Category: Moral Theology

Down yonder, a reader writes:

Jimmy, what is your "informed opinion" about whether it would be morally advisable for a Catholic to be hypnotized, either to help curb an unhealthy habit, or just as part of a show at a fair or on a cruise or something?

It depends in part on what your view of hypnosis is.

If you think that hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness that results in heightened suggestibility then it would be morally licit to use it for legitimate therapeutic purposes, like stopping smoking or losing weight or curbing anxiety.

It would not be morally usable for illegitimate therapeutic or investigative purposes, like trying to dig up memories of past lives, alien abductions, or fingering real or imaginary criminals since hypnosis trying to use hypnosis in this way leads to confabulated "memories."

It also could be morally licit to use it for entertainment purposes IF (and this is a BIG IF) you’re confident that the use of it in a particular case will not result in you doing or being tempted to do something immoral. For example, if you know that the stage magician is likely to give you morally neutral commands like "Cluck like a chicken" then the act would have a different moral character than if he were going to give you commands like "You’re becoming extremely aroused by your co-worker, who I also have here on stage hypnotized. You can’t keep your hands off her, etc., etc."

If, on the other hand, you’re like me and think that hypnosis is likely a socially constructed role that people know how to "play" from movies and TV (rather than a genuine altered state of consciousness) then a different moral question comes to the fore, because hypnosis in that case functions basically as a placebo.

Deceiving people into thinking that a placebo is real is immoral because it involves the offense of lying, but–in principle–it’s not immoral to use placebos as long as you don’t lie to people about the nature of what they’re doing. If you say, "This is not a change in your consciousness; it’s just a confidence-building measure that has as much or as little meaning as you choose to put into it" then I could see where therapeutic hypnosis might be morally permissible in principle.

I could see an informed Catholic saying to himself, "This may be just a placebo–or perhaps a smidge more than a placebo–but I’m going to use the fact that I was hypnotized as a confidence-building measure when I want a smoke or want to eat or when I’m feeling over-anxious."

In that case the person would not be attributing more to hypnosis than hypnosis has or is known to have. He’s aware that it’s just a tool he’s using with himself to accomplish his goals (like counting to ten in order to cool off when you’re mad or telling yourself that you can do something in preparation for actually doing it).

I’m not 100% comfortable with that, but it’s sufficiently non-problematic I wouldn’t at this point say that a properly informed Catholic couldn’t morally use it for therapeutic reasons.

Of course, the illegitimate therapeutic and investigative considerations would still apply.

And I’d be more uncomfortable about using it for entertainment since part of the game is thinking that what the stage hypnotist is doing might be real–unless the audience was made to understand that this is all just a game.

There’s also a "content-free" school of hypnosis that treats it just as a relaxed, focused state in which a person can put himself and decide for himself what he wants to do. In that case, it’s basically a form of meditation, and as long as it doesn’t get overlaid with mysticism or claims that it’s anything other than it is then it seems morally nonproblematic in principle.

This is all distinct from using hypnotism in works of fiction, where real-world rules don’t apply and hypnotism can be presented in a humorous, fantasy light–like in the otherwise forgettable Woody Allen movie Curse of the Jade Scorpion.

Madagascar! Constantinople!

A reader writes:

I was wondering if you have any information about hypnosis and Catholics.  As a fairly recent convert, I have areas of my faith that are still informed by my protestant background, and I like to shine the light of Catholic truth upon them when possible.  It has been my belief that participating in hypnosis, by opening up the subconcious mind, may allow demons access to the soul that our concious mind would otherwise suppress.  What do you think?

The Church does not have an official position on this matter, so what follows represents my personal opinion. I  have done quite a bit of thinking about hypnosis from a scientific and moral perspective over the years, so I hope you will find what follows to be an informed opinion.

Unfortunately, there’s no standard answer to what hypnosis even is. If you read the American Psychological Association’s "definition and description" of hypnosis, you’ll find that it’s all description and no definition because people in the field can’t even agree on basic questions like whether hypnosis represents an altered state of consciousness or not.

Let’s suppose, though, that something like what might be called the "classic" model is correct. According to this model, hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness ("a trance") in which a person is relaxed, mentally focused on certain things (either the hypnotist’s voice or what the hypnotist tells the patient to focus on), and has a heightened suggestibility (i.e., they’re more willing to follow the hypnotist’s instructions than they would be if not hypnotized).

On it’s face, there’s nothing supernatural about any of this, and that would make me wary of claims that one is opening oneself to the demonic.

I tend to take whether someone is open or closed to the demonic at face value: You’re not inviting demons to influence you unless you’re inviting demons to influence you. Since there is nothing overtly demonic about hypnosis (e.g., each hypnotic session does not begin with a prayer to a demon) there is no overt invitation to demons to influence you through it.

What about covert demonic influence? Demons do sometimes play unseen roles in influencing things around us, but when they do so it is in order to corrupt faith or morals or at least to cause suffering. Could a demon be involved in a particular case of hypnosis?

Well, if the hypnotist is trying to induce beliefs in you that are contrary to the faith, like the idea that you have lived past lives, then I suppose that the answer is yes. But then you don’t have to posit the existence of a demon to explain that. There are all kinds of evils in the world that aren’t directly produced by the activity of a demon. The hypnotist may just believe in reincarnation and use his role as a hypnotist to foist this belief on others.

And there’s nothing unique about hypnosis here. There’s nothing intrinsically occult about hypnosis in the classical model described above, and demons can have unseen involvement (or non-involvement) in all kinds of evils in the world, not just hypnosis.

There is a tendency in many Christian circles (both Protestant and Catholic) to give too much credit to demons in my opinion. While the devil was responsible for unleashing evil in the human community, this does not mean that one of his agents is involved in every particular evil that we encounter.

The classical model of hypnosis is not supernatural, it does not address supernatural forces, and it does not attribute supernatural powers to the hypnotist.

Neither do the individual components of the classical model have obvious supernatural significance: You may relax in hypnosis but you do not thereby open yourself to demons. Relaxing is a normal thing that humans do all the time.

As part of hypnosis, you may focus your attention on the hypnotist’s voice or the fact that your legs feel limp and heavy (because you just relaxed them! duh!), but we focus our attention on our bodily states and on other people’s voices all the time (ever try listening to someone in a crowded, noisy environment?). Focusing your attention is a normal human activity that does not open us to the demonic as long as what we’re focusing on isn’t demonic in nature.

Then there’s the heightened suggestibility, and here’s where we hit a significant problem–not in regard to the demonic but in regard to hypnosis in general.

To explain, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to say what I personally believe–or at least suspect–about hypnosis.

I don’t subscribe to the classical model. I don’t think that a person is really going into "a trance" in hypnosis. I don’t think that the state of consciousness a person is in during hypnosis is substantially different from any other relaxed, focused state of consciousness we experience.

I think that hypnosis is–or is likely to be–a social construct.

In other words, I think that there is a certain social role that people are expected to play when they are "hypnotized" and that they adjust their behavior to play this role. They know from film and TV and books that a hypnotized person is supposed to relax and act sleepy and then do or imagine what the hypnotist tells them, and that’s exactly what happens: They relax, they act sleepy, and they do or imagine what the hypnotist tells them.

Or at least the "hypnotizable" people do (the ones willing to play the role and then attribute their actions to the hypnosis).

Other people either don’t play the role or, if they play it, they are aware that they’re just playing a role and that "I’m realling doing all this myself" and so they are considered poor subjects for hypnotism or even "unhypnotizable."

MORE ON THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCT THEORY OF HYPNOTISM HERE.

So there is a big question in my mind about whether there is any "heightened suggestibility" in hypnosis or whether it’s just a person’s willingness to go along with the hypnotist because he’s playing an expected social role.

The fact that you supposedly can’t get a hypnotized person to do anything fundamentally contrary to his will would suggest the latter.

However that may be, the fact is that people who are hypnotized or who are playing the social role of a hypnotized person do respond to the suggestions of their hypnotists.

The moral evaluation of their actions would depend on the moral content of the suggestion they have been given. The suggestions "Cluck like a chicken" or "Raise your left arm" would seem to be morally neutral. "Stop smoking" or "Don’t eat so much" would be positive for a person who has been smoking or eating in excess. "Tell me about your past life" or "Try to remember who it was that sexually abused you (when in fact you were sexually abused by no one)" would be evil.

In none of these cases, though, do I see any opening of oneself to demons–unless the hypnotist directly suggests that you do so.

What we are "open" to is determined by our wills. If our wills are closed to the devil then we are closed to the devil.

A person undergoing hypnosis could thus say, "When I get hypnotized, I’m opening myself up to what the hypnotist wants me to do, but opening myself up to the hypnotist is simply not the same thing as opening myself to the devil. My will still remains firmly against what the devil wants me to do. I’m just letting the hypnotist give me a sleepy pep talk to help me stop smoking or something."

Even when the hypnotist does do evil, as with encouraging people to believe in past lives, that’s still him abusing his role as a moral agent and it does not involve inviting the devil to influence you.

You’re inviting the hypnotist to influence you, but since the hypnotist is an external natural influence any evil that the hypnotist does would be ascribed to "the world" rather than "the devil."

Scripture speaks of evils being produced by "the world, the flesh, and
the devil," and the devil is only one of three sources of evil in that
reckoning. Much of the time we are dealing with evils whose immediate
cause is external natural influence ("the world") or internal natural temptation ("the flesh"). It is only on occasion that we encounter an evil whose immediate cause is supernatural ("the devil").

I therefore don’t think that we should rush to attribute evils that we
encounter to the agency of demons. Sometimes they are caused by that,
but only sometimes. If we have evidence in a particular case (as in the
case of a possession) that evils are being caused by demons then it is
reasonable to attribute that case to a demonic cause, but if we don’t
have such evidence (as in the vast majority of cases) then I think we
do better not assigning a demonic cause to it.

If we allow ourselves to go too far in labelling things "demonic" that
do not have any obvious connection to a demon then we induce a kind of
paranoia that will lead to a cultural scrupulosity and personal
paralysis that is morally and psychologically unhealthy.

We should live life positively, trusting in God and his victory in
Christ, not looking over our shoulders (or under rocks) worrying about
demons. God is stronger than the devil, and we can trust him to take
care of us without having to worry about whether every little evil we
encounter had a supernatural cause or not.

This hesitancy to ascribe things to supernaturally evil causes seems to
be reflected in the Church’s policy of only performing exorcisms in
cases where other causes (like mental illness) have been ruled out first and there is no remaining natural explanation for the events that are transpiring.

We’ll simply be healthier and happier if we keep our focus on God and
trying to please him and only attribute things to the agency of the devil when his
involvement is undeniable.

A reader writes:

Thank you for your entertaining and informative blog.

I would just like to ask you why you so confidently stated that the Church hasn’t addressed extra-marital intercourse. Pitting Humanae Vitae against the CCC and Merriam-Webster doesn’t seem the best way of ascertaining what Church _Latin_ means by the word "coniugale" (even though I can tell you right now that coniugale meant "marital" in classical Latin).

Moreover, as I point out in your comments box, John Chrysostom, Clement of Alexandria, and everyone else who spoke about contraception, condemn it in any act of intercourse, not just marital. Whether you’re married or not isn’t a matter of important when speaking of contraception.

I am curious whether you have any Church sources to back up your assertion that taking the Merriam-Webster definition over the translation of Humanae Vitae is something grounded in the mind of the Church.

Let’s do this a piece at a time:

Thank you for your entertaining and informative blog.

Thanks very much. I’m glad you find it entertaining and informative, and I wanted to make sure I quoted this part so folks could see that you weren’t just being negative toward me/the blog.

I would just like to ask you why you so confidently stated that the
Church hasn’t addressed extra-marital intercourse.

The Church has addressed extra-marital intercourse. It has said that it is gravely sinful. What I said was 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." I also said "The same tends to be true of other Church documents."

Pitting Humanae
Vitae against the CCC and Merriam-Webster doesn’t seem the best way of
ascertaining what Church _Latin_ means by the word "coniugale" (even
though I can tell you right now that coniugale meant "marital" in
classical Latin).

I was not "pitting" Humanae Vitae against the CCC and the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary. I was pointing out a mistranslation in one English translation of HV and pointing to a correct translation of the same passage in the CCC.

The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary has no bearing on any of this except to document the meaning of the word "conjugal" in English for those English speakers who may not be familiar with its meaning (since it’s a rather uncommon word that is only used technically and people may have read it without attending to its meaning).

Perhaps I could have been clearer about this, but the citation of the MWD is not to prove anything about Latin. If I wanted to prove something about Latin, I’d cite a Latin dictionary. It’s merely to document the meaning of the English word for those who may not know it and may have always assumed that the word meant "sexual" instead of "marital."

I didn’t see the need, here, to cite a Latin dictionary because (a) the meaning of the word is the same as its Latin cognate, (b) it looks the same as its cognate, so folks should be able to see the connection, and (c) I don’t feel the need to quote a foreign language dictionary every time I explain the meaning of a foreign language term.

If I explain that una casa blanca means "a white house" in Spanish, then I don’t feel the need to start cutting and pasting or re-keying from a dictionary. If the meaning of a term is clear, there is no need for this, and if the meaning of a term is unclear then I’m not going to be building my argument based on it.

In fact, the only time that I would be inclined to cite a dictionary is when the meaning of a term is in dispute.

Since you’ve disputed the meaning of this term (though admitting that in classical Latin it means what I say it means), let’s look at Leo F. Stelten’s Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, where we read:

conjugalis -is -e: conjugal, marital

conjugatus -a -um: married

conjugicidium -ii: n.; murder of one’s spouse

conjugium -ii: n.; union, connection, marriage, wedlock

conjugo -are: (1); unite in marriage

As you can see, the adjective in question, conjugalis (in blue) means just what it does in English: conjugal or marital. Even the ecclesiastical Latin cognates of this word (in black) are overwhelmingly oriented toward marriage.

Moreover, as I point out in your comments box, John Chrysostom, Clement
of Alexandria, and everyone else who spoke about contraception, condemn
it in any act of intercourse, not just marital. Whether you’re married
or not isn’t a matter of important when speaking of contraception.

This is as may be, and I would be perfectly happy if B16 or a future pope were to endorse this view. All I said was that Paul VI didn’t go so far as to do so and only addressed himself to the question of contraception in marriage as is obvious both from the term he used and the context in which he used it. (And I also indicated that recent magisterial documents follow his lead in this matter.)

I am curious whether you have any Church sources to back up your
assertion that taking the Merriam-Webster definition over the
translation of Humanae Vitae is something grounded in the mind of the
Church.

I don’t need any because I’m not reading tea leaves here. I’m explaining the plain meaning of the text in Latin, as backed up by (a) my knowledge of Latin, (b) what dictionaries of ecclesiastical Latin say, (c) the structure of the passage, (d) the concurrence of the translation of the same passage in the English version of the CCC, and (e) the concurrence of other Latinists who I know and have discussed this passage with (at least one of whom is a conservative moral theologian with an expertise in sexual ethics).

This just isn’t rocket science. It’s what the text says.

Now, I’d love to be able to point you to an Official Vatican Dictionary that contains technical definitions of every word ever appearing in every Vatican document, but there isn’t one. While the Holy See does maintain a list of Latin neologisms (e.g., the Latin word for "Internet" or "helicopter"), it doesn’t have an official dictionary of words whose meanings everybody already knows and has known for hundreds of years. It uses these words and expects people to know what they mean based on their ordinary meanings in ordinary dictionaries (Latin dictionaries in the case of documents whose editio typica is in Latin; dictionaries in other languages for documents whose editio typica is in another language).

Hopefully this clarifies matters.

Down yonder, a reader writes:

I asked it once and no one responded, so I will ask again, would you give Christ a copy of Lovecraft’s books if He were standing next to you, and would you tell Him what you have told each other about these books in here? When you stand before Him on judgment day and He asks you why you read books that glorified murder and mayhem, what will you say to Him?

Let’s take this a piece at a time:

would you give Christ a copy of Lovecraft’s books if He were standing next to you

No, because I’d have much more pressing issues to deal with, like falling on my face and worshipping him and begging his forgiveness for everything I have ever done wrong and imploring his assistance for all my future and asking him certain critical pastoral and theological questions that I need the answers to–not to mention asking him what he wants me to do with my very limited time with him, if I’m not imposing on him too much with my worshipping and begging and imploring and asking. I mean, I know that he sometimes went off on his own to pray and so maybe what he really wants from me at the moment is to leave him alone so he can go do that without me being a distraction and I really don’t want to impose on him and so if he wants me to leave him alone all he has to do is say the word and I will be more than happy to do so and I hope he’s not mad at me for rambling on like this in the first place and actually my adrenalin level and heart rate and blood pressure would probably go down if he did just want to go off and pray and I didn’t have to deal with the anxiety of a sudden encounter with God Incarnate and man, oh, man I hope I’m not blowing it already and if I am then I really, really hope he’ll forgive me, because I want to do the right thing and I just haven’t ever had to cope with a situation like this before, but– HAVE MERCY ON ME, O LORD!

This is the natural human reaction to have. In fact, we see people having it even with angels in Scripture (as well as the Risen Christ in Revelation), which is why one of the first things that the visitor has to do when he shows up is to tell the person he’s appearing to to stand up and calm down ("Be not afraid") so he can deliver his message.

This illustration also shows the problem with the test that the reader is proposing.

Essentially, the test is WWYDIJP or "What Would You Do In Jesus’ Presence?"

I don’t think much of this test, or its counterpart WWJD. Neither one of them is a very useful guide for figuring out what one should do.

The problem with WWJD is twofold:

1) What was appropriate for Christ to do and what is appropriate for me to do are not always the same thing. As Lord of the Temple, for example, it may have been okay for him to whip sinners out of it, but that doesn’t mean it would be okay for me to do that.

2) More fundamentally, the test relies on our speculative imagination regarding what Jesus was like and whe he would do, and our imaginations are spectacularly bad in this area. The Gospels just don’t contain enough data for us to picture him fully. Unlike the apostles, we don’t have the benefit of having lived with him for three years and seen how he reacted to countless different situations, including ordinary ones.

We have to rely on our imagination of what Jesus was like, and these invariably lead us astray, either by viewing Jesus as a kind of etherial 2-dimensional icon that isn’t a full 3-dimensional man or–if we do imagine him as a 3-D man, we fill in that third dimension with bits of our own personality and those of our parents and such.

Both of these result in a falsification of who Jesus is.

It is better, when we don’t know what Jesus would do (which is the great majority of the time) to just say, "I don’t know what he would do" than to try to imagine and thus make up what he would do.

The real question that we should be focused on is not what Jesus would do but what he would have us do, and often that means not over-thinking the answer to a question and just going with your instincts.

In fact, "Go with your instincts unless reason tells you otherwise" is the basic paradigm that God built into human nature to guide our actions. He gave us instincts to motivate us to do things, and he gave us reason (including our conscience and the teaching of the Church) as a check on our instincts.

Trying to imagine what Jesus would do is a tool of very limited value (I’m not saying no value) that will lead us in the direction of scrupulosity and over-analysis if we try to employ it on a frequent basis.

The same is true of WWYDIJP.

Our real reactions to what we would do if suddenly confronted with Jesus in physical form are nothing like a reliable guide to what we should do when he is not present in physical form.

The closest guide we have to what that is like is being in Church, where he is present in the sacrament, and there is a certain decorum that is to be maintained in Church–a decorum that would be put on steroids if Jesus stepped out of the sacrament and stood before us in physical form.

There are whole classes of behavior that inappropriate in Church but which are necessary to human life (eating, sleeping, bathing, reproducing, doing your day job, etc., etc., etc.), making it clear that the "What Would You Do In Jesus’ Presence?" (in the Eucharist or in physical form) is just not a good test for whether something is okay for us to do.

In fact, the WWYDIJP test seems to me to be positively pernicious in a way that WWJD may not be, because if we try to use it as a test for what is okay then one of two things will happen: Either (1) we will refuse to do all kinds of things that are okay but inconsistent with the proper reaction to a Theophany or (2) we will degrade our view of what the proper response to a Theophany is by intruding all kinds of things from ordinary life into Theophany-acceptable behavior that really don’t belong in that category.

So as with WWJD, WWYDIJP is usually the WRONG QUESTION to ask.

A much better question is "What would Jesus have me do?" and the answer to that question is always "Go with your instincts unless reason tells you otherwise."

If someone has an instinct that leads them to enjoy suspenseful fiction when the read fiction then this is legitimate unless there is a specific reason why they shouldn’t.

Sometimes there will be a reason not to read a particular kind of ficiton. If it tempts you to sin then you shouldn’t read it. But if it doesn’t tempt you to sin (directly or indirectly by degrading your ethical sensibilities) then I have a hard time imagining another reason it should be avoided in principle (as opposed to being avoided right now because I don’t have the time to devote to it, for example).

Elsewhere in the combox, the same reader argued that Lovecraft’s story Dagon romanticizes suicide and this makes it an occasion of sin. It would be for a person who is already suicidal, but for a person who is not suicidal, Dagon ain’t gonna get ’em into that state.

READ IT FOR YOURSELF.

In fact, as was pointed out by another astute reader in the combox, Dagon does not romanticize suicide–it uses the character’s suicide to underscore how horrible the thing he encountered was–but Romeo & Juliet does romanticize suicide. The suicides of the two main characters in that are depicted as expressions of their love for each other and their unwillingness to live without each other because of how strong their romantic feelings are for each other, and if that ain’t romanticizing suicide then I don’t know what is.

Yet if you aren’t suicidally romantic at the moment or likely to become so then watching Romeo & Juliet does not constitute an occasion of sin for you and there’s no reason not to go to the Shakespeare festival the night that it’s playing.

would you tell Him what you have told each other about these books in here?

I can only speak for myself here, but yes. I weigh what I say on the blog very carefully, because I know that I am responsible to him for what I write–particularly when analyzing moral and pastoral problems for others–and I think very carefully about these.

Of course, I’m fallible, and I’m quite sure that if I went through the archives I’d find things that I would want to change–and I’m sure that Judgment Day will bring more of these to light–but I try (in my imperfect, fallen way) to live and write with integrity so that I have no reason to be ashamed before Jesus of what I have said.

When you stand before Him on judgment day and He asks you why you read books that glorified murder and mayhem, what will you say to Him?

I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve done this–certainly not to a significant degree. Lovecraft’s books do not glorify murder and mayhem; certainly not in a general way (though if I did a thorough review I might conclude that in individual passages he crossed the line).

Lovecraft’s books do refer on occasion to murder and mayhem but the are not simply glorifications of it. The reader’s facts here are simply out of order.

A reader writes:

I was raised as a Catholic, but when I was in my twenties I started slowly drifting away from the Church. I was married in a Protestant Church and regularly attend its or other Protestant services with my wife. On occasion I also attend Catholic Mass (but do not receive Communion.)

Recently I have been contemplating the possibility of re-joining (probably not the correct word) the Catholic Church and am wondering what would be involved in this process. I am not sure if they are relevant, but here are a few other facts:

I have been married only once
My wife has been married previously and divorced.
My wife has always been a Protestant and is probably not interested in converting.
I was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church

I assume that the fact that my marriage is not valid in the eyes of Rome is an issue with my getting back into the Catholic Church. I assume that my wife and I would have to be remarried in a Catholic Church. Would my wife have to have her previous marriage annulled? On one level that would not make sense to me as her first marriage would not have been valid under Catholic rules, but at the same time I somehow have the idea in my head that her prior marriage would have to be annulled.

I would be most appreciative if you could give me some direction in this area.

Thank you very much for writing and for being willing to confront these issues in a straightforward way. It is a sign that God is working in your heart and that you are cooperating with his grace–something that he will definitely bless.

It does not appear from what you said that you ever formally defected from the Church, and so you’re right that re-joining might not be the right word.

What you do want to do is to be reconciled with the Church, and for a person in your position the fundamental way to do that is the same as for most people whose full communion with the Church has been impaired in some way: to go to confession.

Upon being able to make a good confession, you would be restored to normal status in the Church and able to lead a full sacramental life.

They key is being able to make a good confession, and that is where your wife’s marriage is relevant.

Since your wife was not a Catholic at the time of her first marriage, she was not bound to observe the Catholic form of marriage, and so the Church would presume that her first marriage was valid.

If it was valid then she was not free to marry you (assuming her former husband was still alive at the time your marriage to her took place) and the two of you would not be validly married. This means that you would not be entitled to conjugal relations with each other, and if you are having them then you would not be able to make a good confession.

The typical solution to your situation (which is very common) would be for your wife to pursue an annulment for her first marriage. If it is found null then you and she would be free to have your marriage convalidated, at which point you would be able to continue leading a conjugal life and be able to make a good confession and return to normal sacramental life as a Catholic.

Since your wife is not Catholic, it may be difficult for her to understand and accept the need to pursue a solution like this, but–even if she does not think this is needed or desirable–hopefully she can understand how important it is for you as a Catholic to be reconciled to your Church and to pursue a solution like this as a matter of conscience. Her conscience may not require her to pursue such steps, but yours does, and hopefully she can come to understand and appreciate that.

She may even find a form of healing by working through the annulment process and coming to have a better understanding of why her first marriage failed and to "close the books on it" in a sense. Many people, even non-Catholics, have reported that the annulment process helped them come to terms with what happened to their prior marriages and provided a kind of clarity and healing that they appreciated.

Pursuing a solution such as the one above may be difficult at times, but God will make sure that you and your wife have the grace you need to deal with whatever happens. Trust him to guide and strengthen you, moment by moment, and he will make sure that you have the grace that you both need.

He loves you both, and more than you know. After all, he sent his Son to die so that you might have the graces he wants to give you.

I hope this helps, and I encourage my readers to keep you and all in similar situations in their prayers.

BTW, I also authored a short booklet on annulments to help people understand them better. You can get a copy of it here.

20

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.

I’ve gotten a bunch of e-mails about the stories circulating in the Catholic press that the Holy See may be issuing a document dealing with the topic of condoms and the transmission of HIV/AIDS.

From what I can tell, the known facts seem to be these:

1) Pope Benedict asked one of the Vatican dicasteries (the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care) to prepare such a document (after some cardinals started making remarks in the press that sounded favorable toward using condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, thus creating a public issue that needs clarification).

2) The document is presently in the consultation stage (word is that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is now looking at it).

3) When the consultation is finished, the document will be forwarded to B16 for him to decide what (if anything) to do with it. So NONE of this is a done deal at this point.

GET THE STORY.

Now, let’s go deeper: John Allen says (EXCERPTS),

Sources told NCR this week that a draft study currently being prepared by the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care would provisionally accept the use of condoms in the narrow context of a married couple, where one partner is infected with HIV/AIDS and the other is not, as a means to prevent transmission of the disease.

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 look into the subject.

Speaking on background, an official in Lozano Barragàn’s office later told NCR that the draft takes a favorable position on the use of condoms to halt the spread of the disease "inside marriage and the family, not outside of it."

GET THAT STORY. (CLINICAL LANGUAGE WARNING)

Allen does a pretty good job explaining the moral dimensions of what the document might say, but let’s get into the moral issue involved and try to envision what the document might say if it comes out along the lines that Allen indicates are currently being discussed.

This matter is sensitive enough, though, that I’ll put the substantive discussion of it below the fold for the sake of decorum.

(CLINICAL LANGUAGE WARNING BELOW.)

Continue reading “Condoms & HIV/AIDS”

A reader (who extended permission up front to blog this) writes:

I have been struggling lately with several serious
problems doing with mental health. You see, I was
headed for a Religious community and the seminary
until recently, when I was hospitalized again due to being
suicidally depressed.

Earlier, I just thought that my mental illness was
major depressive disorder, with no psychotic features,
and something I very possibly could recover completely
from (I have completely recovered from this before).
Although I had attempted suicide in the past, the
community I was looking at was going to attempt to get
me a waiver on the canonical impediment to Orders.

All of this has changed, because I recently was given a diagnosis that caused me to realize that
my depression was not just going to lift, and that I
will probably struggle with severe depression for the
rest of my life, and it is very posssible in a fit of
depression that I either attempt suicide again or
succeed in committing it. So I decideded that there
was  no possible way that I had a vocation…

First of all, I want to say that I understand what a painful time this is for you. I know what it’s like to have to give up on a career that you wanted very much to pursue. To have reached that conclusion under your circumstances is even more painful, and I want to encourage my readers (who number in the thousands) to pray for you.

I also want to give you two compliments right up front:

First, you had the courage and presence of mind to ask for help and to write a very thoughtful series of questions, which I will address below. You should feel good about yourself for that.

Second, you volunteered to allow me to blog on this very sensitive matter. That means that the answers I give you will be out there in cyberspace where they can help other people as well. This was a very courageous and generous thing, given the sensitivity of the matter, and you should feel especially good about yourself for having made the offer.

Remember those points.

Also remember that you are a child of God and that he loves you enough to die for you on a Cross. Remember that especially. He died, so you don’t need to.

And he will eventually bring something wonderful out of your suffering, because that’s what he does: He turns suffering into redemption and glory. Your cross in this life may be heavier than many, but that means that your crown in the next life will be all the more glorious.

You can already see God redeeming your suffering right now, by the fact that you volunteered to let me blog this, so your suffering is leading to help for others who are similarly suffering, so they can be comforted as well as you.

Not many people would volunteer in that way.

You are a very special person.

To what degree am I morally responsible for my actions
and my illness?

To the extent that your condition impedes your ability to function normally, it diminishes your responsibility for your actions. If it is not significantly impeding you at the moment then you are more responsible. If it is significantly impeding you then you are less responsible. If it is totally impeding you then you are totally not responsible.

Since you mention (below) that you are the child of two schizophrenic parents, I would assume that your condition is genetic, which means that you are not responsible for your condition AT ALL. Don’t worry about that. Don’t take that burden on yourself, because it is not your burden.

What you are responsible for is how you manage your condition. This means taking your medications and seeking appropriate psychological help, up to and including checking yourself into a hospital when needed.

It also means doing your best to turn away from the dark thoughts when they come to you, to set them aside and think about something else. When you sense them starting to come, do your best to think about something else–something happy. Try to remember what I’ve said in this post pointing out how special you are and how much God loves you.

Also, cultivate habits that will help you keep a good mood. Let me make several specific recommendations:

1) This may sound strange but . . . try a low-carb diet. You are likely to find that your energy level and mood are better if you aren’t having to deal with the insulin spikes and blood sugar lows caused by eating the large amounts of carbohydrates that most Americans consume.

2) Get exercise. Find something you like and throw yourself into it.

3) As a form of enjoyable exercise, I especially recommend dancing, especially highly energetic and chaste dancing that puts you in a large group of people so you have social contact with others. Energetic dancing is a form of exercise that you won’t even perceive as exercise.

I know that I’m a square dancing enthusiast, but I would especially recommend square dancing, because it meets those three qualities in spades: It’s highly energetic (making it a better workout and causing your brain to release endorphins that will make you feel better), it’s chaste, and it is a highly social form of dancing that will let you meet a whole group of people rather than a single partner. Also, handshakes and hugs are part of the politeness rituals associated with square dancing, and having that kind of friendly, positive contact with others will also help improve your mood.

4) Use positive language to describe your condition. Using positive language will help you think positive and thus feel positive. For example, you may want to express what you are doing in terms of "managing a condition" rather than "suffering from an illness." Both of these modes of language point to the same underlying reality, but they put different spins on it. If you focus on suffering and illness then you are likely to feel worse, like a victim who has little control. But if you think of yourself as managing a condition, you are no longer focusing on suffering an illness. Instead of being a victim, you’re a manager–someone who has power over the thing you’re managing, someone who can make a difference in what happens to him, who doesn’t just have to sit back and take it. That’s the reality of what you are, so reflect that reality in the language you use to yourself and others, and you’ll find that you have more power over your situation than you thought.

I am also involved in Church ministry,
and should I leave? (More than one priest who are
generally orthodox in their opinions think that as
long as at the time of ministry, I am ok, that it’s
all right.) I have my doubts, and my self-esteem and
trust of myself is at an all time low.

I don’t know what ministry you are involved in at present, so I can’t give an opinion on whether it is the right one for you at the moment, but I think I can be of help.

The main piece of advice I would have is this: Don’t think in terms of leaving ministry. Think in terms of finding the best ministry for you to pursue.

We are all called to minister to the corporal and spiritual needs of others. We are all reciprocally called to have our corporal and spiritual needs ministered to by others. It’s part of the design for how Christ set up his mystical Body.

The question, therefore, is not whether we should be doing or receiving ministry. The question is finding the particular ways in which we can best minister to others and finding the ministries of others that will best help our corporal and spiritual needs.

Even people who are full-time patients in psychiatric institutions are called to do what they can to minister to the patients and doctors and staff members around them, just as the others in that environment are called to minister to their needs.

It is the same in the outside world. No matter where we are, what our life situation is, we are called both to minister and to be ministered to (the latter also includes letting others know of your needs so they can help).

So your call is not to stay in or leave ministry. It’s to find the best ministry for you to pursue.

What that is depends on your inclinations, aptitudes, and circumstances.

I’d therefore ask myself what you like doing (your inclinations) and what you’re good at (your aptitudes) and use that as a pointer toward what you should explore.

Once you have that in mind, consider your circumstances. There are two things to consider here: The needs of others around you and your limitations.

The needs of others (which is what ministering is all about) are an important factor here. Suppose, for example, that you enjoy being an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion a lot and you also enjoy singing in the choir. But suppose that your parish already has tons of extraordinary ministers (more than it needs). That would be a signal–based on your present circumstances–to spend time in the choir rather than as an extraordinary minister. You might enjoy being an extraordinary minister more, but that’s not what the people around you need the most right now, and what their needs are is what ministry is about. You can put your talents to better use in the choir for the moment.

Notice that I said "for the moment," because circumstances change, and what ministry is the best for you right now will change over time.

This comes in particularly in view of your condition, since it changes over time. Everyone in ministry has to know his limits–otherwise he will exhaust himself and minister poorly to others. Your condition sounds like it changes significantly with time. When you’re in a long-term, stable period there would be more forms of ministry that would be appropriate to you than if you’re having a significant episode of depression.

I would say that, if you feel a significant episode coming on you should consider whether you need to step back from some of the forms of ministry you may be undertaking, and if you feel that you have entered a stable period then it makes sense to step forward and explore new forms.

Because of the changeability of your condition, I would also look for forms of ministry that don’t require permanent or long-term commitments. You need to be doing things that you can step back from if a significant episode arrives.

I also wouldn’t think of ministry exclusively in terms of a parish setting. Lots of ministry happens outside of Mass. Sometimes people who have a great desire to minister narrow their options by thinking exclusively in terms of parish-centered ministry. If you consider a broader palette of options then you’re more likely to find the right colors you can paint with.

In this regard, let me make a suggestion: You’re obviously a very bright guy (something else you should feel good about), and I know from things I edited in your e-mail to conceal your identity that you have an intellectual bent, so may I suggest . . . blogging?

Blogging would allow you to help others using your intellectual talents, but it would also allow you the kind of flexibility that you need to accomodate potential changes in your condition. For considerations of your privacy, I would blog under a pen name, and I would be open with your readers about your condition so that if you need to take time away from blogging they will know why and will be able to pray for you.

If you choose to go this route, you’ll need to be patient while you build a readership. It will take time, and in the early days you won’t have a big readership.  But if you apply yourself then, like any other blogger, you can cultivate a readership. Also if you go this route, send me another e-mail and let me know, and I’ll try to recommend your site to my readers.

This is
doubly painful, because I am the child of 2
schizophrenic parents who have had significant accomplishments.

I undertand your pain, and I’m going to turn this one around on you to show you what is possible: The fact that your parents have had significant accomplishments (which I’ve edited out for reasons of your privacy) shows you that a person with your condition can achieve things! Your own parents did, so you can too! Feel good about that!

Also, more than one friend have attributed this
illness to the work of Satan, which I reject because
it has a biological basis and the Catechism explicitly
teaches that psychological illness should never be
used as a basis for an exorcism. To what degree could
the devil be involved in this?

One can’t eliminate the possibility of some involvement from the opposition, but you’re taking the right attitude, and the attitude which the Church would have you take (as illustrated by its exorcism policy). Your condition has a known physiological basis, and that is what you should look to in explaining it to yourself. You will serve yourself better if you don’t go looking for supernatural explanations and simply trust Jesus and Mary to protect you from supernatural interference.

Also, can I receive the
anointing of the sick when I am doing very badly, as
it is a form of illness that is seriously life
threatening? (I think Psychiatric illness that causes
serious suicidal thoughts and can lead quickly to
actions is life threatening, would you?)

This matter has not been authoritatively settled, but sound pastoral practice would indicate that you should be able to receive the anointing of the sick if you at the onset of a significant episode (or if a significant episode gets worse).

The Church’s documents speak of people who begin to be in danger of death due to sickness and do not further specify the nature of the sickness. If the danger is caused by a condition of the heart or the brain, it should not make any difference. Mental illnesses are real illnesses, and they should count under this provision just as much as illnesses that affect other organs and bodily systems. The fact that it is processes in the brain rather than elsewhere in the body that causes the danger should not matter.

I’d also note that the English-language text of the ritual for anointing of the sick (which Rome approved) has a pastoral note stating that those with serious mental illnesses may be anointed, and the Code of Canon Law contains a canon (c. 1005) that encourages the reception of this sacrament when there is a case of doubt about whether the conditions for it are fulfilled. This, at the very least, signals that the Church wants a generous application of the sacrament so that people can get the help they need from the sacrament.

I hope this helps, thank you again for writing and for allowing me to help others by blogging this. You will be in my prayers and, I’m sure, the prayers of numerous readers. So be encouraged, and feel good about yourself!