples

...There are couples where one of the parties is living with HIV/AIDS. In these cases there is the real danger that the healthy partner may contract this killer disease. The Church accepts that everyone has the right to defend one's life against mortal danger. This would include using the appropriate means and course of action.

Similarly where one spouse is infected with HIV/AIDS they must listen to their consciences. They are the only ones who can choose the appropriate means, in order to defend themselves against the infection. Decisions of such an intimate nature should be made by both husband and wife as equal and loving partners.

[ted]

Ian:

Was Humanae Vitae 14 addressing the issue of a deadly virus being transmitted via a sexual act? Was that the subject at hand?

No.

[MG]

re: Lawrence King's distinction between Thomism and neo-Thomism

I too think that this oversimplifies matters. It's right that for Thomas, the intention is part of what makes an act the act it is. But intention isn't a purely psychic phenomenon that can transform any sort of physical event into a good action. Some bodily acts can never be part of a good action, regardless of the intention.

Suppose my job is killing children. Can I say, "Well, my real intent is to make money to feed my family; and the proof is that I'd feed my family in another way if I could." Obviously not--nor would Lawrence King disagree, I'm sure.

Probably a deeper restatement of this would involve saying that we're going wrong from the beginning by contrasting "intention" (construed as a purely mental event) and "the physical act." This is a Cartesian, dualistic way of thinking. Human acts aren't compounds of something bodily and something meental--they are, all the way down, psycho-physical.

Or something like that.

But then again, maybe I've not understood Lawrence King's distinction correctly.

[Lawrence King]

Ian, are you suggesting that Humanae Vitae was an ex cathedra statement?

This claim is almost impossible to support. No pope has claimed this, and no official CDF statement has ever claimed this. Moreover, when Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae was released in 1968, the Vatican spokesman who led the official press conference -- Msgr. Fernando Lambruschini -- twice stated that it was "not an infallible pronouncement." Surely if the Pope had intended it as an infallible pronouncement, he would have corrected Lambruschini sometime in the ten years between 1968 and his death in 1978, eh?

I agree that the teaching in HV is true. But it's not an infallible teaching. And as Ted pointed out, it was not written to cover every imaginable case: the subtitle of the document, "On the Regulation of Births," makes it clear what it is discussing. It does not discuss using condoms to prevent disease.

[Lawrence King]

MG wrote:

But intention isn't a purely psychic phenomenon that can transform any sort of physical event into a good action. Some bodily acts can never be part of a good action, regardless of the intention.

Suppose my job is killing children. Can I say, "Well, my real intent is to make money to feed my family; and the proof is that I'd feed my family in another way if I could." Obviously not--nor would Lawrence King disagree, I'm sure.

I agree with you, but the problem is that this subject is too complicated for short blog discussions.

If you kill children to feed your family, you are engaging in two complete actions. The first is killing children (which you do physically, and which you intend); the second is feeding your family (same). The former is the means to the latter, but they are both complete acts and thus the latter cannot justify the former.

Consider the following analogy: It is permissible to speed to a hospital (knowing that this poses the risk of an accident) to get someone to the hospital. But if the doctor tells you "I will operate on your wife sooner, if you speed on the street so I can film you driving dangerously for my new movie," this is not permissible.

Why? Both of them have the same physical action (driving dangerously).

The difference is that in the first case, the speeding is itself naturally ordered to the end of getting faster medical aid. In the second case, the speeding is not ordered to the end; the bond is artificial and depends on another's free will.

Similarly, torture is immoral because another's free will intervenes between the physical act and the goal (information), whereas it may be licit to shoot someone in a war even if this causes extreme pain.

Now, it seems clear to me that placing a latex barrier between a healthy human being and the diseased organ of another is naturally ordered towards preventing the transmission of disease. This is not a separate act being used as a means; the act itself is an act of disease prevention.

[anon for now]

If there were no "self-defense of an unwilling wife" explanations -- if it were just a matter of "the couple should be allowed to 'express married love safely'" -- don't we come back to the "how are barrier methods really morally different from NFP" question if transmission of semen is not a sine qua non of "valid" sex? Were condom use approved for any married couple at all, which would mean admitting that marital sex can even happen through condoms -- that the shared physical pleasure and sense of emotional closeness amounted to marital sex -- I fail to see how it could be an absolute no-no for, say, couples with health reasons to postpone pregnancy during months of extremely ambiguous fertility signals caused by breastfeeding (I've been there, abstinent the whole time, and so have others.)Or since some people would say "you choose to breastfeed at the marriage's expense, that's your problem," how about for women with ambiguous fertility signals brought about by pre-menopause? Or any other couples who have to abstain when that "need" for closeness can feel strong. It sounds like condom use would become a matter of prudential judgment, period. Why would an act be justified solely by the length of time a couple had to suffer frustration from abstinence? Couples who must wait for any length of time are deprived of the kind of pleasure and emotional closeness brought by the act as the couple affected by AIDS. Why must they wait even three weeks on a monthly basis, or choose to wean their children to avoid indefinite waits? If condoms don't prevent sex? If the pleasure and closeness still have value with condoms? If the desire to avoid pregnancy is not evil and the use of condoms is not per se evil?

It sounds like condom use would then fall into a matter of prudential judgment for everyone. Very similar to the justifications needed for postponing pregnancy at all. I don't see how "sex is sex, and chaste, inside condoms for married AIDS victims" could leave a distinction between contraception and NFP for everyone else.

[Jennifer N.]

A fascinating discussion, but a point that I think is missing is this...

A man who is infected with a deadly disease and still insists on having sex with his wife, regardless of the risk to her isn't likely to care enough to use a condom.

I've heard it proposed that a woman would not be culpable of sin if she insisted on a condom if her HIV infected husband was forcing his intentions on her. But a woman with such a husband is in no position to insist on anything. She's married to a selfish thug.

It would be irresponsible for the Church to allow for condom use in these (or any) circumstances. Condom failure is notorious. I know lots of precious condom babies. From what I understand, a virus is even smaller than a sperm cell.

Allowing for the use of condoms in married couples with dire circumstances sure reminds me of the 1930 Lambeth Conference when the Anglican church allowed for contraception for married couples in dire circumstances. We can see how that turned out.

[Lawrence King]

Can I say, "Well, my real intent is to make money to feed my family; and the proof is that I'd feed my family in another way if I could."

To clarify this a bit more: in your scenario, you do intend the children to die. After all, if one of the children accidentally lived, you would have failed in your goal.

So I shouldn't have originally phrased it in terms of "they'd use another method if they could." Rather, the key is that even the method they are using is not intended; if a sperm gets through and impregnates the wife without giving her disease, they'd be happy.

Maybe if I had to summarize it quickly: the condom is the means, but the contraception itself is not the means. OTOH, in the torture situation the pain inflicted is itself the means, and therefore it is intended, and therefore it is immoral.

[Celine]

Ian:

Granted, as Humanae Vitae states, that it is unlawful "to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order . . . even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general." But use of a drug or device to prevent transmission of disease does not directly intend something that of its very nature contradicts the moral order. I simply don't see how approval of condoms for this purpose (though they also contracept) is any more problematic than allowing the use of drugs (ordinarily used for contraception) to remedy menstrual or other physical irregularities.

[Lawrence King]

JPC wrote:

The distinction Lawrence King makes between the Thomist and Neo-Thomist view is strange to me. I consider the position I laid out above the Thomist view, not anything other than that.

Perhaps those I dubbed "neo-thomists" would consider that a pejorative term. They certainly do consider themselves to be Thomists.

Regardless of what you name these schools, they do not fully agree with each other. I believe that the modern virtue ethicists -- Pinckaers, Kaveny, Porter -- make a very persuasive case that the school of Grisez, Finnis, and EWTN are misinterpreting Thomas. And yet both schools are very close to each other, and very far from proportionalism.

According to the Thomist view, the "object" of an action is an action itself--but it also is inexplicable without an end (or what some call "intention"). One is never forced to choose between an object and an intention--they are both always there in human acts.

The problem is that even Thomas uses the term "end" inconsistently; sometimes he uses it to mean the ultimate end and sometimes he uses it to mean the intention of the local act.

[ken]

If condom use is allowable in these rare cases, then what about the wife manually stimulating the husband to orgasm? This would allow less chance of transmission.

[Ian]

ted:

You fall prey to the classical logical fallacy of Argumentum ad misericordiam. The AIDS issue is irrelevant to the teaching of Humanae Vitae

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.

Section 14 is a discussion of "Unlawful Birth Control Methods" and among these is the condom. Your argument is explicitly rejected by the Catholic Magisterium.

Lawrence (King):

The definition of "EX CATHEDRA" given by Vatican I is certainly applicable to Humanae Vitae because all three criteria (see above) are satisfied.

[Old Zhou]

I think that what is going on is very simple:

1. In the 1960's, sex in the West (where most Catholic theologians live) was viewed as:
a) a heck of a lot of fun (and sinful),
b) intended for making babies.

2. In the 2000's, sex in the West is now being viewed as:
a) a very common way to transmit a myriad of diseases, many uncurable, some very fatal, not only between partners, but also to children;
b) not nearly as much fun due to the anxieties from a)
c) intended for making babies

While in no way decreasing by one iota the Church's support for being open to life, preserving the sanctity of marriage, the theology of the body and family, etc., the Church must address the growing global realization that sex, even "holy, licit, within-marriage, for procreation" sex, can, in fact, be fatal or result in serious illness for both mother and (potential) child if the husband/father is HIV positive, or has other diseases of equal gravity.

That's all. It is not throwing out Humanae Vitae. It is realizing that we are now in the 1960's, and sex is much, much more serious.

[JPC]

Regardless of what you name these schools, they do not fully agree with each other. I believe that the modern virtue ethicists -- Pinckaers, Kaveny, Porter -- make a very persuasive case that the school of Grisez, Finnis, and EWTN are misinterpreting Thomas. And yet both schools are very close to each other, and very far from proportionalism.

I don't think S. Pinckaers considers himself close to Grisez at all. I certainly don't consider myself close to Grisez, Finnis, Boyle, and that whole crowd. They do agree in some (though not all) conclusions re: right and wrong in action, but it seems more of a miraculous accident than an agreement in thought. Pinckaers and Grisez inhabit distinct worlds. Just pick up the books of both and compare them. Different principles, different methods.

The problem is that even Thomas uses the term "end" inconsistently; sometimes he uses it to mean the ultimate end and sometimes he uses it to mean the intention of the local act.

I don't think it's an inconsistency. The term "end" means one thing--that which is aimed at, either by nature or by a rational agent. Yet there are many ends in any one given action--some embedded or nested inside others. MG was correct in his description above of a man "killing children" (object) for the sake of supporting his family (end). The fact that these can both be considered actions doesn't mean that the feeding of the family isn't the end of the killing of the children (in the example he uses).

In qq. 18-21 of the prima secundae of Saint Thomas' SUMMA THEOLOGIAE, he acknowledges that both "object" and "end" are used to refer to various things. The meanings are stable, but the complexity of human act demands that it be so. To cleave them neatly apart would not do justice to what is demanded in an account of human action.

To make matters perhaps even still more confusing, objects are ends and ends are objects. I.e., an object has the character of an end inasmuch as it is something desired; and an end of action is an object for the will. Thus there is a certain contingency in the naming of the terms. Yet in the qq. mentioned above, when Aquinas speaks of the three sources of the moral act (object, end, circumstances), he clearly means that when the first term is taken in its strict, proper sense, it refers to the proximate end (i.e., the act desired and performed) and the second term means the remote end of the agent (what is ultimately desired in the doing of proximate end)--and this end can be an action itself, or a state of affairs, or perhaps something else. I don't think this makes for inconsistency--one must simply be careful.

[Old Zhou]

Ack. sorry, last line should have been: "...we are now in the 2000's..."

[JPC]

To clarify: in my most recent post above, paragraphs 1 and 3 are citations from Lawrence King. I failed to italicize them.

[JPK]

anon,
I think you missed the point entirely. With regards to any means of artificial birth control-whether they are 100% effective or not- the church states that they are immoral, and the users are in grave sin. Condoms have for years been advertised also as an effective means to avoid STDs- this is also false.

If a couple came to a priest or bishop asking for guidance because one of the spouses is HIV postive, the priest would be irresponsible not to advise them to abstain. Besides, the Vatican's prohibition, he would essientially be giving out a death warrant to the non infected spouse. Yes, sex is a great gift that God gives married couples. Like the consercation of the Bead and Wine into Christ's body and blood, the fruits of the marriage consecration are children.However marriage is much more than sex. The Holy Family points to the perfection of the family, and both Mary and Joseph remained chaste. If the choice for the married couple is sex or life- then life wins out everytime.

[Matt]

Greetins,

So, a husband coercing his wife into sexual intercourse(aka raping her) is going to submit to his wife's request and wear a condom first? Rapists tend not to listen to the demands of the women they are violating--even if that demand were to be "approved" by the Pope himself.

Kyrie elison,

M

[Mike]

I don't think the Church CAN change its regulations regarding condom use. Approving it IN THIS ONE INSTANCE is just the start of the slippery slope.

Remember, Humanae Vitae was written in 1968 in response to the development of the birth control pill, whereby using the pill the marital act can be completed but is compromised because the hormonal changes in the woman caused by the pill detract from the life-giving aspect of the act.

Previous Catholic doctrine regarding contracteption was in response mainly to barrier methods such as condoms. Using a condom to prevent insemination IS NOT THE MARRIAGE ACT and is therefore probably even a greater evil than the BC pill. This puts it in the same league with sodomy, oral sex, masturbation, and any of a number of other improper sex acts contrary to the natural law.

As for the slippery slope, well, what if one spouse has herpes? Gonorrhea? Syphilis? What if I don't have access to an AIDS testing clinic, but suspect I might have AIDS because I accidentally cut myself on a thumbtack? Why is AIDS so special?

Sorry, guys, the Vatican will not even come close to approving this, and my guess is the only thing that will result is an even stronger statement against condom use. At least I hope so.

[Old Zhou]

My own advice to the guys in the Vatican, obviously not worth the electrons it is transmitted:

Ya'll need to do a LOT more work on promoting continence, chastity, celibacy and all them other beautiful, holy, creative, energetic, alternatives to "the marital embrace" that are part of the Catholic Tradition, even for married couples.

Of course, it would help if the clergy bought into this, first.

[anon for now]

JPK: How did I miss the point entirely? I wasn't addressing the effectiveness of condoms as disease prevention, only the question of the effect of the pro-condom statement some "expect" on overall Church teaching on sex/contraception. Unless you mean that the only point that's worth addressing is whether condoms are even reliable for disease prevention, and since they aren't there's no need for analyzing further the morality of condom use by married AIDS patients.

[Celine]

Matt:

It is easy to see how a wife might persuade her husband to "at least" use a condom for the sake of her health and so that she could continue to care for children, especially if she would not then be so resistent to having sex.

Also, there are such things as female condoms, you know.

[Will Barrett]

Might I make one suggestion: that we not allow bad science to color our discussion. Whether we like it or not, condoms significantly decrease the risk of transmitting or receiving HIV from one's sexual partner. That they are not 100% effective and that they can be used incorrectly and can break is true and that is why some of us have said that the moral prinicple that needs to be established is that it is NEVER licit to risk a spouse's health even if that risk is very small. But we shouldn't pretend like condoms are fools gold with regard to the transmission of HIV.

Rick writes:
"Similarly where one spouse is infected with HIV/AIDS they must listen to their consciences. They are the only ones who can choose the appropriate means, in order to defend themselves against the infection. Decisions of such an intimate nature should be made by both husband and wife as equal and loving partners."

But this begs the question, right Rick? Should two loving partners be engaging in sex if there is a risk that one might contract a deadly disease from the other?

Someone suggested above that a husband wouldn't listen to the Church and wear a condom if he is basically forcing sex onto someone. Probably not. But could his wife feel more justified in bringing it up and saying, "Look, I need this to protect me"? I don't know.

Throwing condoms at the situation probably in the end isn't very helpful. We need to educate the whole person.

Another question: why does the Church have to say anything about condoms and marriage? Why can't the Church just keep teaching the truth, educating the whole person, and allow others to address this question?

As that person above asked, if you are already disregarding Christ with regard to adultery and endangering your wife, why would you listen with regards to condoms?

Are you folks getting Finnis and Grisez right? I think they would reject the notion that they fall into physicalism.

[Maria Ashwell]

These comments have all been fscinating. I've been trying to put my thoughts together in an intelligent way.
One thing struck me as I read the many posts on "condom use" and what that means, intent, action and all that and well...not to be crass...suddenly it came to my mind that some of this discussion almost becomes how can we be sure that a married man infected with HIV can ejaculate, amd by the way not infect his spouse? As if this physical action not happening is the life-threatening aspect not the HIV infection. It troubles me that Catholic teaching on the marital act suddenly becomes secondary because they're gonna explode otherwise.
Zhou says it best...

Ya'll need to do a LOT more work on promoting continence, chastity, celibacy and all them other beautiful, holy, creative, energetic, alternatives to "the marital embrace" that are part of the Catholic Tradition, even for married couples.

[amy]

Will, the church has to address the issue because it involves Catholic health care workers - that actually is the office which is studying this.

[Fr Martin Fox]

One point, rather late...

Humanae Vitae and related teaching about rendering sex acts infertile is about marital acts; somehow, some folks have the idea, it appears, that the Church teaches all sex acts, period, must be open to the transmission of life...

The Church's teaching presupposes that sex acts are in marriage; if not, they're not supposed to happen . . . at all. In such cases, the use of contraception may be problematic for other reasons, but hardly because they violate Humanae Vitae, which is, I repeat, about marital acts.

This is why, for example, if it really is true that the birth control pill has the good use of regulating periods, a chaste, single woman is not violating Church teaching by taking "the pill"; but a married person, who is otherwise fertile, is.

Would a married woman, incapable of conceiving, do wrong by taking "the pill"? In her case, it would have no contraceptive effect; so it's morality would be measured by whatever other good effect it's supposed to have.

Likewise, if a woman is sexually assaulted, she has zero moral obligation to keep that sex act open to the transmission of new life. I.e., if she could, somehow, persuade her attacker to wear a condom, that would be no sin for her; and until conception actually occurs, she can take measures, post-assualt, to prevent conception.

And, again, in sex acts outside marriage, the use of contraceptives can have various moral problems: some are abortifacient; or they may wrongly be used to justify or exculpate the act ("at least I won't get her pregnant or infected") -- but again, the problem isn't vis-a-vis Humanae Vitae.

So, for example, Humanae Vitae doesn't mean that two people fornicating "aren't allowed to use a condom." It doesn't apply; the 6th Commandment does.

[Celine]

Lots of people here think that a couple ought to abstain from sex if the wife (or husband, I assume) could get AIDS from an infected partner, whether a condom is used or not. Well, would they also be required to abstain from sex if a spouse had a heart condition that put him/her at risk or if the wife's life would be threatened by a pregnancy?

[anonymous seminarian]

"Well, would they also be required to abstain from sex if a spouse had a heart condition that put him/her at risk or if the wife's life would be threatened by a pregnancy?"

They may not be required to abstain but it might be wise, don't you think? Is sex really worth risking death?

[Mary Russell]

Why would condom use be restriced to cases in which one partner is HIV positive? What about where one partner has hepatitis and the other does not? In the third world, hepatitis can be every bit as fatal as HIV. And why limit the teaching to those medical conditions which are fatal? What about where one partner has herpes or HPV?

[Celine]

Fr. Martin Fox says, that if "the birth control pill has the good use of regulating periods, a chaste, single woman is not violating Church teaching by taking 'the pill'; but a married person, who is otherwise fertile, is."

Now, not only is this a new one on me, it doesn't make sense at all. Isn't removing, say, a diseased uterus (with obvious sterilizing effect) just as OK for a married woman as for a single woman? Then why on earth isn't fixing an irregular period (by using a drug with a contraceptive effect) for married woman just as OK as fixing it for a single woman?

[anon for now]

From what I understand, using the birth control Pill for health reasons such as to "regulate periods" would be morally licit if there were not the abortifacient effect to consider. Whether use of birth control pills for certain health conditions is a good medical decision is another question.

[anon for now]

(In my last comment I meant to add for married women as well as single women -- sorry.)

[Celine]

anonymous seminarian:

My point is that one cannot say that spouses with AIDS should abstain from sex unless one is also willing to say that spouses with certain heart conditions and women whose life/health would be threatened by pregnancy are also required to abstain. Some people may be operating on the basis of a double standard here. But the husband who thoughtlessly gets his wife pregnant knowing that this would result in severe threat to her life or health has behaved no differently that a husband who infects his wife with AIDS.

[Ryan]

Old Zhou wrote: "the Church must address the growing global realization that sex, even "holy, licit, within-marriage, for procreation" sex, can, in fact, be fatal or result in serious illness for both mother and (potential) child if the husband/father is HIV positive, or has other diseases of equal gravity"

I respectfully disagree with the notion that the "growing global realization" has figured something out that God did not foresee.

If we believe that the Church is who she say she is (responsible for teaching and transmitting The Truth) then we must agree that God saw everything from the beginning -- he knew every way we would and could sin and he knew every way we could mess up his creation.

Yet his Truth is not "subject to change" based on where we find ourselves in any given moment in time.

The Church cannot change. We must change.

[Celine]

anon for now says, "using the birth control Pill for health reasons such as to 'regulate periods' would be morally licit if there were not the abortifacient effect to consider." Again, I don't know what a potential abortifacient effect would have to do with it. A married woman with cancer, even a woman known to be pregnant, can take chemotherapy even though chemotherapy is almost always abortifacient because the purpose is to cure the cancer, not kill the child. So why can't someone take the pill to regulate a period based on the same rationale?

[Rick]

Will,

Please note that what you attribute to me is actually a quote from a document published years ago by the Catholic Bishops of Southern Africa. It is this regional bishops conference that teaches that use of a condom in an HIV+ marriage is a matter of conscience.

Regarding "Should two loving partners be engaging in sex if there is a risk that one might contract a deadly disease from the other?": Can't proportionate reasons (eg, strengthening a marriage, allaying concupiscence, etc) justify assuming at least some degree of risk that might accompany the marital embrace?

After all, child birth poses risks, but that doesn't mean all loving couples must avoid the risk of child birth.

[Old Zhou]

The "Sexual Liberation" ride of the 1960's is making people sick, really sick, and a lot of them want to get off. Thank you very much.

It is not just all the nasty diseases that nobody knew about during the 1960's:
- Bacterial Vaginosis (BV)
- Clamydia and Lymphogranuloma Venereum (LGV)
- Genital Herpes
- HIV/AIDS
- Human Papillomavirus (HPV)
- Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID)
- Trichomoniasis
as well as the old standards, syphilis and gonorrhea.

It is not just the deep emptiness of the pursuit of sex as an experience of pleasure, of "casual sex."

There is, actually, a yearning to properly integrate the body with the spirit into a real (Christian, Catholic) spiritual, holy life. A life that does not revolve around sexual activity, like so much of our modern entertainment and pop culture.

I was struck by the reading in the Liturgy of the Hours today from St. Leo the Great, the last sentence in the Second Reading:

...et in quo commortui et consepulti et conressuscitati sumus,
ipsum per omnia et spiritu et carne gestemus.

As we have died with him, and have been buried and raised to life with him,
so we bear him within us, both in body and in spirit, in everything we do.

As I said already, the Church needs to do a lot more to teach and demonstrate the beauty of how we can live a life of holiness also by continence, by chastity, by celibacy, as well as by proper, prudent sexual activity within marriage.

From Theology of the Body:

the human body in its masculinity and femininity is interiorly ordered to the communion of the persons (communio personarum). Its spousal meaning consists in this. The spousal meaning of the body has been distorted, almost at its roots, by concupiscence (especially by the concupiscence of the flesh in the sphere of the threefold concupiscence). The virtue of continence in its mature form gradually reveals the pure aspect of the spousal meaning of the body. In this way, continence develops the personal communion of the man and the woman, a communion that cannot be formed and developed in the full truth of its possibilities only on the level of concupiscence. This is precisely what the Encyclical Humanae Vitae affirms.

Continence (e.g., abstaining from sexual activity) is essential for full development of a marriage. Condoms are not.

[rcesq]

I'm surprised no one picked up on the comments made by Katie at Apr 26, 2006 10:55:00 AM. She's absolutely right: this dispute is a direct attack by the political left on Benedict's quest to re-awaken Christian values in the West, and Cardinal Martini was, one hopes, an innocent tool. Americans tend to be very parochial in their views of the world: only if US interests are directly involved do foreign affairs get any press. But the struggle for the soul of Europe is deadly serious and will have ramifications world-wide. Let us all pray that Benedict marshalls whatever political skills he has to engage in this fight. He certainly has the background, the intelligence, and as cardinal recognized the urgency.

It's a typical leftist tactic to begin an attack by taking a "human rights" approach that is designed to make the Church look retrograde and put it on the defensive. Fortunately, it looks as if an exhaustive study on the subject of condom use and AIDS is in the works. If so, it's likely to be a typical Ratzingerian teaching document that addresses and refutes every possible argument in favor of a facile outcome (condoms are OK), while laying out the Church's position with crystalline clarity. And that position will probably be a nuanced one: as Prefect, Cardinal Ratzinger explained that it is licit as an "ultima ratio" [last resort] for Catholic doctors to administer a contraceptive pill -- but not an abortifacient -- to mentally ill women who were in serious danger of being raped. Could condom use in the marital context where the wife is arguably similarly helpless be considered likewise licit? It doesn't take a stretch to get there.

[Julia]

Several comments from a 60+ lady:

1) "What you describe- sexual assault- is grounds for a divorce. The spouse can also be indicted for such actions. Condoms are no guarentee that the victim will not get infected."
Sexual assault against a wife only became a crime in the late 1970s in this country. Don't assume it's against the law in Africa. In fact a priest in the confessional would tell you that it's your duty - until recently. One told a friend of mine that her husband wouldn't have to hit her if she allowed him to have sex more often.

2) I knew Catholic women my age and a bit older who would opt for hysterectomies instead of less aggressive treatment of conditions that now would never be treated with a hysterectomy in any hospital, much less a Catholic one. A very hyper-religious friend even told me ahead of time that she was going to get a hysterectomy for a very mild case of fibroids that had almost no symptoms. She thought she was being very clever.

3)Somebody indicated that there weren't such awful sexually transmitted diseases in 1933 and 1968. Back in 1933 before penicillin, syphillis was often not treatable. During its middle stages people thought it had gone away, until the tertiary stage when it rotted the brain and nervous system and nothing more could be done. It was not unusual to see bums staggering around on crutches - I think it was called the Jake-leg. It's what Karen Blixen (aka Isaac Dinesen) died from. I worked in a Bacteriology lab in the 60s and we were still detecting syphillis now and then, along with lots of "clap" in med students.

4) I'm with Old Zhou, however. I think we are in a post-outbreak-of-AIDS era - similar to being in a post 9/11 world. What's happening today is more akin to the plague than the run of the mill STDs from years past.

5) I always love discussions about the "loss of the seed of Life". What about loss of the eggs of Life? To be consistent, shouldn't Catholic married women be required to determine when they are ovulating so they can force their husbands into sex so the egg won't be spilled and lost? Every egg is also sacred - h/t Monty Python.

6) Many of these poor women have been sexually mutilated so they can't enjoy sex. Is that a sin or is it considered no different than circumcision since boys don't have an opportunity to give or withold consent, either?

7) One poster alluded to something that seems to be missing in this discussion. Would God really want to see a child conceived who will surely get AIDS in the birth canal? If using a condom is only a venial sin, I'd say let them use one - we have enough orphans in this world.

8) In the circumstance of the husband having AIDS, I would see a condom as a medical device, not a contraceptive.

[B Knotts]

Allowing this "exception" would be like announcing that it's OK to point a revolver at someone's head and pull the trigger, as long as you only have one cartridge in the cylinder.

[thomas tucker]

Thats' interesting that Ratzinger said it is okay as a last resort to use a contraceptive in a mentally-damaged woman who is in danger of being raped. That goes along with something I was saying on the thread before this one several days ago- it is not contraception that is illicit (in other words, it is okay to intend to prevent pregnancy, for grave reasons, by using NFP), it is severing the procreative and unitive aspects of sex that is illicit. In ther case of rape, that is already severed so contraception is actually okay.

[thomas tucker]

B Knotts- is it a risk? Yes. Isn't everything?

[Julia]

"It is not just all the nasty diseases that nobody knew about during the 1960's:
- Bacterial Vaginosis (BV)
- Clamydia and Lymphogranuloma Venereum (LGV)
- Genital Herpes
- HIV/AIDS
- Human Papillomavirus (HPV)
- Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID)
- Trichomoniasis"

Other than AIDS, these were all known in the 1960s. You watched too much Leave it to Beaver. But back then people didn't discuss their diseases on Oprah, there weren't commercials for Viagra and you didn't see the word "Vagina" in headlines. Ask your grandma; just because people didn't talk about this stuff all the time doesn't mean they didn't know about it.

[Caroline]

Amy. Might you send this discussion on to Cdln William Levada, my former Archbishop, who as head of the CDF seems to be in line for making further judgments on this issue? He and his committee might acquire useful insights on the opinions of Catholics, I suppose of the center and to the right. And has anyone investigated what Cardinal Levada's personal position on this matter might be?

In this discussion I hear a terrible fear of a thin edge of the wedge because some folk in a pathethic situation might be allowed to use condoms without fear of hellfire.

Might it eventually be admitted that the rest of us could have legitimately limited the size of our families with contraceptives? Were all our sacrifices unnecessary? What an enormous investment we have in their not changing the rules! Elder brothers, all day vineyard workers unite and be heard!

[anonymous seminarian]

"My point is that one cannot say that spouses with AIDS should abstain from sex unless one is also willing to say that spouses with certain heart conditions and women whose life/health would be threatened by pregnancy are also required to abstain."

Ok, I get your point. I just don't see its validity. It is not wise to have sex with your spouse if there is a good chance that this might kill them...period. No double standard there.

[anonymous seminarian]

Would anybody here disagree with that?

[Will Barrett]

Celine asks:
"Well, would they also be required to abstain from sex if a spouse had a heart condition that put him/her at risk or if the wife's life would be threatened by a pregnancy?"

Perhaps. But of course if they practiced a very strict form of NFP (i.e., most conservative rules) they could achieve this end as well, right? With HIV any sexual act might
the act that gives your spouse a deadly disease. But living as brother and sister might well be the required course for couples in either situation. That is of course hard and if it were my lot, I know how difficult a cross it would be to bear. But I hope with God's grace and the aid of my spouse, I would be able to live it.

[JPC]

What Ratzinger articulated earlier was by no means a exception to the rule against contraception. If a woman is in danger of being raped--whether or not mentally retarded--it would ipso facto not be a voluntary act for her, and hence means taken to prevent conception would be no unchastity. Contracepted sex acts are understood by the Magisterium of the Church to be freely-entered-into sexual acts that are at the same time deliberately ("ex industria," from H. V.) deprived of their fertility. That's the issue. I remember being told that even nuns working as nurses in wartime Europe would use contraceptive devices, in the event they were raped. (The question of the abortifacient effect of the pill is indeed a problem, though: perhaps IUDs or other barrier devices would work?)

But hard cases make bad law. Principles aren't founded upon such rare and tragic circumstances. Moreover, law alone makes bad moral theology and philosophy. I am afraid that the conversation on this issue can quickly degenerate into legalism, as I think it has here in on this thread. Christian moral thinking--for that matter even good philosophical moral thinking--is supposed to be about the good, the final end of man, which is happiness, virtues, flourishing in every human good. And what is at issue here? It is whether sexual intercourse can be had by spouses when that intercourse could be a real threat to the life of one of the spouses. Shouldn't this really be a non-issue? I can't imagine people who have to deal with serious issues in their life really having this conversation. It seems to be only for dangerously pampered westerners who can't handle the thought of the rest of their life without sexual pleasure. How else can one construe it? The whole thought of even risking harm to one's spouse should be enough to rule it out entirely, hard though that might be.

I think it is plain that the use of condoms in any heterosexual intercourse is wrong, harmful to the partners because it goes against the virtue of chastity. Even in those cases where our hearts go out to a couple in a very serious situation, it would be harmful for them to turn to condoms.

Another way of expressing the truth of the moral life is "living the truth." And while living the truth is not always easy, it possible with the help of God.

Saying that certain activities are always and everywhere wrong strikes some people as legalistic and harsh; and I can understand why. It often appears as without reason, without nuance. But it need not seem that way, and in fact it is not that way. In fact, I believe such clarity rescues us from the ridiculous casuistry of "exception-hunting." I cannot understand how anyone can seriously speak of certain instances of condom use as "non-contraceptive"--as if the intention of the agents alone constituted the act, as if the addition of the further intention of disease prevention alters the "stuff" of an act of thwarted intercourse itself. The couple may be perfectly unselfish with respect to children, and might otherwise never consider using condoms or contraception, but this just goes to show that there is a firm bedrock of moral reality that we are powerless to move by our willing and wanting. Our minds, as Saint Thomas Aquinas says, are measured by reality, not the measure of reality. Human acts have intrinsic natures that resist our efforts to remake and redescribe.

[Rick]

It is not wise to have sex with your spouse if there is a good chance that this might kill them

But what is a "good chance?"

Is it acceptable for a woman to accept the 1 in 5000 chance that she will contract AIDS through protected relations with her HIV+ spouse? (I believe this is the actual risk factor per protected encounter; it falls to 1:500 if condoms are not used).

Can there be proportionate reasons to accept this risk?

[T. Chan]

Julia:

5) I always love discussions about the "loss of the seed of Life". What about loss of the eggs of Life? To be consistent, shouldn't Catholic married women be required to determine when they are ovulating so they can force their husbands into sex so the egg won't be spilled and lost? Every egg is also sacred - h/t Monty Python.
Ovulation is not voluntary. Emission of semen usually is, and when it is, it comes under the regulation of morality. (When it isn't, then it usually doesn't.)

[Julia]

"perhaps IUDs or other barrier devices would work?" IUDs chop up fertilized ova. That's out of the question.

T. Chan: What a patriarchal position: sperm are sacred and ova are just missed opportunities. Somebody call Joan Chichester.

I think the problem here is often that our knowledge of biology is outstripping our moral concepts. It used to be that folks thought the man seeded a homunculus (little bitty person) in the woman. Nobody knew about ova yet. If something is sacred and shouldn't be wasted, then a married woman shouldn't let it go to waste. I understand that in the ancient world nobody cared much about lesbian activity - it was the man acting the part of a woman that was so horrid.

BTW I am a straight mother of three and grandmother of two. I really wonder if some of our rules came from misunderstood biology.
Just asking.

[JPC]

Julia:

Thank you for the correction re: IUDs. Are there any other barrier methods that would be licit, that you know of?

You make a good point about the co-dignity of the egg with sperm. You are correct to point this out. But it is Monty Python's little ditty that called sperm sacred, not the Catholic Church. Neither a sperm cell nor an egg is sacred. Only God is sacred in the strictly speaking, and human life shares in that sacredness in some measure inasmuch as man is made to the image and likeness of God. Human beings--not sperm and eggs--can be called "sacred."

The point made by an earlier entry was simply that sperm and eggs are not "spent" in the same way. Ovulation in a woman passes an egg willy-nilly on a regular basis, and women have no control over it (correct me here again if I'm wrong); there is no moral obligation on the part of a woman to make sure that she attempt to get it fertilized before it passes. Yet in every completed sexual act that a man participates in there is ejaculation of semen, and if that is done merely for the sake of the sexual pleasure, severed from the procreative nature of the the sexual powers and acts, that is sheer unchastity. The Church has never taught--sorry to be crude--that every little drop of the stuff needs to get deposited neatly. Let's face it, intercourse can get messy, sometimes beyond one's control. And of course there is such a thing as the passing of semen during sleep, which, since it presumably occurs unconsciously, is not voluntary and thus involves no moral freight. The biological data are important, but I don't think they shed too much light on this particular point.

[T. Chan]

T. Chan: What a patriarchal position: sperm are sacred and ova are just missed opportunities. Somebody call Joan Chichester.

You've completely misunderstood the post--the question is not whether sperm are more 'valuable' than ova; rather it's a question of what is under our voluntary control. Morality deals with voluntary actions, not involuntary ones. If ovulation were under voluntary control and be abused in some way, that would be immoral as well.

[DarwinCatholic]

Julia,

I assume you know this, but just for kicks...

The Church in no sense believes that 'every sperm is sacred', not that sperm have some special moral status that eggs lack. And while some Church thinkers in the past may have considered sperm to contain a full 'potential person' (thus making oral sex cannibalism, I suppose) this was by no means the only view.

For all the talk of 'seed' the moral problem lies in a man, a woman, or the pair of them together seeking to enjoy the effects of sexual climax without actually having sex -- thus using the sexual faculties for something other than their intended purpose. Thus, male masterbation (which would, if completed, result in 'spilled seed'), female masterbation (which unless I am much mistaken has nothing to do with eggs) and 'making love' while intentionally frustrating the fertile elements of the sex act all participate in the same sin.

[hugh]

Can I suggest that the clearest way to see the issues re. condoms and HIV is to focus on the case of a sterile older couple in which the male has HIV? Here the issue of contraceptive intent or effect with regard to condom use drops out of the picture. So those who justify condom use on a "double effect" principle would not, it seems, have any trouble justifying condom use in this instance. Yet it's quite clear that the Church has never contemplated condom use for HIV (or other medically related) reasons for older/sterile couples. Why? Because although condom use in this context has no contraceptive effect (and so cannot be the subject of contraceptive intent), it prevents an authentic sexual act from occurring, and results, as one writer posted above, in an act akin (morally) to mutual masturbation. To repeat what many have said before: there must be a deposit from the man of his substance into the vagina of the woman. It this doesn't happen, it's not sex, even though it may look like sex from many points of view. And acts which stand in the place of genuine sex are regarded by the Church (confirming the natural law) as intrinsically unjustifiable. For whatever motive. Indeed, the most striking example of this, I think is that masturbation is regarded as unjustifiable EVEN WHEN it is for the (ultimate) purpose of obtaining semen for conception (IVF or sperm donation).

Some may object to this line as a "physicalist" approach to the sexual act. We should not be deflected by this concern. In the end, there IS an act called "sex" which can only be described in physical terms. That is, the sexual act can be described without reference to the intent of the actor/s. In like manner, walking or eating can be be "physically" described without reference to intention. Sleepwalking, afer all, is still walking.

[MG]

Lawrence King,

I agree with at least part of your response to my reply to you. You're right that the case I mentioned involved two acts, which makes that case non-parallel to the case we're supposed to be discussing. Thanks for pointing this out.

Two further points.

(1) You wrote, "Now, it seems clear to me that placing a latex barrier between a healthy human being and the diseased organ of another is naturally ordered towards preventing the transmission of disease. This is not a separate act being used as a means; the act itself is an act of disease prevention."

But the problem isn't placing the barrier there--there's no teaching against condom-wearing. The problem is having sex in this fashion, and I don't think we can say that having sex with a condom is "an act of disease prevention." It's an act of having sex, modified (rightly or wrongly--that's what we're arguing about) to prevent disease. Having sex with a condom isn't a medical act, it's a sexual act.

(2) That leads to my second remark. Someone who has sex using a condom is, intentionally, having sex with a condom. The fact that he has disease-prevention as his reason for choosing condom-style over non-condom-style doesn't change the fact that he is intentionally having sex condom-style. And that means that the defender of using condoms to prevent disease has to argue that intentionally having sex condom-style isn't automatically wrong. Your argument, if I understand it correctly, doesn't attempt to do this. It says that having sex with a condom is, so to speak, a purely physical event that we can't understand as an act until we understand it as having contraceptive intent or disease-prevention intent or whatever. This seems wrong to me. Regardless of whether the act has the disease-prevention intent or the contraception intent, it first has the condom-use intent. (Those other intents are, so to speak, further down the line.)

Here's a somewhat weird analogy. Suppose I have some disease that means that eating turkey will kill me. But it's Thanksgiving, and it's an important part of our family tradition that we all eat turkey together, so I decide to use a big latex sock-like thing that goes down my throat. I eat my turkey, then I pull the thing out and throw it away. (Hopefully it doesn't tear, because then I'll die.)

I don't think it can be denied that I do intend to eat in this fashion. So even before we get to the reason why I am using this thing--in order to avoid death, as in the scenario I just described, or for some other reason (e.g., to keep from getting fat)--we *already* are in possession of an act with an intention: the intent to eat using this device.

Hence whatever we should say about the people who are arguing against condom-style sex for disease prevention, I don't think they are making the error of thinking in terms of a purely physical act, apart from intention.

[MG]

hugh writes, 'Some may object to this line as a "physicalist" approach to the sexual act. We should not be deflected by this concern. In the end, there IS an act called "sex" which can only be described in physical terms. That is, the sexual act can be described without reference to the intent of the actor/s. In like manner, walking or eating can be be "physically" described without reference to intention. Sleepwalking, afer all, is still walking.'

I wonder if this is quite right. Sleepwalking is not an act of walking; one must intend to walk in order to perform an act of walking. Likewise, someone who is raped doesn't intend to have sexual intercourse, and so this person does not perform a sexual act.

I think a better way to put the argument is to say that someone who intentionally has sex using a condom is intentionally doing something unnatural, and that that is bad (obviously that second part needs defense, not mere assertion). Someone who, let's say, is raped by a condom-wearer isn't performing an unnatural act.

[Derek Remus]

J.M.J.

The Catholic Church will never permit the use of condoms because this would be a logical impossibility. The Catholic Church is infallible (she always teaches the truth), and therefore her doctrines cannot change. If the Holy See were to permit condom use for married people suffering from AIDS, it would contradict the constant teaching of the Church, as reaffirmed in Humanae Vitae, that every marital embrace must be open to the procreation of children regardless of circumstances. This teaching is simply a reaffirmation of a norm of the natural moral law, the law of right reason written on the heart of all men, and thus is not even specifically Catholic or religious.

Condoms are intrinsically evil, that is, evil per se or by their very nature, and are thus permissible under no circumstances whatsoeover.

See Cardinal Ratzinger's Letter to Archbishop Laghi in 1988 on AIDS:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFAIDS.HTM

See John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor on "The Moral Act" and the errors of proportionalism and consequentialism, which, "while acknowledging that moral values are indicated by reason and by Revelation, maintain that it is never possible to formulate an absolute prohibition of particular kinds of behaviour which would be in conflict, in every circumstance and in every culture, with those values."

http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0222/__P8.HTM

There are no exceptions, nor will there ever be (since the natural law and the doctrines of the Church are unchanging), to the prohibition against condoms.

[St. Jimbob of the Apokalypse]

Instead of arguing between lesser and greater evils, why not choose the greater graces available to those who suffer for Christ?

Some here have mentioned the 'a' word, but not really pounded home the point that through the graces given by our Lord, we can live a holy married life that may not include sexual union, but may be strengthened by a more spiritual union.

HIV is a cross to bear for both spouses in a marriage, provided they are willing to carry it after our Lord.

In the West, we're so obsessed with sex as a human right, that abstinence seems an impossibility. Remember that early Jews regarded resurrection with the same skepticism..