A Question About Condoms

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Let me say at the outset that I fully accept and embrace the Church’s teachings in Humanae Vitae and that homosexual activity is sinful.

My question is whether a gay man who is committed to having sex with another man compounds his sin by using a condom. Obviously there can be no contraceptive intent in using the condom, so it seems to me that condom usage in this case (given that the immoral act of sodomy is going to happen in any case) does not compound the evil.

I am curious if anyone knows whether this makes sense.

Thanks,

Sarah
 
Well, he is using the condomn in this case not for contraception, as one man cannot get another man pregnant (duh?). I guess the intent is to create a nice, clean, comfortable, disease-free environment to commit mortal sin. IMO
 
The gay man is committing a grave sin either way.

Maybe another way to look at the issue is to ask if a friend of the gay man would be sinning by advising him:
If you are dead set on committing the mortal sin of homosexual sex, and there is nothing I can do to stop that, then at least use a condom.
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Or conversely, if the friend of the gay man would be sinning by advising him:
If you are dead set on committing the mortal sin of homosexual sex, and there is nothing I can do to stop that, then at least don’t use a condom.
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I have to say, preferring the latter advice makes no sense at all to me.
 
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Apologia100:
Well, he is using the condomn in this case not for contraception, as one man cannot get another man pregnant (duh?). I guess the intent is to create a nice, clean, comfortable, disease-free environment to commit mortal sin. IMO
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lol
 
" I guess the intent is to create a nice, clean, comfortable, disease-free environment to commit mortal sin."

I second that! Classic. This is like asking whether it is more appropriate to murder someone by poison or machete.
 
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Sarah:
Let me say at the outset that I fully accept and embrace the Church’s teachings in Humanae Vitae and that homosexual activity is sinful.

My question is whether a gay man who is committed to having sex with another man compounds his sin by using a condom. Obviously there can be no contraceptive intent in using the condom, so it seems to me that condom usage in this case (given that the immoral act of sodomy is going to happen in any case) does not compound the evil.

I am curious if anyone knows whether this makes sense.

Thanks,

Sarah
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This is a fun exercise in ethics. Is the use of a condom instrinsically evil per Catholic moral theology is the question you are asking. I would argue that no it is not. Strictly speaking, two separate things are disordered. The use of birth control, and homosexual acts. The use of a condom in the pursuit of either is merely incidental. I suppose a case could be made that the use of a condom for ordered relations would not be wrong either, if the use of the condom was to achieve some good and its contraceptive effect is merely an unintended, but unavoidable consequence. This, of course, is merely hypothetical, as I can’t really conceive of a situation where this would be true and where abstinence wouldn’t be the morally superior choice. So, for instance, if you were using a condom to prevent the spread of a disease from husband to wife, would it be okay? (leaving the issue of how effective a condom is for that aside).
 
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AngloCatholic:
This is a fun exercise in ethics. Is the use of a condom instrinsically evil per Catholic moral theology is the question you are asking. I would argue that no it is not. Strictly speaking, two separate things are disordered. The use of birth control, and homosexual acts. The use of a condom in the pursuit of either is merely incidental. I suppose a case could be made that the use of a condom for ordered relations would not be wrong either, if the use of the condom was to achieve some good and its contraceptive effect is merely an unintended, but unavoidable consequence. This, of course, is merely hypothetical, as I can’t really conceive of a situation where this would be true and where abstinence wouldn’t be the morally superior choice. So, for instance, if you were using a condom to prevent the spread of a disease from husband to wife, would it be okay? (leaving the issue of how effective a condom is for that aside).
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  1. There are such things as peforated condoms which can be morally licit to use in order to gain a semen sample
  2. Assuming the condom was 100% effective in protecting against a particular STD (most it offers little or no help, contrary to pop “facts”), it still would be sinful I think. One could argue, I guess, that the moral obligation of fulfilling the marital debt hampers the use of total abstinence, but I would think that the necessity of either endangering your spouse or frustrating the procreative element of the conjugal act would qualify as grave reason so as to excuse the spouse from the marital debt. Furthermore, both could consensually agree to abstain, if no one could refuse, I think, because of the necessity of a (objectively) mortal sin being involved.
  3. Now let’s say that the disease was not deadly. Let’s also say that the husband refuses to agree to abstain. And let’s also say that he wants to use a condom. Is it a sin FOR THE WIFE to engage in the conjugal act? Not necessarily, as a spouse who attempts to dissuade the other from using contraception can morally have relations if they do not formally or (immediate) materially cooperate in the contraceptive act, as the unitive aspect is still desirable.
 
I didn’t know whether to start a new thread or not, but here goes…

This thread reminded me of another problem, but this time for ladies…

Is taking the contraceptive pill a sin, if it is only so the menstrual cycle can be regulated?

I was on the Pill last year for this reason, and not as a contraceptive use.

I am off it now, as I want to start detoxifying my body, ready to lose weight (and please pray for me in this effort)

Contraception is a sin, but if condoms and the Pill arent used for contraception, are they sinful for just being the objects that they are?

Love Kellie
 
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kellie:
Contraception is a sin, but if condoms and the Pill arent used for contraception, are they sinful for just being the objects that they are?
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Here is Pope Paul VI’s definition of precisely what is sinful:
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.
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If you are not engaging in sexual relations, then the use of the Pill is not a sin. However, if you are engaging in sexual relations, but your use of the Pill is for other medical reasons, then that would seem to be fall under the “as a means” category, and would thus be sinful.
 
Well, use of the pill here seems contingent on intent. I was a Navy paramedic for 15 years and know of many cases where women were prescribed BCPs (birth control pills) because of painful menstuation or because the woman had VERY irregular cycles, sometimes bleeding 20 out of 30 days. So, the pills are used to correct a medical disorder, the side effect being contraception. The woman therefore is not taking the pill to avoid procreating, she is taking it possibly because her condition is life threatening.

And in reference to the analogy, I think it goes better this way,

Its like wearing rubber gloves while murdering someone with a machete to make sure you don’t get AIDS. And I wish Planned Parenthood would call it by its true name. Instead of “Safe Sex” it should be “Reduced-guilt Sin”. 😃 IMO
 
Isn’t this queston about the use of condoms in a homosexual context a bit like describing a woman as a little bit pregnant? She either is or is not. Likewise one is either in mortal sin and goes to eternal damnation if one dies in that state or one does not. I have heard of levels of hell (Dante) but I do not think that is doctrine. No catechism handy…

Denise
 
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kellie:
I didn’t know whether to start a new thread or not, but here goes…

This thread reminded me of another problem, but this time for ladies…

Is taking the contraceptive pill a sin, if it is only so the menstrual cycle can be regulated?

I was on the Pill last year for this reason, and not as a contraceptive use.

I am off it now, as I want to start detoxifying my body, ready to lose weight (and please pray for me in this effort)

Contraception is a sin, but if condoms and the Pill arent used for contraception, are they sinful for just being the objects that they are?

Love Kellie
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The pill causes fertilized eggs not to adhere to the uterine wall, so if you are having sex and on the pill for medical reasons, you could be having an abortion every month. So as long as you are on the pill you should not be having sex.
 
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kellie:
I didn’t know whether to start a new thread or not, but here goes…

This thread reminded me of another problem, but this time for ladies…

Is taking the contraceptive pill a sin, if it is only so the menstrual cycle can be regulated?

I was on the Pill last year for this reason, and not as a contraceptive use.

I am off it now, as I want to start detoxifying my body, ready to lose weight (and please pray for me in this effort)

Contraception is a sin, but if condoms and the Pill arent used for contraception, are they sinful for just being the objects that they are?

Love Kellie
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The pill can be used to regulate cycles (though it is often prescribed when it shouldn’t be)

If having sex, the principle of double effect probably does not apply, as the moral good/neutral of using it to regulate cycles does not equal or outweight the fact that it acts as an abortificant.
 
I don’t think it matters whether a gay man wears a condom unless he knows he has a life threatening disease like AIDS. In that case, not telling his partner and not wearing a condom during sex amounts to attempted murder, another grave sin.

I think that not just in this case, but in every case where a person has already decided to knowingly commit a mortal sin, the details of how they do it are not important. The act itself is still a mortal sin, condom or no condom.
 
I don’t think that the use of a condom in this case would be a sin because they can’t possibly conceive a child. Even though they are commiting a mortal sin by having intercourse, the condom use isn’t a sin.
 
Apologia100 said:
Well, he is using the condomn in this case not for contraception, as one man cannot get another man pregnant (duh?). I guess the intent is to create a nice, clean, comfortable, disease-free environment to commit mortal sin. IMO
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Indeed. In order to protect oneself from the first sin, you must commit another.
 
I copied this from Zenit and you can find it on ZE10112105 - 2010-11-21
Permalink: zenit.org/article-31026?l=english

**
Some quotes from the book, “Light of the World” (Ignatius Press), were published ahead of the release date, prompting media opinions and a statement of clarification by Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office.

Janet Smith, a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family who holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, and has published extensively on the topics of sexuality and bioethics, explained in this interview the source of the controversy and what the Pope is really saying.

She noted that in the book (p.119), to the charge that “It is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms,” Pope Benedict replied (This paragraph is at the end of an extended answer on the help the Church is giving the AIDS victims and the need to fight the banalization of sexuality.):

“There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”

The interviewer asked the Pontiff, “Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?”

The Holy Father replied, “She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.”**
 
cmom said:
The pill causes fertilized eggs not to adhere to the uterine wall, so if you are having sex and on the pill for medical reasons, you could be having an abortion every month. So as long as you are on the pill you should not be having sex.
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The church does not require a married woman who uses the pill for medicinal reasons to abstain from marital relations.
 
I do not believe that a gay man having sex with his partner is sinful. To me, if he uses a condom, he is just being responsible.
 
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