Catholic condom policy and its rationale

[stephef]

What is the current Catholic position on the use of condoms, and what is the rationale behind it? I feel compelled to explain this to my daughter’s nonCatholic teacher after she told her class that she can’t imagine why Catholics forbid condoms, and why they don’t allow women to be protected.

 

[Brendan]

What is the current Catholic position on the use of condoms, and what is the rationale behind it? I feel compelled to explain this to my daughter’s nonCatholic teacher after she told her class that she can’t imagine why Catholics forbid condoms, and why they don’t allow women to be protected.

The marital act is a complete giving of oneself and a complete reception of one’s spouse. If condoms were used, it breaks that complete gift.

It is very much saying to one’s spouse, I love everything about you EXCEPT for your fertility. That makes it less than a loving, unifing act, and more of a act of selfishness, that sex exists for your personal pleasure. Which it simply not true,

 

[crazzeto]

The same as it’s thoughts on contraception. See this thread

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=387254

 

[1ke]

What is the current Catholic position on the use of condoms, and what is the rationale behind it?

The Church does not have a “current policy” on condoms. To frame it as a “policy” is to imply it is a rules based decision that can be changed.

The Church has a *teaching *on contraception under of the Sixth Commandment. The sixth commandment is what it is, it is not changeable. The Church can teach us what the commandment requires, it cannot change it.

Contraception is intrinsically evil. This means it is disordered in its being. There are no circumstances in which contraception is a moral choice. It is always gravely wrong, and if done with full knowledge and free will it is a mortal sin.

I feel compelled to explain this to my daughter’s nonCatholic teacher after she told her class that she can’t imagine why Catholics forbid condoms, and why they don’t allow women to be protected.

What kind of teachers is this (what subject, what grade level, what type of school) and what was the context of this comment? To what was he/she referring when stating women aren’t “allowed” to be “protected.”

I think how I approached this would depend upon the context this comment was made in.

You could go to www.omsoul.com and obtain some of the literature available there on the morality of contraception. It’s not merely condoms that are morally evil, it is ALL contraception.

 

[camerong]

Its quite ironic to say that disallowing condoms is to leave women unprotected. As if condoms protected women against rape, unchastity, emotional scarring, regret, being objectified… There are even a number of STDs for which condoms provide no protection. If this woman was concerned about protecting women, she would not disparage Catholic views on chastity.

 

[otjm]

You most likely are going to have an extremely difficult time explaining what the Church teaches to this person. To begin with, the greater majority of people have little or no concept of sin when it comes to sexual activity outside of marriage, be it heterosexual, homosexual, adultery, group sexual activity, etc.

In addition to this they have little or no clear conception of sin as sin. They may have issues, but sin is not how they necessarily define them.

Further, most people are not familiar with the concept of natural law, and any explanation based on that is not going to get off the starting blocks.

It is easy to sit in judgement of them, but when two people are coming from entirely different value structures, communication is at best difficult, and often impossible in the short time most are willing to allot to it. In addition, people are lazy thiinkers; dealing with the Church’s concepts concerning sexuality and its ramifications requires actually engaging one’s brain in a not so simple analysis. People are not taught much if any logic, nor are they able to discuss intellectual ideas which run counter to their values as that causes emotional dissonance, and emotional dissonance is something they avoid like the plague. Good luck; if it were I, I would focus on my daughter and not waste a lot of energy or breath on the teacher unless they showed at least a minimum of curiosity and respect for a different opinion. And politeness is not to be confused with the last two items.

 

[Gerard_Nadal]

What is the current Catholic position on the use of condoms, and what is the rationale behind it? I feel compelled to explain this to my daughter’s nonCatholic teacher after she told her class that she can’t imagine why Catholics forbid condoms, and why they don’t allow women to be protected.

Here is my reply to a tread that asked why condoms are wrong but periods are not?

Re: Why are condoms wrong but periods arent?
Good question. Some thoughts…

1.** You MUST read Humanae Vitae. Google it and read it. That is the definitive encyclical by Pope Paul VI that will answer your question at the deepest levels.** It’s a surprisingly easy read. By way of prepping you for the document, I offer the following.

1. Your question is the secular understanding of what the Catholic Church teaches, based upon…the secular understanding of what the Catholic Church teaches. It’s an echo chamber that reverberates the same distorted message endlessly. So let’s clean up the premise to the argument you made .
2. I agree with what the other post says. Augustine had a primitive understanding of biology, and tried to address faith matters with what was known at the time. Also, simply because he was a saint, does not mean that his understanding was transported out of the times in which he lived. It also does not make his every theological opinion infallible. Only the Magisterium is given that charism.
3. We do not take as our starting point the false presupposition that every sperm and every egg are destined for the creation of a new human being. An average ejaculation contains a half-billion sperm cells. Only one gets to be the lucky winner if an egg happens to be in the neighborhood. The remaining 499, 999,999 die. Were they ‘wasted’?
4. We take as our starting point that sex has two major functions in marriage:

a.) UNITIVE. It unites husband and wife in deeper bonds of intimacy and love through the broad spectrum of gentle quiet to ecstasy. :extrahappy:

b.) PROCREATIVE. Every occasion of sexual activity needs to climax inside the birth canal. There must be an openness to the possibility of life being transmitted. That does not mean probability. The Church teaches that it is permissible to take advantage of God’s wise design by refraining from sex during those fertile times of the month, and then coming together during the infertile times of the menstrual cycle. The key here that addresses you concern over eggs being wasted is 'God’s wise design.’ He made the menstrual cycle and its associated functions. Therefore it is good. He did not command to use each cycle as an opportunity to get pregnant.

The unitive and procreative were made to be inextricably intertwined. To artificially tease them apart through contraception is to do violence to both dimensions, as well as doing violence to the nature of one another and the intimacy and responsibility that goes with it. Here I speak as a husband and father. Sex, expressed and engaged in, in both of its dimensions is holy.

1. The insertion of artificial contraception does violence by rejecting God’s wise design. Barrier methods demolish for the man the sensations offered by the wife’s body. 'Nuff said there. Chemical methods such as spermacides attack the fertility of the husband and are caustic to the vaginal epithelium. Hormonal methods such as the pill prevent implantation of the embryo, thus killing the new baby. These also place women at vastly increased risk of cancers. IUD’s are placed in the uterus and kill new embryos.

All of these say ‘I love you baby, but not your fertility’. :dts::tsktsk: It is the beginning of a mentality that implicitly rejects life and actually begins to kill new life in the womb. This is how we richly fertilize the soil for the bumper crop of abortion. 50 million abortions in the US since 1973. 1.8 BILLION (yes BILLION with a B) worldwide since 1960! To put that in perspective, that’s just shy of 1/3 of the world’s current population.

It’s no small coincidence that abortion on this scale has occurred precisely in the same time frame as the introduction of the pill. By rejecting the possbility of life and the resposibility that comes with it, we collapse into narcissism. It’s also no small coincidence that the Church, in 1968, gave us Humanae Vitae, which is the expression of the clear and constant teaching of the Church from its founding.

I hope that helps.

 

[Newbie2]

What is the current Catholic position on the use of condoms, and what is the rationale behind it? I feel compelled to explain this to my daughter’s nonCatholic teacher after she told her class that she can’t imagine why Catholics forbid condoms, and why they don’t allow women to be protected.

This is a public school teacher in a public school setting?

Hmmmmm.

I would have a meeting with the principal and the teacher, and have them explain why the teacher is slamming a student’s religious beliefs. I would then request that the teacher research this on her own i.e. read Humanae vitae, and then write a one-page paper on it.

If this request is refused, the next step is to go to the school board members, one at a time, and address this issue, saying you’d rather not bring it up at a school board meeting etc, etc.

Personally, I would take the additional step of hinting that if if the teacher does not apologize in front of the class, I will be contacting my attorney, the local and regional news, etc, etc. But then again, I like to stir things up a bit.

The teacher is entitled to her opinion, but she is not entitled to question or otherwise bash the religious beliefs of her students.

 

[Maria65]

You most likely are going to have an extremely difficult time explaining what the Church teaches to this person. To begin with, the greater majority of people have little or no concept of sin when it comes to sexual activity outside of marriage, be it heterosexual, homosexual, adultery, group sexual activity, etc.

In addition to this they have little or no clear conception of sin as sin. They may have issues, but sin is not how they necessarily define them.

Further, most people are not familiar with the concept of natural law, and any explanation based on that is not going to get off the starting blocks.

It is easy to sit in judgement of them, but when two people are coming from entirely different value structures, communication is at best difficult, and often impossible in the short time most are willing to allot to it. In addition, people are lazy thiinkers; dealing with the Church’s concepts concerning sexuality and its ramifications requires actually engaging one’s brain in a not so simple analysis. People are not taught much if any logic, nor are they able to discuss intellectual ideas which run counter to their values as that causes emotional dissonance, and emotional dissonance is something they avoid like the plague. Good luck; if it were I, I would focus on my daughter and not waste a lot of energy or breath on the teacher unless they showed at least a minimum of curiosity and respect for a different opinion. And politeness is not to be confused with the last two items.

Sad, but true, I think you hit the nail on the head.

 

[manualman]

1. If this is a public school teacher, you should strenuously note to both the teacher and principal that it is UNACCEPTABLE for her to make such disparaging comments about ANYONE’S religious convictions in class. A more reasonable answer would have been “catholic teaching on condoms is based on religious principles and we are not allowed to explain them in public school settings.”
2. In answer to her actual confusion, the best answer is to explain that the catholic church seeks to provide women with GENUINE protection against disease and abandonment by teaching the truth about what sexuality really is. At best, condoms help to mitigate the damage done by sin. Would she see it as a positive thing if abusive men were taught how to beat their wives in such a way as to cause pain, but no permanent physical damage? Would that be a positive? No WAY! But condoms are the same thing. They seek to mitigate the damage of an inherently harmful thing (promiscuity) and end up giving a false sense of security when the REAL way to protect women (and men) is to show them that faithful, exclusive, lifelong marriage is the only path to sexual fulfillment (and disease prevention)! Half measures like condoms only perpetuate human misery and suffering.

 

[Erich]

“and the two shall become one flesh”

nothing there about a physical (i.e. condom, diaphragm, etc.) or chemical (i.e. “Pill”) barrier interfering.

 

[Whitacre_Girl]

I agree witht he previous comments about the appropriateness of this comment. If this was at a public school, the teacher needs to face correction. This is a totally inappropriate statement to make in a public school setting, reguardless of age.

Talk to the principal, school board, and PTA if you have to. Teachers cannot fire their mouths off in class like this. Anyone in education knows this. They can answer questions to the best of their knowledge, but to put down another’s religion is totally inappropriate.