Category: Moral Theology

Down yonder, a reader writes:

Please help me to better understand this issue. I don’t need convincing on the sinfulness of contraception. I need to better understand the relationship to NFP, which the Church allows.

In your initial post, you state: "The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful". But doesn’t this occur in NFP? Isn’t the couple planning their sexual relations around a time that it is almost certain to be unfruitful? Aren’t they divorcing the pleasure of the act from its openess to life? Isn’t their intent the same as the couple who uses artificial contraception; only the "means" being different?

I do understand that God did not design us so that every sexual act produces children. Of course, NFP takes advantage of this. I also know that there is always a chance of new life, even when practicing NFP properly. But there is also that chance with artificial contraception. It is not 100% effective.

Help me understand the distinction here. My logic must be flawed, because I know the thinkers in the Church are a lot smarter than I am!

You have put your finger on the decisive fact in this: "God did not design us so that every sexual act produces children. . . . NFP takes advantage of this."

In many mammalian species, God designed things so that the males are sexually receptive all the time, while females are only sexually receptive in proximity to their fertile period. Thus such species tend to only engage in sexual activity in proximity to fertility.

But God designed humans different. In our species both genders are sexually receptive in general, not just when a woman is fertile (though there appears to be an increase of sexual receptivity at that time). The result is that humans engage in sexual activity even though most of the time it has no chance of resulting in procreation.

The fact that we cannot, in the case of any given act of marital congress, utterly rule out the possibility of procreation, this says more about the limitations of our predictive ability than anything else. If we had better knowledge of what was happening in a woman’s body (as we well may one day), we would be able to say with certainty that there will be no procreation from a particular act of union.

Even so, we can in the case of a great many couples (those where the husband or the wife or both are infertile, either due to age or some other cause) say with certainty that there will be no procreation as the result of an act of union. Yet the Church has never expected such couples not to have marital congress in such cases.

The issue thus is not whether there is a chance of there being a conception. It is a red herring to suggest that NFP is okay because it is unreliable (always some chance of conception) while contraception is wrong because it is reliable (no chance of conception). In reality, many cases where NFP are used have no objective chance of resulting in conception (we just often can’t identify those cases up front), and in many cases contraceptive sex does have the chance of resulting in conception.

The question is not whether a particular act has the potential for fertility. The question is whether you are doing anything to render the act deliberately infertile. This is what the document I quoted refers to when it speaks of "marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful" (emphasis added).

In the case of an act of NFP the couple is not doing anything to make themselves infertile. They are simply having marital congress when nature makes them infertile.

Similarly, a couple with permanent infertility (due to age or some other cause) is not deliberately making themselves infertile each time they have marital congress. As with the first couple, they are simply having marital congress when they already are infertile.

But when a couple performs a specific act to make themselves infertile (having surgery, taking a chemical, employing a device) then that act is deliberately frustrates God’s design for human sexuality and so is sinful.

(Note the emphasis on "that act." The sinfulness does not extend to future acts of marital congress if the couple repents as they are no longer affirming by their will the act of rendering themselves infertile.)

The issue thus is not whether any given act of union has a chance of producing a child. Nor is the issue whether one ever has children (that is an important issue, but a different one than this). The issue is whether you are doing something to deliberately frustrate the fertility of a particular sexual act.

A reader writes:

Dear Jimmy: A
Catholic friend of mine mentioned her husband recently had a surgical
sterlization procedure. A general discussion on contraception followed,
when I informed her I believed church teaching classifies contraception
as gravely sinful (mortal sin) as an infallible teaching she insisted
that was not the case.

I would appreciate your clarification and supporting sources if I am in fact correct.

No prob.

You are, in fact, correct. The sinfulness of contraception has been infallibly proposed by the Church and its gravity is grave. These facts are reflected in the Vademecum for Confessors, which states:

The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of
contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally
rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive
and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital
chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life
(the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal
self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it
harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the
transmission of human life [Vademecum for Confessors 2:4, emphasis added].

I’ve italicized the two key sentences here. The first addresses the infallibility issue. Those teachings that the Church has proposed as definitive are those that, in popular speech, have been taught infallibly, either by the Church’s ordinary or extraordinary Magisterium; in the case of this teaching, it has been so taught by the ordinary Magisterium. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

"The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this
infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of
all the faithful – who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a
definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals…. the infallibility
promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together
with Peter’s successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," above all
in an Ecumenical Council. When the Church through its supreme
Magisterium proposes a doctrine "for belief as being divinely
revealed," and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions
"must be adhered to with the obedience of faith." This
infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation
itself [CCC 891].

The second italicized sentence from the Vademecum indicates the gravity of the sin of contraception and states that it is grave. This means that, when done with adequate knowledge and consent, it is a mortal sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: "Mortal sin
is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full
knowledge and deliberate consent" [CCC 1857].

Down yonder, a commenter writes regarding going to war with Iraq because Saddam was perceived to possess WMDs:

[T]his is a red herring since Iraq is a sovereign State and has as much right to WMDs as any other State.

I strongly disagree. States no more have equal rights to weaponry than individuals do.

I don’t care how much a fan of the Second Amendment one is (and I am a big fan of it, myself), the fact is that not all people have a moral or a legal right to have deadly weapons. Homicidally insane individuals have no moral right (and, one hopes, no civil right) to possess deadly weapons. A responsible person may be able to handle a gun responsibly, and the possession of guns by such people appears to actually decrease the crime rate (actually, not just in theory) because burglars don’t want to break into homes knowing that they may be facing an armed homeowner. But the homicidally insane by definition are not responsible and not capable of possessing firearms without posing a grave danger to the community. They cannot be trusted with the power that such weapons represent because they have too great a risk of misusing it. The community has no obligation to allow such individuals to possess deadly weapons.

In the same way, the community of nations has no obligation to allow homicidally unstable nation states to possess WMDs. Prescinding from the question of whether such weapons should exist, it is clear that if they are to exist that not all nations have an equal moral right to them. If any nations are to have them then it must be those nations that have the maturity, stability, and sense of moral conscience not to use the recklessly or indiscriminately. Those nations should not possess such weapons that are unstable, immature, or evil enough that they stand a good chance of (a) proliferating such weapons to unstables states, (b) passing them to terrorists, (c) using them recklessly, or (d) collapsing into chaos.

Applying this to the present situation, regardless of what one may think of particular instances in the U.S.’s record (which is not perfect; the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong), it remains the case that the U.S. is (d) a stable nation (not likely to become a "failed state" like Somalia) that (c) has a large number of citizens *today* who will not tolerate leaders who use such weapons indiscriminately (as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and (b) will not pass them to terrorists or (a) proliferate them to unstable states. It also has a sixty-year record of possessing WMDs, much of that period in a tense face-off with the Soviet Union, without using them.

One could fault this or that in U.S. history, but the fact remains that the U.S. has a far greater claim to being the kind of nation that can trusted to possess WMDs than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (or any Middle Eastern country).

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby writes:

YASSER ARAFAT died at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by familiar
faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims
he sent to early graves.

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows,
hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at
Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid
a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George
Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had
died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul
of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his
agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the
sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline
terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who
inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich?
Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil — as indeed
Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize — but
God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity [SOURCE].

Mr. Jacoby’s depth of feeling here is obvious, and there may be merit to much of what he says, but I must take issue with him with regard to two points.

First, President Bush was giving voice to an authentic Christian sentiment that is required by the gospel. "God bless his soul" is the attitude that Christians are required to take regarding all individuals, no matter how evil. We may not always say it, but we are obliged to will the good of others no matter what their past may be.

This does not mean that we must not hold individuals accountable for their actions. The Catechism of the Catholic Church acknowledges that the state has the right to use the death penalty and that there are circumstances in which its use is warranted. Perhaps Yasser Arafat should have swung for his crimes. That’s at least an arguable position. But no matter what his crimes may have been, we must always hope for repentance.

Perhaps Mr. Jacoby misunderstood what the President said. Perhaps he thought that he was somehow expressing approval regarding Arafat’s soul–i.e., declaring it to be a good one by invoking God’s blessing upon it. But I doubt this. Mr. Jacoby probably understood that the President was not certifying the blessedness of Arafat’s soul but praying for it, as required by the Christian duty of praying even for one’s enemies (and certainly President Bush has not regarded Arafat as a friend and ally in the past).

Perhaps Mr. Jacoby might say "Fine. Perhaps President Bush has a Christian duty to wish the salvation of monsters like Arafat, but I’m not a Christian. I’m Jewish, and my people have suffered mightily at the hands of this particular monster."

I don’t think that this would be a successful way to deflect the issue, for the attitude of mercy even for one’s enemies is rooted in the Jewish Scriptures as well as in the Christian. Read the book of Jonah. That’s the whole point of the book. In the book the prophet Jonah is sent to the city of Nineveh, Mesopotamia (which now goes by the name of Mosul, Iraq). At the time, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, which was a persecutor of Israel. Jonah preaches judgment against Nineveh at God’s command, but he is disappointed when the city repents and God spares it.

In fact, Jonah is so angry with God that he prays to die:

"Now, O LORD , take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."

But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?"

Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made
himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen
to the city. Then the LORD God provided a vine and made
it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his
discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun
blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and
said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."

But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"

"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."
    
But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you
did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died
overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and
twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their
left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that
great city?" [Jonah 4:3-11].

Today we may not realize the political overtones to this passage because we don’t know enough about the history of the period, but the passage is extremely pointed. You see, the Assyrians weren’t regarded by the Israelites as being as bad as the PLO is regarded by Israelis. They were regarded far, far worse. The PLO has made life for Israelis hard, but it hasn’t been able to accomplish the goal of conquering and subjugating Israel or deporting its population out of the nation. The Assyrians did. They did all those things, and Nineveh was their capital.

So Jonah was more motivated than Jacoby to want to see God’s wrath fall upon the enemies encountered in his day. But God showed the prophet that he was wrong, that he had no right to be angry about the salvation of his enemies, and that God looks upon even the enemies of his chosen people and wills their repentance and salvation.

Neither (and this is the second point I want to take issue with) can Mr. Jacoby be confident of Arafat’s damnation. No matter what Arafat’s outward actions may have been, and no matter how late in life he persisted in them, repentance can take place in the heart even in the last moment of life. We can’t know whether that happened, but God does. As the Jewish Scriptures also say:

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart [1 Sam. 16:7].

A reader writes:

Is it a virtue (minor as it may be) to have or possess "good manners", ie, decent table manners?

It seems to me that if one has never had the opportunity to have been "taught" good manners, then no one would expect such niceties.  (For instance, someone in a remote area that has not had any need or exposure to the Western idea of good table manners.)  but, on the other hand, if someone has grown up in a culture that has placed some value on nice table manners – and has been taught them as such, and if that person were a Christian, it might be considered part of his/her Christian duty to display these nice manners out of concern for others, (ie, by not grossing-them-out with unsightly table manners – or lack there of.)

This "concern for others" might be interpreted as part of the virtue of charity for others – not just thinking of oneself , and what is easiest or most comfortable for oneself, if others is not important to him/her.

The following thoughts occur to me:

1) Humans need to interact with each other in a smooth manner.

2) In many circumstances, manners and etiquette facilitate smooth interaction with humans.

3) Therefore, in many circumstances humans need manners and etiquette.

4) To faciliate human needs is an act of charity.

5) Therefore, in many circumstances manners and etiquette are a matter of charity.

6) Whatever is a matter of charity is a virtue.

7) Therefore, in many circumstances manners and etiquette are a matter of virtue.

This being said, several additional thoughts suggest themselves:

8) Manners and etiquette tend, by their nature, to be either largely or completely arbitrary. They are like driving on the right or the left side of the road. Neither is markedly better than the other in and of itself, but only due to common usage. Therefore, manners and etiquette should not be looked upon as sacrosanct. In some cultures, burping during a meal is considered rude, while in others it may be considered a sign of appreciation for the food one is eating.

9) The seriousness with which a particular set of manners should be taken depends on the circumstances. For example, it is of the utmost importance that proper protocol be observed when negotiating a peace treaty between nations, but far less significant when close friends or family members are interacting in a private setting. In the former setting, the consequences of a violation (e.g., loss of human life) are greater and the amount of tolerance that may be expected is lower. In the latter setting, the consequences are lower (e.g., loss of human life) is lesser and the amount of tolerance that may be expected is greater.

10) There is such a thing as placing too much weight on manners and etiquette. The whole point of manners and etiquette is that they facilitate certain human goods, but if the niceties of social interaction take precedence over these good or other equal goods then they are becoming counterproductive. Some individuals in particular may be sufficiently concerned with the proper observance of "the rules" that sight is lost of the goods that these rules are intended to foster. For example, it is considered rude to yell at a person, but if a child is about to do something highly dangerous, yelling is appropriate. Observing the "Don’t yell" rule in that case would endanger the child.

11) The relaxation of the rules in particular cases therefore itself cann be a matter of charity. It is not charitable to insist on the observation of standard etiquette rules (e.g., not yelling at a person) when a greater good is at stake (e.g., a child wandering into traffic).

12) We have a greater incentive to relax the rules with those closest to us, both because we have a greater duty to look after their interests (as with a child who may stray into traffic) or because we stand to benefit from them in a greater manner (as with spouses). Therefore, with those closest to us we generally both assume greater tolerance and show greater tolerance.

13) Simultaneously, since (as Aquinas points out) we have a greater duty of love toward those closest to us, we have a greater motive to observe the rules of manners and etiquette with regard to them.

There is thus something of a paradox in the calculus of charity: We should show greater charity for those closest to us, which leads to both a motive for greater observance of the rules and greater tolerance of their violation.

Oh, and one las thing:

14) Men, by nature, tend to be less concerned with manners than women. That’s not to say that they are unconcerned, just less concerned. Probably has something to do with the fact that men are physically and psychologically designed to provide the primary family defense functions.

Over on Mark Shea’s blog, Mark is having a discussion with some folks who are asking for a detailed consideration of what would have happened if Vatican II didn’t take place. Mark has been concerned to point out that the actions of an ecumenical council must be understood in relation to their animation by the Holy Spirit.

Some thoughts:

1) Concerning the theological nature of an ecumenical council, not every question has been answered here. It has been a tradition since the Council of Jerusalem (which wasn’t an ecumenical council per se but which serves as the prototype for such councils) to speak as if the council’s decisions are prompted by the Holy Spirit (though in that case the council seems to have been called by the Holy Spirit himself in special revelation, so the participants might have extra reason to think that the results they arrived at were at His prompting). They certainly are protected from error by the Holy Spirit when the Council engages its infallibility, but even when it does not do so the motions of the Holy Spirit must be presumed to be animating the Council, though the human element at work in the Council can make bad decisions and even say false things when not under the protection of infallibility.

2) It seems to be an open question theologically whether ecumenical councils are always called at the appropriate time. One could maintain that a council should have been called, should not have been called, or that it should have been called earlier or later. Nevertheless, once it has been called the successors of the apostles gathered in council invoke the Holy Spirit to guide their actions, and the motive of faith tells us that He does so. We can think that in particular things the human element in the council predominated, but we cannot dismiss a council as not guided by the Holy Spirit.

3) Regarding the "What if Vatican II never happened?" fantasy, it seems to me that it is okay for people to wonder about how history would have been different if different things happened in it. God gave us the gift of reason, which invariably leads us to wonder about "what if" scenarios. It’s therefore okay in principle to wonder about such things. It’s even okay to wonder "what if" questions about the actions of God (e.g., What if God had not let Adam fall?, What if Mary had said No to Gabriel?). These are questions every child asks at some point while absorbing the faith and thinking it through. We don’t always have good answers to such questions, but the questions are okay in and of themselves.

4) That being said, there is something distinctly unhealthy about asking historical "what if"s for people who have an axe to grind. They invariably conjure up "what if" scenarios in which, if history had only taken a turn in their direction at a key juncture, then everything would have been wonderful and humanity (or the Church or the nation) would have entered a Golden Age in which their view triumphed and all problems vanished and everyone gratefully recognized that They Were Right. These are not serious alternative histories. They are fantasies. In reality, history would have been hard and difficult on the other side of The Turning Point as it always is. No Golden Age for mankind until the Second Coming.

5) It is part of human nature to fantasize. It is part of how our intellect works to imagine how things might be different, and part of our emotional nature to imagine how they might be vastly better than they in fact are. It is therefore natural for pro-lifers to fantasize about how the world would be different if only Roe v. Wade didn’t happen, or for Democrats to fantasize about how the would would be if only Gore or Kerry had won, or for militant Muslims to fantasize about how it would be if only their forces were victoriously triumphing over the West everywhere, or for people who have an unhealthy fascination with the idea of Vatican II not happening to fantasize about Vatican II not happening. That’s human nature.

6) But this does not mean that one should encourage people to indulge in such fantasies. They can be very destructive, both for oneself and for those who are led to entertain them. We don’t need any more Muslims fantasizing about vanquishing the West than we already have, thank you. Similarly, we don’t need to spend all our days pining away for a fantasy world in which Vatican II never happened and Traditional Catholicism rules the world. That’s not the world we live in, and if we spend most of our time thinking about what we can’t and won’t have then we will only frustrate and disappoint ourselves, and possibly ruin our spiritual lives and the spiritual lives of others in the process.

7) It is therefore okay to spend a *little* time on "what if" fantasies, but one must not bog down in them. One must face the task that God has put before us, which is making *this* world better, not spending excessive amounts of time in a different world. It is unhealthy to do the latter, and totally appropriate to point out the unhealthiness of doing so.

8) A serious attempt to construct a "what if" scenario would involve no Golden Age and a chronicling of all the *problems* that would have emerged even if The Turning Point had gone differently. These are much less fun than fantasies about where everything goes the way one wants it to, but then that is why there is a difference between fantasy and reality.

Over on Mark Shea’s blog, Mark is having a discussion with some folks who are asking for a detailed consideration of what would have happened if Vatican II didn’t take place. Mark has been concerned to point out that the actions of an ecumenical council must be understood in relation to their animation by the Holy Spirit.

Some thoughts:

1) Concerning the theological nature of an ecumenical council, not every question has been answered here. It has been a tradition since the Council of Jerusalem (which wasn’t an ecumenical council per se but which serves as the prototype for such councils) to speak as if the council’s decisions are prompted by the Holy Spirit (though in that case the council seems to have been called by the Holy Spirit himself in special revelation, so the participants might have extra reason to think that the results they arrived at were at His prompting). They certainly are protected from error by the Holy Spirit when the Council engages its infallibility, but even when it does not do so the motions of the Holy Spirit must be presumed to be animating the Council, though the human element at work in the Council can make bad decisions and even say false things when not under the protection of infallibility.

2) It seems to be an open question theologically whether ecumenical councils are always called at the appropriate time. One could maintain that a council should have been called, should not have been called, or that it should have been called earlier or later. Nevertheless, once it has been called the successors of the apostles gathered in council invoke the Holy Spirit to guide their actions, and the motive of faith tells us that He does so. We can think that in particular things the human element in the council predominated, but we cannot dismiss a council as not guided by the Holy Spirit.

3) Regarding the "What if Vatican II never happened?" fantasy, it seems to me that it is okay for people to wonder about how history would have been different if different things happened in it. God gave us the gift of reason, which invariably leads us to wonder about "what if" scenarios. It’s therefore okay in principle to wonder about such things. It’s even okay to wonder "what if" questions about the actions of God (e.g., What if God had not let Adam fall?, What if Mary had said No to Gabriel?). These are questions every child asks at some point while absorbing the faith and thinking it through. We don’t always have good answers to such questions, but the questions are okay in and of themselves.

4) That being said, there is something distinctly unhealthy about asking historical "what if"s for people who have an axe to grind. They invariably conjure up "what if" scenarios in which, if history had only taken a turn in their direction at a key juncture, then everything would have been wonderful and humanity (or the Church or the nation) would have entered a Golden Age in which their view triumphed and all problems vanished and everyone gratefully recognized that They Were Right. These are not serious alternative histories. They are fantasies. In reality, history would have been hard and difficult on the other side of The Turning Point as it always is. No Golden Age for mankind until the Second Coming.

5) It is part of human nature to fantasize. It is part of how our intellect works to imagine how things might be different, and part of our emotional nature to imagine how they might be vastly better than they in fact are. It is therefore natural for pro-lifers to fantasize about how the world would be different if only Roe v. Wade didn’t happen, or for Democrats to fantasize about how the would would be if only Gore or Kerry had won, or for militant Muslims to fantasize about how it would be if only their forces were victoriously triumphing over the West everywhere, or for people who have an unhealthy fascination with the idea of Vatican II not happening to fantasize about Vatican II not happening. That’s human nature.

6) But this does not mean that one should encourage people to indulge in such fantasies. They can be very destructive, both for oneself and for those who are led to entertain them. We don’t need any more Muslims fantasizing about vanquishing the West than we already have, thank you. Similarly, we don’t need to spend all our days pining away for a fantasy world in which Vatican II never happened and Traditional Catholicism rules the world. That’s not the world we live in, and if we spend most of our time thinking about what we can’t and won’t have then we will only frustrate and disappoint ourselves, and possibly ruin our spiritual lives and the spiritual lives of others in the process.

7) It is therefore okay to spend a *little* time on "what if" fantasies, but one must not bog down in them. One must face the task that God has put before us, which is making *this* world better, not spending excessive amounts of time in a different world. It is unhealthy to do the latter, and totally appropriate to point out the unhealthiness of doing so.

8) A serious attempt to construct a "what if" scenario would involve no Golden Age and a chronicling of all the *problems* that would have emerged even if The Turning Point had gone differently. These are much less fun than fantasies about where everything goes the way one wants it to, but then that is why there is a difference between fantasy and reality.