A reader writes:
I have been having a civil discussion about two married people and whether or not they should continue with the marital act after the women has had a hysterectomy for medical reasons. The disagreement is based on the fact that two people should be married, only if they plan, or at least try to have children.
Okay, there is the first problematic premise. It is NOT true that people should only marry if they plan or hope to have children. The Church has NEVER taught this. It has always recognized that it is morally legitimate for infertile people to get married–whether they are infertile due to advanced age or something else. As long as they can perform the marital act, they can marry. Whether the marital act will be fertile or infertile in their case is another issue.
Although nothing is impossible with God, it seems inconceivable (sorry for that pun) that the women would get pregnant after a hysterectomy.
True.
My point is, that even if this is true (getting married to only have children), when the couple was first married this was possible without Divine intervention. What are your thoughts / understanding on this?
Whether you become infertile before or after you get married has nothing to do with whether you and your spouse can engage in the marital act. Sex is not just about procreation. You cannot intentionally thwart the procreative aspect of sex, but if it is infertile for other reasons then you can continue to have it.
In fact, it continues to be a debt that the two spouses owe to each other, whether they are fertile or not. If either of them reasonably requests it, the other party is morally obliged to pay the marriage debt in a reasonable manner and time.
If a woman has had to have a hysterectomy for medical reasons then that is not a contraceptive act because it is not done in order to bring about a contraceptive effect. The fact that she is now infertile is a side-effect of the procedure, not the reason it was done.
Even if she did have the procedure to prevent herself from having more children, that would be a sin that would require repentence and confession on her part, but it would not prevent her from having intercourse while in an infertile condition.
Bottom line: Being infertile–for whatever reason and whether it is culpable or inculpable infertility–does not prevent one from engaging in the marital act. Period.
Every sound Catholic moral theologian will tell you the same.
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For that matter, even the unsounds ones will tell you this. Completely right, Jimmy (as usual).
Not that this has any bearing on the discussion, but an M.D. friend of mine showed me a medical journal article the other day about a woman who carried to term and delivered a healthy baby despite having had a hysterectomy.
“As long as they can perform the marital act, they can marry.”
So, the churh would deny marriage to two people simply because they are incapable of intercourse?
Good Lord, Thomas. Where did the baby grow, if she’d had a hysterectomy?
Quasimodo: Yes.
Annalucia: ectopic pregancies are possible, and on rare occasion, go to term.
quasimodo,
Yes, as Dr. Peters says. But I always cringe at such language. The Church rarely ‘denies marriage’. Such persons are simply de facto incapable of marriage. Many dissenters also speak of the Church ‘denying ordination’ to women, when in fact the Church is simply recognizing that women are de facto incapable of ordination. The marital act, as I understand it, is an essential element of the marriage itself. Catholic teaching on marriage, for example, holds that a marriage bond is not consummated until it is sanctified by the marital act.
Yes, in the case of a hysterectomy without an ooectomy and without at least blocking off the ends of the fallopian tubes, we’re not technically considering a person who is infertile at all. Conception can take place. This isn’t exactly a “contraceptive” or “infertile” situation.
Ectopic pregnancies can occasionally go to term, though it’s very rare and risky – hepatic pregnancies (which implant and grow on the liver) are the ones you hear of most often. Though I’d still wonder how the sperm got to the fallopian tubes in the first place without a uterus to travel in … maybe the woman had a strange uterine situation (double uterus) or a partial hysterectomy only? Hard to say without more info. Thomas, you wouldn’t have a link, by any chance?
I’m surprised someone thinks that infertility prohibits you from intercourse. By that logic, anyone who has sex past menopause is sinning. (Actually, no, I shouldn’t be surprised – I know some people who think that sex at an *infertile time of the month* is sinful – no, they’re not Catholic. Being infertile myself I am extremely glad not to belong to their church :)).
And a note on terminology: technically, infertility is the inability to conceive, infecundity is the inability to have a live birth. Bit of a difference, though “infertility” is usually applied to both conditions. A woman with a malformed uterus/partial hysterectomy who could conceive but not, except for very strange circumstances, carry to term would be infecund.
Actually, it isn’t as simple as two persons incapable of intercourse being invalid for marriage. Persons have to be, according to canon 1084, effected by “antecedent and perpetual importence” in order for their marriage to be rendered null by its very nature. Canon 1084.2 says that if their is doubt about the impediment, marriage can not be impeded.
The important thing is antecedent and PERPETUAL impotance. antecedent is obvious, it means existing before the marriage. Perpetual impotance, according to John P Beal in the CLSA commentary, and according to the judges of the Roman Rota, are not those cases in which a person’s impotence, whether absolute or relative (general, or pertaining only to one person) are caused by physchological factors or which can !!reasonably be expected!! to be cured by medical advancement during the course of the marriage.
See Canon 1084 in the green CLSA commentary for more.
jd’s clarification introduces its own ambiguities (e.g., like persons “being invalid for marriage” and claiming Beal as an authority that psychological factors cannot result in perpetual impotence–Beal actually, and correctly, says something quite different). I join jd in recommendign people look for themselves in the “CLSA New Commentary (2000)” which, btw, is green.
Also, it should be remembered that male “impotence” or even lack of a copulative member (say, due to accident or disease), does not equate with “infertility.” So long as sperm can be retrieved by aspiration, or semen produced through any available remaining urethral orifice, procreation without “normal” copulation is quite possible. In fact, eunuchs (still with testicles) have produced children.
In this case, it seems that a casual reading of Canon Law by imaginary Canon Lawyers would be prejudicial against men who have lost the copulative organ by accident, but are still quite fertile and able and willing to produce children in a marriage.
And, for the record, male birds don’t have on either. That never prevented future generations of birds.
Having read Old Zhou, I must temper my impatience with jd; the latter is, in comparison with the former, a beacon of clarity. 😉
Let me try to be a little more clear:
Which is of these makes a marriage invalid in the eyes of the Church?
(1) The inability to have “normal” intercourse, or
(2) The inability to reproduce
These are two very different things.
In category (1) are persons, men or women, who have, because of accident or disease, lost the copulative organs (physically or functionally) but who have functional testes or ovaries, can still reproduce and beget children, although medical assistance may be necessary because they are incapable of “normal” intercourse.
In category (2) are persons who, for example, have undergone surgical sterilization, for whatever cause, but still posess fully functional copulative organs. They can engage in “the act” all they want, but will never produce children.
It seems to me that the Church has it backwards in blessing/recognizing marriages between those in category (2) but not in category (1).
Yes, that is clearer. To answer your question, prescinding from tedious qualifications about definitions, no. 1 is null, no. 2 is not. But you know that.
The short explnation, though, is not that the “Church decided it this way”, but that God created nature this way, and the Church respects His design. Further reading on the “unitive” character of marriage might shed light here.
Regards, edp.
I think Mr. Akin has overstated teaching of theologians with the phrase:
“Every sound Catholic moral theologian will tell you the same.”
Whenever someone uses all when referring to sound theologians teaching something, you can be sure he has over stated his point. If Mr. Akin meant to say “the vast majority of sound Catholic moral theologians of the 20th Century” then I would say he is correct. However, I believe that St. Thomas Aquinas was a sound moral theologian and he taught that whenever the marital act is engaged in without the possibility of conception, it is at least venially sinful for the one who starts it (this was an improvement over Augustine that insisted it was venially sinful for both). I have a friend whose wife recently had a hysterectomy and after reading the Cornelius a Lapide’s commentary on the Gospels, he was very concerned about this. I would be interested if Mr. Akin could point to one “sound moral theologian” before say 1700 that held Mr. Akin’s view. All this said I believe that Mr. Akin is right and St. Thomas and the rest are wrong, but the reality is that the vast majority of the sound moral theologians in the history of the Church would be against Mr. Akin, and myself.
Jimmy said “Every sound Catholic moral theologian will tell you the same” not “Every sound Catholic moral theologian said the same.”
His statement is sufficiently clear in context for discourse.
Dear Ed Peters,
I agree that, in some ways, Canon Law reflects nature and God’s designs.
However, it is also an ecclesial, human systematization and abstraction which, in other respects, cannot but fall short of God’s wisdom, and even intention and will, in creation, both the old and new creations.
Canon Law is not reality, not truth.
It is a nice theory that copulation is somehow at the crucial to the “unitive” character of marriage, and, indeed, I do agree that all married couples should have sex at least a few times, and for children.
But moving more deeply, how to “the two become one?” One way is the procreative unity. The children really are a manifestation of “two become one” new individual. But “the two become one” much more in soul, and even in their respective physical bodies, through decades of marriage. And this has little to do with copulation, and much to do with love.
I think the emphasis on copulation as a necessary requirement for the unitive character of marriage is largely the work of celibate clerics (most of the Canon Lawyers) that have no real experience of marriage.
And, are not all married couples also called, especially after childbearing years, to blessed continence, which is also to be our eternal state in resurrection?
Zhou: No, the “Laws and Customs of the Eldar” only apply if you are a pure-Elven descendent of Elwe, Olwe, Ingwe, or their contemporaries.
(less facetitious answer: that sounds wrong, but some more learned person will doubtless be along shortly to set us both straight.)
Old Zhou, you should read JPII’s Theology of the Body.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TBIND.HTM
OZ: intelligent comments, again. just wrong.
copulation does not by itself make two people one flesh (lest every fornicator be considered married) and “complete oneness” (whatever exactly that might be) requires more than copulation. I imagine Mary and Joseph were about as married any two people ever were. But the capacity to copulate (in a normal human manner) with the one person to whom one is otherwise married, is what makes the institution of marriage what it is. i wish you well in your investigation here, but too many great people have argued this in detail for me to try to repeat them. In canon law, we have a saying: consult the approved authors. Here in cyberspace, that’s all I can recommend, too.
Old Zhou,
And, are not all married couples also called, especially after childbearing years, to blessed continence, which is also to be our eternal state in resurrection?
Are you claiming this is Catholic teaching?
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Gentlemen,
I am 64 years of age, married for 41 years and due to cancer and prostatectomy I have become impotent with E.D. QUESTIONS: (1)Because of my impotence does the church say that my 41 year marriage is now invalid? (2)Does the church also say that there is no other sexual activity in marriege to be performed other then copulation? (3)If yes on (2), then why is it permissible for a married couple to partake in joined manual stimulation, oral sex, etc. as long as the end result of climax ends in copulation?
I am confused as to what to do when mother nature calls, satisfy our intimacy needs we enjoyed for 41 years ans also satisfy thr requirements of the church. What to do???
Explicit language notice for sensitive readers.
Let me say first of all that I really feel for you and will remember you in my prayers.
Absolutely, unequivocally NOT.
A marriage is valid, or not, from day one. If it is valid on day one, it cannot be invalidated by anything on earth, and cannot be severed by anything but death.
Impotence is an impediment to contracting marriage in the first place, but a valid Christian marriage sealed by conjugal union is absolutely indissoluble for life, come hell or high water, E.D. or even terrorists severing body parts. (Sorry, I wanted to be clear.)
A simple yes-or-no answer won’t do here.
All licit erotic activity is always ordered toward vaginal intercourse as its climax. Anything else is and must always be foreplay in the service of vaginal intercourse — not substituted for vaginal intercourse.
Important caveat: This does not mean that all forms of physical intimacy are always ordered toward intercourse. Embracing, kissing and otherwise being physically close and intimate without necessarily leading to sex is part of an ordinary healthy marital relationship. While such intimacy can ultimately lead to sex, it doesn’t have to.
However, at the point when (and it’s a grey area) intimacy begins to turn to delibrate arousal and stimulation, then it becomes preliminary to intercourse, and is only licit in that context.
IIRC, Karol Wojtyla writes in Love and Responsibility that each spouse must have the other’s fulfillment in view. Conjugal union that is physically and emotionally fulfilling generally presupposes a certain physical and emotional context of mutual preparation and consideration.
While such transactions are good in themselves, they are a part of a larger good, just as enjoying the taste of food is part of the larger good of eating — though this is only dimly analogous to sex, which is sacred and subject to a much stricter code than eating. Even so, to go to table and take bite after bite, chewing and enjoying the taste, only to spit out each bite without swallowing would generally be felt to be an appalling misuse of food.
This would probably be the case even for a person who was for medical reasons unable to swallow food and had to be nourished by artificial means. Rather than indulging in taste-and-spit meals, such a person ought to refrain from eating. Again, this is an imperfect analogy, for food is not sacred in the way that sex is (thus I can actually think of one context in which tasting and spitting is generally considered legitimate, i.e., a wine tasting).
I can certainly understand a husband suffering from E.D. feeling doubly burdened by his wife’s deprivation, and feeling that if he could give her satisfaction, at least that would be something. But while this may not be the easiest thing for either spouse to accept, I think that may ultimately be incompatible with a fully Catholic understanding of the meaning of one flesh.
Natural Family Planning teachers coach couples to think of periods of fertility and infertility as the couple’s fertility or infertility — that it’s not just “her issue,” so to speak. In a similar way, perhaps, E.D. is a dysfunction that affects the couple, not just the husband, and perhaps the wife must share in her husband’s deprivation.
Another connection between NFP and your situation: Couples must learn to accept that there is no right to an orgasm. There are times when one must do without — sometimes even indefinitely. For instance, the need for indefinite abstinence can occur when there is real reason to believe that a pregnancy would threaten the mother’s life, or when one of the spouses is HIV-positive.
I realize how cruel it sounds to say it, and I wince as I write the words: Sometimes life is like that. It’s not fair. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
My one-time best friend has lost at least six children to a genetic issue between his wife and himself. My brother-in-law died suddenly at 41 of the most aggressive form of leukemia any of the hospital staff had ever seen. Our host Jimmy was widowed at a young age by cancer. I know families that are separated for months at a time with fathers struggling to eke out a living in one state while their wives struggle to hold down the fort in another. I know people who are unemployed and can’t find work.
Life has heartache. We have to deal with it. Again, not an easy thing to say or to hear, but I think truth is always salutary even when it is bitter.
It’s worth repeating that no sex does not mean no intimacy. Again, I’m well aware how hollow this may sound (repeat the three preceding paragraphs as necessary). Couples practicing NFP or who cannot risk a pregnancy or intercouse for medical reasons must find other ways of being close and loving.
This is a tough row to hoe, because it must not lead to the kind of activity clearly ordered toward preparation for sex. At times you may have to exercise the strength of will to say “We need to stop now,” or to repent if it has gone too far.
On a pastoral note, I wouldn’t want you to be too hard on yourself if you don’t always toe the line as well as you should. I would say, though, that the better you get at toeing the line, the more satisfied you are ultimately likely to be in your physical relationship with your wife.
I will pray for you.
Thank you for your considerations in answering my concerns and also for your prayers. Come Holy Spirit.
My prayers are extended for you and your ministry also.
Marc
i had i hysterectomy sub- total and am in need of guidence because am so much worried of my life. please help
immerqulate, can you share a little more about your worries?