Month: May 2006

Contraception & Extra-Marital Sex

Catholics are often confused by reports of high churchmen, or even representatives of a Vatican dicastery, who say things that seem contrary to an absolute opposition to the use of contraception.

We’ve recently been hearing statements from some churchmen that sound "soft" on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, but these are only the most recent such statements. They’ve been going on for years.

One of the most well-known cases occurred several decades ago, when nuns in the Congo (which was undergoing civil strife) were permitted to use contraception to prevent pregnancy in case they were raped.

"How can things like this be squared with the Church’s teaching in Humanae Vitae?" many wonder. "Don’t these churchmen recognize that they’re in obvious dissent?"

I think I can shed some light on what they’re thinking, but first I need to issue

THE BIG RED DISCLAIMER: What follows IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MY PERSONAL OPINION. I am trying to provide a window into the minds of those who make the kinds of disturbing statements described above. I am trying to explain a phenomenon that perplexes orthodox Catholics, NOT expressing my own view. Thankyew.

Let’s look at the Congo nuns story. In that one, the argument was made that it was legitimate for the nuns to use contraception because they did not will the sexual act. It was being imposed on them by force, and so their lack of consent to the sexual act means that they were not consenting EITHER to its unitive OR its procreative aspect.

Thus it is argued that it was just for them to do what they could to avoid the procreative aspects of the act just as much as it was just for them to do what they could to avoid the unitive aspect of the act. The use of contraception, in their case, would constitute a form of legitimate defense against the consequences of an act that were imposed on them, not the frustration of the consequences of an act in which they freely engaged.

At least that was the argument that was made. (SEE HERE AND SCROLL DOWN.)

Now, how could anybody think that this squares with Humanae Vitae? If you look at the translation of Humanae Vitae on the Vatican web site, it clearly says:

Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means (HV 14).

This is very blunt. It precludes doing anything before, during, or after sexual intercourse that would thwart procreation. No exceptions are made for whether the act of sexual intercourse is willed by both parties or whether it is an act of rape.

Unfortunately, this passage contains a mistranslation.

Here’s the Latin original:

Item quivis respuendus est actus, qui, cum coniugale commercium vel praevidetur vel efficitur vel ad suos naturales exitus ducit, id tamquam finem obtinendum aut viam adhibendam intendat, ut procreatio impediatur.

I’ve highlighted the words that the English translation gives as "sexual intercourse." Even if you don’t have a background in Latin, the meaning of these words is pretty clear via their cognates in English. They literally mean "conjugal commerce" or–to make them slightly more idiomatic–"marital exchange."

In any event, they don’t mean simply "sexual intercourse." They mean a specific kind of sexual intercourse: Sexual intercourse which is conjugal or between married persons.

This understanding of the Latin is reflected in the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (also on the Vatican’s web site), which quotes this same passage from Humanae Vitae and renders the (highlighted) Latin phrase more accurately:

CCC 2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil.

Now, it’s easy to gloss over the word "conjugal" and interpret it as simply meaning "sexual," but that is not its meaning. It really does mean "marital."

And that sheds light on some of the mystifying statements that get made by churchmen and theologians that seem soft on the use of contraception.

In the case of the Congo nuns, for example, they weren’t married to the people who were likely to rape them and so for them using contraception would not be an "action which . . . in anticipation of the conjugal act . . . proposes . . .  to render procreation impossible." There could be no conjugal act for these nuns because they were not married.

It’s kind of eye-opening when you realize that, as Humanae Vitae 14 is worded, it is condemning the use of contraception within marriage and not really going into its use outside of marriage, but the entire framework to which Paul VI is addressing himself is to "the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage," and he does not address the question of whether the principles he is articulating also apply to sexual relations outside of marriage.

The same tends to be true of other Church documents. The framework in which contraception is addressed tends to be marital: If you look in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, for example, the discussion of contraception occurs under the major subhead "The Love of Husband and Wife" and under the minor subhead "The fecundity of marriage."

Contraception is not mentioned at all in the sections on adultery and fornication and other forms of extra-marital sexuality.

This is the pattern in Church documents: They tend to condemn contraception in connection with marital sex, but they don’t mention it when it comes to extra-marital sex.

The reason for this, I assume, is that the folks at the Vatican are waiting for doctrinal development to occur on this point, and so they’re staying closed-mouth about how contraception relates to extra-marital sex. Either that or they (some of them) don’t want to appear to be saying, "If you’re going to fornicate, at least take precautions," which would have the effect of encouraging fornication.

Now, as I said THE ABOVE DOES NOT REPRESENT MY PERSONAL OPINION. I would be happy if B16 or a future pope issued an encyclical that said "All of the principles contained in Humanae Vitae 14 apply to extra-marital sex as well as marital sex."

But this does shed light on some statements that otherwise mystify orthodox Catholics who want to fully accept the Church’s teaching on human sexuality.

Dulles On Ratzinger On Vatican II

Avery Cardinal Dulles has  a recent article on the subject of Joseph Ratzinger and Vatican II. The article covers Ratzinger’s involvement in the Council, his early thoughts on it afterwards, and his more mature thought.

EXCERPTS:

In his many publications Ratzinger continued to debate questions that arose during the council and in some cases expressed dissatisfaction with the council’s documents. In this respect he differs from Pope John Paul, who consistently praised the council and never (to my knowledge) criticized it. The material conveniently divides into three stages: his participation at the council, his early commentaries on the council’s documents, and his later reflections on the reception of the council. And then there are his changing reactions to the four great constitutions: on the liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium), on revelation (Dei Verbum), on the Church (Lumen Gentium), and on the Church in the modern world (Gaudium et Spes).

As a personalist in philosophy and as a theologian in the Augustinian tradition, he expects the Church to maintain a posture of prayer and worship. He is suspicious of technology, of social activism, and of human claims to be building the Kingdom of God. For this reason he most appreciates the council documents on the liturgy and revelation, and has reservations about the constitution on the Church in the modern world, while giving it credit for some solid achievements.

The contrast between Pope Benedict and his predecessor is striking. John Paul II was a social ethicist, anxious to involve the Church in shaping a world order of peace, justice, and fraternal love. Among the documents of Vatican II, John Paul’s favorite was surely the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes. Benedict XVI, who looks upon Gaudium et Spes as the weakest of the four constitutions, shows a clear preference for the other three.

I really enjoy reading Dulles’ articles for their characteristic clarity, frankness, and informative value. His willingness to take on the subject of Ratzinger’s awareness of the shortcomings of Vatican II and the criticisms that Cardinal Ratzinger made of certain passages in the Council is refreshing.

I’ve had access to some of Ratzinger’s early commentaries on the Council, but after reading Dulles’ summary of these, I’m going to have to try to look up the passage in which Ratzinger referred to one statement in Gaudium et Spes as "downright Pelagian."

That’s a statement that is eye-opening enough to make almost any theologically sensitive person to want to

GET THE STORY.

The Mound. . . . Visited!

The mystery photo from earlier today was a site that I’ve written about before. In fact, I’ve even published a picture of it before–but it was a picture taken from orbit.

Here’s that photo:

Mound2_3_1In case that doesn’t jog your memory, what you’re looking at here is a geological feature outside Binger, Oklahoma known as the "Ghost Mound."

Ghost Mound is one of a number of mounds that have names in Caddo County, Oklahoma–though there seem to be an even larger number of mounds that don’t have names.

It also appears to be the basis of the mound that is featured in H. P. Lovecraft’s story The Mound, which he (appropriately enough) ghostwrote for a woman named Zealia Bishop.

The Mound is considered the most impressive of all of the stories that Lovecraft is known to have ghostwritten for others–so impressive, in fact, that it’s often grouped with the stories that he published under his own name.

Lovecraft was given a minimal plot kernel to work with on this story. Here is all Bishop gave him to work with:

There is an Indian mound near here, which is haunted by a headless ghost. Sometimes it is a woman (S. T Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 467).

Lovecraft hated having to solve plot problems, and it particularly irked him that he had to write this story basically from scratch. (The fact he had trouble getting Bishop to pay him for the stories he ghosted for her also irked him.)

But the fact that she gave him so little to work with probably made the story what it is: one of Lovecraft’s best. The more he was given to work with by his literary clients, the worse the stories usually turned out. It was when he was left alone to wrestle through the story on his own that he did his best work, and The Mound is definitely one of his better stories.

It doesn’t actually feature ghosts, though. By this point in his career, Lovecraft was doing more science-oriented weird fiction and less supernatural-oriented weird fiction, so he doesn’t have conventional ghosts in the story. Instead, he provides an entire ancient, technologically-advanced civilization underneath the mound in his story.

To find out what the ghost-like entities actually are, you’ll have to

GET THE STORY.

If you do, you’ll note that Lovecraft’s description of the mound varies considreably from what it looks like in real life (because Lovecraft hadn’t visited the site and certainly wasn’t going to for the piddling wages he stood to make from the writing project–if he could even collect them).

In the story, he describes the mound as

a huge, lone mound or small hill that rose above the plain about a third of a mile west of the village—a mound which some thought a product of Nature, but which others believed to be a burial-place or ceremonial dais constructed by prehistoric tribes. This mound, the villagers said, was constantly haunted by, two Indian figures which appeared in alternation; an old man who paced back and forth along the top from dawn till dusk, regardless of the weather and with only brief intervals of disappearance, and a squaw who took his place at night with a blue-flamed torch that glimmered quite continuously till morning. When the moon was bright the squaw’s peculiar figure could be seen fairly plainly, and over half the villagers agreed that the apparition was headless.

He then has his protagonist climb up on top of the mound and start digging:

As I turned up the soil with my trench-knife I could not help wondering at the relative thinness of the reddish regional layer. The country as a whole was all red sandstone earth, but here I found a strange black loam less than a foot down.

Most of this doesn’t correspond to the actual mound the story is based on. First, it ain’t a third of a mile west of the town (not village) of Binger. It’s miles away and is actually closer to Hydro, Oklahoma. It also is clearly natural rather than artificial, and there is no soil–red or otherwise–up on top of it to be dug, if one could even get to the top of the thing.

I was disappointed when I got there and saw that I wouldn’t be able to climb the thing (not without way more time than I had, special climbing gear, and the permission of the landowner on whose property it is located). I’d hoped to go to the top of it, like the character in the story, and retrieve a soil sample.

Still, the mound is still the basis of a ripping weird fiction story!

Nice To See The Catholic Press Getting It Right . . .

. . . where the MSM has been getting it wrong.

Despite numerous secular press reports yesterday, the new Chinese bishops have not been declared excommuicate by the Holy See (EXCERPTS):

The threat of excommunication hangs over two Chinese bishops ordained without papal approval, but only if they acted knowingly and freely, said a canon lawyer.

And even if they incurred excommunication automatically by acting of their own free will, the penalty is limited until Pope Benedict XVI publicly declares their excommunication to the bishops and their faithful, said Jesuit Father James Conn, a professor of canon law at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.

Excommunication "may have been incurred, but we do not know that because we do not know their consciences or the external factors involved," Father Conn said.

If they were automatically excommunicated, they immediately are forbidden to celebrate the sacraments, receive the sacraments or perform the functions of a bishop unless the good of souls requires them to do so, he said.

Father Conn said the penalty is formal and more extensive once it is publicly declared by the pope, the only person in the church with the authority to impose penal sanctions on a bishop.

Public notification is not simply a formality, he said, but it is "for the good of the people of God," who have a right to know when a minister is celebrating the sacraments illicitly.

"There cannot be just a vague declaration because the good of souls is at stake," Father Conn said.

GET THE STORY.

Mystery Map

Gas_pricesTake a look at this map.

Lots of reds and greens with some yellows in there.

Now mentally sub in some other colors.

Change the reds and yellows to blue, and change the greens to red.

If you do that, what does the map start to look like? Rather a lot like the election map from 2004. Not perfect, but close.

But this map isn’t a map of voting results. It’s a map of gas prices.

The redder the color of a county, the higher the gas prices. The greener the county, the less gas costs there.

Some of the factors affecting gas prices may be geographic (it’s harder to get gas to some places than others), but the political aspect is not to be ignored.

Big government folks like their governments . . . well . . big, and to fund those big governments they need big taxes. That’s one of the reasons California consistently charges so much more for gas than Arizona. California has a HUGE gas tax compared to other states, and there are gas stations right over the border in Arizona that advertise the fact that you can fill up there without paying the California gas tax.

It works! If I’m heading east, I wait till I get to Arizona to fill up my tank for long road trips. It’s only two hours away, and I’ve usually got enough in the tank to get there before filling up.

It was interesting on my recent trip to see what the gas prices were elsewhere. At one truck stop, a trucker I ran into was positively livid about them and used vulgarity to express himself. At numerous stops people commented to me about how high the prices were.

To me, they weren’t nothin.’

I live in California.

We always have the worst gas prices in the  nation.

Thanks to our lovely blue-state legislature.

HERE’S THE SITE THE MAP IS FROM.

AND HERE ARE THEIR TIPS ON HOW TO SAVE MONEY ON GAS.

The Duty Of Office

In the comments section of a post by Mark Shea that took note of a blogger’s letter in response to a priest who waxed conflicted about homosexual identity and same-sex marriage in a parish bulletin, Chris Durnell offered some words of wisdom worth reprinting here so they are not eaten by Haloscan at some point down the line:

"The very real distinction between one’s public responsibilities and private feelings has been very overriden [sic] these days. Few seem to notice or care that the office one holds is not for one’s private use, but to fulfill the obligations of that office."

Amen.

Caprica!

Caprica_1YEE-HAW!!!

A big, TEXAS-SIZED CHT to the readers who e-mailed the following story:

SCI FI Channel announced the development of Caprica, a spinoff prequel of its hit Battlestar Galactica, in presentations to advertisers in New York on April 26. Caprica would come from Galactica executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, writer Remi Aubuchon (24) and NBC Universal Television Studio.

Caprica would take place more than half a century before the events that play out in Battlestar Galactica. The people of the Twelve Colonies are at peace and living in a society not unlike our own, but where high technology has changed the lives of virtually everyone for the better.

But a startling breakthrough in robotics is about to occur, one that will bring to life the age-old dream of marrying artificial intelligence with a mechanical body to create the first living robot: a Cylon. Following the lives of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas (the family of William Adama, who will one day become the commander of the Battlestar Galactica), Caprica will weave together corporate intrigue, techno-action and sexual politics into television’s first science fiction family saga, the channel announced [SOURCE].

SWEET!

(Except for that sexual politics thing. Let’s hope that gets minimized quickly, the way it did in BSG.)

Incidentally, this may explain why the third season of BSG is being delayed by a few months–so they can get the new series up and running.

The Stamp Act

15centstamp

A mere five months ago postal rates rose from 37 cents to 39 cents. Unsatisfied, the Post Office is seeking to raise them yet again — to 42 cents. Fearing reprisals from an angry mob of customers waving around packages they need to mail, the Post Office has hit upon a plan: Create a Forever Stamp that can be used "forever," no matter the current rate of postage.

"Here’s how it would work. If the 3-cent increase takes effect next year, the forever stamp would be made available for 42 cents, the same as other first-class stamps. If the first-class rate were to rise to 45 cents in a few years, the 42-cent forever stamp would still be honored for postage on letters. Once the new price took effect, forever stamps would then sell for 45 cents."

GET THE STORY.

I remember when first-class rates were 15 cents and, dagnabit, I’m not that old! Looks to me like I should consider Internet bill-paying after all.