Posted on 03/19/2007 5:46:55 AM PDT by markomalley
| The recent debate over contraception between Fr. Thomas Euteneuer of Human Life International and nationally syndicated talk-show host Sean Hannity has brought to center stage an issue which most Americans—and most Catholics—simply do not understand. Let’s review what’s wrong with contraception. The intrinsic moral issue of artificial contraception is a marriage issue. Contraception has little or no intrinsic moral relevance outside of marriage. This contributes to the difficulty our culture has in understanding the problem, because our culture doesn’t understand marriage either. After all, only about half of all couples are formally married. For this reason, it is perhaps best to start with what we might call the extrinsic moral issues associated with contraception, which apply to all sexual relations. The Consequences of Contraception
I am using the word “extrinsic” to apply to the consequences of contraception as opposed to its own essential moral character. Catholics are not consequentialists, and we don’t determine the morality of an act by attempting to foresee all its consequences. But we do determine the prudence of an act by assessing its potential consequences. For this reason, it is highly instructive to examine the extrinsic moral issues associated with contraception.
Even morally neutral acts can have good or bad consequences and should be selected or avoided accordingly. It is a morally neutral act, for example, to dam a river, but one wants to be pretty sure of the consequences before one builds the dam. So too, many moralists have argued (I believe correctly) that contraception is morally neutral in itself when considered outside of marriage. But contraception suppresses the natural outcome of sexual intercourse, and in so doing it has two immediate and devastating consequences.
First, it engenders a casual attitude toward sexual relations. An action which, because of the possibility of conceiving a child, makes demands on the stability of the couple is stripped by contraception of its long-term meaning. The mutual commitment of a couple implied by the very nature of this intimate self-giving is now overshadowed by the fact that the most obvious (though not necessarily the most important) reason for that commitment has been eliminated. This clearly contributes to the rise of casual sex, and the rise of casual sex has enormous implications for psychological and emotional well-being, personal and public health, and social cohesion.
Second, it shifts the emphasis in sexual relations from fruitfulness to pleasure. Naturally-speaking, the sexual act finds its full meaning in both emotional intimacy and the promise of offspring. For human persons, sex is clearly oriented toward love and the creation of new life. By eliminating the possibility of new life and the permanent bonding it demands, contraception reduces the meaning of human sexuality to pleasure and, at best, a truncated or wounded sort of commitment. Moreover, if the meaning of human sexuality is primarily a meaning of pleasure, then any sexual act which brings pleasure is of equal value. It is no surprise that pornography and homosexuality have mushroomed, while marriage has declined, since the rise of the “contraceptive mentality”. Abortion too has skyrocketed as a backup procedure based on the expectation that contracepton should render sex child-free. All of this, too, is psychologically, emotionally and physically damaging, as well as destructive of the social order. The Intrinsic Evil of Contraception Now all of these evil consequences apply both inside and outside of marriage. Within marriage, however, there is an intrinsic moral problem with contraception quite apart from its horrendous consequences. Outside of marriage, sexual relations are already disordered. They have no proper ends and so the frustration of these ends through contraception is intrinsically morally irrelevant. Outside of marriage, contraception is to be avoided for its consequences (consequences surely made worse by the difficulty of psychologically separating contraception from its marital meaning). But within marriage, the context changes and the act of contraception itself becomes intrinsically disordered.
Within the context of marriage, the purposes of sexual intercourse are unitive and procreative (as Pope Paul VI taught in his brilliant and prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae). It is worth remembering that there is no proper context for sexual intercourse apart from marriage; this is why it is impossible for human persons to psychologically separate contraception from the marital context. But the point here is that marriage has certain ends (the procreation of children, the stability of society, the mutual happiness of the couple, and their mutual sanctification) and so does sex within marriage. The purposes of the marital act are the procreation of children and the progressive unification of the spouses. These two purposes are intimately related, for it is through marriage that a man and a woman become “two in one flesh”, both through sexual relations and, literally, in their offspring.
It is intrinsically immoral to frustrate either of these purposes. Let me repeat this statement. It is immoral to choose deliberately to frustrate either the unitive or the procreative ends of marital intercourse. It is immoral to make of your spouse an object of your pleasure, to coerce your spouse, or to engage in sexual relations in a manner or under conditions which communicate callousness or contempt. These things frustrate the unitive purpose. It is also immoral to take deliberate steps to prevent an otherwise potentially fruitful coupling from bearing fruit. This frustrates the procreative purpose. Related Issues
Because it causes so much confusion, it is necessary to state that it is not intrinsically immoral to choose to engage in sexual relations with your spouse at times when these relations are not likely to be fruitful. The moral considerations which govern this decision revolve around the obligation married couples have to be genuinely open to children insofar as they can provide for their material well-being and proper formation. There is nothing in this question of timing that frustrates the purposes of a particular marriage act.
Statistically, couples who avoid contraception find that their marriages are strengthened, their happiness increased, and their health improved. Some of these considerations are topics for another day. But Fr. Euteneuer is clearly correct and Sean Hannity is clearly wrong. Contraception is a grave evil within marriage and has grave consequences not only within marriage but outside of marriage as well. Both individual couples and society as a whole will mature into deeper happiness by freeing themselves from the false promises of contraception, and from its moral lies. |
"To fail to love in that manner is the mockery,"
this is where you are losing me - that failing = "mockery".
We fail every day in many other ways and no one claims it is a "mockery". We say we fall short - we sin - we fail.
But this is a "mockery"?? I just don't see it.
I can pick up a bat and bash someone's brains in and not be considered to be in a state of mortal sin because it was self defense.
But if I contracept because I'm afraid of the health consequences of a pregnancy I'm "mocking" God and hellbound.
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It's well, well worth a read. What should be most striking to Catholics and non-Catholics alike is that the pope bases his arguments entirely on the natural law.
Thank you Mr. O'Malley for posting this provocative and timely article.
In part, we must realize that Humanae vitae contains prophetic statements even if we may wish certain elements were stated more traditionally.
Any sin is a mockery of God, because we take God's will and ignore it, or treat it with contempt.
Sex, in and of itself, is not a right in the eyes of God. That's why homosexuality, fornication, adultery, pedophilia, bestiality, pornography, prostitution, masturbation, etc. are all reprehensible. Sex becomes a right when it is properly expressed between a married couple. To abuse this gift in any way, to sterilize as homosexuals do, or to sterilize it as contracepting couples do, does mock God. Because the people involved say "My will be done. Not Yours."
You don't have a right to bash someone's brains in, if you are capable of protecting yourself in any other manner. You have the right to take a life to defend yours when there is no other plausible choice. You have a way of protecting yourself from pregnancy without inserting your will over God's. Is it easy, no. But then living a true Christian life rarely is.
You don't have the right to commit an evil act in order to possibly avoid an evil. You don't have the right to lie under oath in order to avoid jail. You don't have the right to steal money in order to avoid losing your home. You don't have the right to kidnap a child in order to have one of your own.
the reality is that I'm just going to have to park my fanny in the pew for 10 yrs. during communion because I'm not going to risk my health, NFP has not worked for me, and a sure fire way to damage the marriage (and thus the family as a whole) is to bring celibacy into it.
***And yet, we're expected to believe millions are going to hell for this mortal sin.
I think the fact that a mortal sin requires both FULL knowledge and FULL consent needs to be looked at too.
perhaps I should read the WHOLE thread first. Jeez.....
It sounds tough. I pray it gets easier. Let me know if CCL is able to help.
My wife and I thought that breast feeding was an effective form of natural birth control. To our surprise, and joy, we are expecting our third child in August. We couldn't be happier. Once again abstinence is proved to be the only 100% effective method.
I'm not sure that there is always a difference between a positive act and a negative act. Sometimes there is, sure, but my ethics class had the example of drowning a child in a bathtub versus not intervening as a child drowns in a bathtub - no moral difference there.
So there are two different questions here - one, contracepting versus not contracepting, and two, using the knowledge of NFP to not conceive versus not so using it. And I have not found convincing arguments in anything I have read here or elsewhere, that one, contracepting is immoral, and that two, using NFP to not conceive is moral.
Considering sterilizatoin, I had the thought that one might not remove the ability to get pregnant for the same reason that one might not remove the heart's ability to beat - that both fall in the "necessary for life" category, except that one may remove the ability to get pregnant in order to treat other conditions, not necessarily even life-threatening.
And to throw something else into the mix, I have wondered if the Church's oppositon to contraception from its very earliest days, might not stem from a scientific misunderstanding in Greek medicine, that the new life or the seed was entirely from the man, while the woman was only the ground in which it grew. In that case, preventing conception (really implantation) would be destroying a human life as abortion does. And some contraception then certainly was abortifacient, e.g. the silphium plant.
Mrs VS
Congratulations! May all go well.
Sometimes breast-feeding women get a period before they ovulate. They they know they're fertile again. Sometimes they ovulate first... and you know the story.
Mrs VS
"And to throw something else into the mix, I have wondered if the Church's oppositon to contraception from its very earliest days, might not stem from a scientific misunderstanding in Greek medicine, that the new life or the seed was entirely from the man, while the woman was only the ground in which it grew"
hmmmm.
I've wondered about this 100% opposition to the man "completing" anywhere else but in his wife.
For ex....from what I've read on other threads, the wife may receive oral sex, but the man may not (to "completion")
I assumed this meant men may not deposit samples at fertility clinics either - or at the doctor's office for the purpose of studying the health of the sperm.
which then leads me to wonder why God allows nocturnal emmissions, but now I'm rambling.
Anyways - on another catholic forum the discussion involved whether a husband may receive os as long as he then would proceed to have intercourse with his wife.
It seemed the answer was - no he could not.
your post makes me wonder if the Church equates it with abortion.
LOL. A while back I was studying the Mishnah and saw a whole section on what needed to happen with the temple priests when that happened. It was someplace in Seder Tohorot. LOL.
There are ways to do this while still preserving the respect for the sexual act that the Church requires.
if the Church equates it with abortion
No, because automatic excommunication does not follow. The Church equates it with fornication or adultery. whether a husband may receive os as long as he then would proceed to have intercourse with his wife.
If you are talking about as foreplay, then absolutely. If you are talking about a sexual act in and of itself, then no.
Pro-Life bump
No, they're not opposed. It could be that using NFP not to conceive is moral, but that contracepting is immoral.
Or it could be that using NFP not to conceive is moral, and so is contracepting.
The following two conditional statements seem valid to me.
"Using NFP to not conceive is immoral" implies "Contracepting is immoral."
and
"Contracepting is moral" implies "Using NFP not to conceive is moral."
I believe that using NFP to not conceive is moral, but I have not been convinced by the arguments.
I am not sure whether contracepting is moral or immoral. The arguments for its possible morality when considering the total relationship have weight for me. The arguments against it are mystical, which does not invalidate them. But even when I consider the issue in a mystical light, they do not convince me. The traditions of the Church do have weight with me - rationally speaking, the Church is more likely to be right than I am. Still, I am unconvinced.
Mrs VS
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