Condoms and Zika

[Rau]

You’re right that I know of no evil in condom usage. I also believe that there are few situations in life that are starkly black or white, evil or good regardless of the context or circumstances. Most things become gray in certain circumstances.

To view condom usage as never evil is better than to hold that there are no intrinsically evil acts, though perhaps you waiver on that? Do not confuse the difficulty of the decision with the lack of a moral course of action.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Condom’s are not permissible in the marital act for reasons other than their usual contraceptive effect. All marital acts must be of a kind capable of consummating a marriage. They must be a one flesh Union. I recall this point appears in Canon Law.

Rau I admire the pure logic, the applied logic…not so much.

OK, if we are talking literal impermissibility (ie a minimally disciplinary bann by Canon Law) that is a a great point if it is actually in Canon Law as you opine. I am not aware of any Canon Law that can be read in the way you are stating but am willing to be enlightened.
What is the reference/quote?

Sex with a condom is morally indistinguishable from mutual masturbation, and may also be contraceptive. Is it your view that mutual masturbation is “not impermissible”

As for the rest your applied logic reminds me of the riddle as to what is more accurate, a stopped clock or one 5 mins slow… The stopped clock of course, it is right twice a day while the other never.

If you can provide explicit Magisterial teaching or undisputed heavy-weight commentary (rather than one’s own personal interpretation thereof) that the unitive purpose of the marital act is completely lacking in all condomised intercourse …then your mutual-masturbation assertion above deserves to be taken more seriously. (I would also argue that William May’s principles in this regard are based on condomised intercourse of the fertile not the known infertile!).

 

[Blue_Horizon]

thistle is correct and Blue Horizon is wrong, on the above question.

CCC 2399 Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).

The basic principles of ethics, as taught in the Catechism and Veritatis Splendor, are absolutely clear that intrinsically evil acts (including abortion, abortifacient contraception, contraception) are never justified by a good intention (such as to prevent disease transmission or to prevent birth defects), nor by a dire circumstance (such as the harm that results from the disease or the cause of birth defects).

The moral object is the end, in terms of morality, toward which the knowingly chosen act is inherently (directly) ordered. Every knowing choice of the human person is an act. The act in any particular case is called the concrete act. Every concrete act has an inherent moral meaning, called its moral nature, because that act is the knowing choice of a person, who has a relationship with God and with other persons. When the knowingly chosen concrete act is inherently (directly) ordered toward an evil proximate end (i.e. an evil moral object), then the act is morally disordered, and the knowing choice of that act is always a sin.

You can’t simply label an act you wish to justify with a good moral object. The object is determined by the ordering of the chosen concrete act.

Use of a condom to prevent disease transmission has a good intended end, and perhaps good circumstances, but the chosen act is ordered toward depriving sexual acts of their procreative meaning. So the moral object is evil.

Also, it is not the attainment of the object that makes the act good or evil, but the choice of an act ordered toward a good or evil end. So an infertile couple (e.g. if the wife is pregnant or elderly) engaging in natural marital relations open to life do not sin, even though they cannot attain the procreative meaning. And the couple who use contraception do sin, even if they accidentally procreate (due to failure of the contraception) on a particular occasion.

Similarly, use of contraception is still the choice of a morally disordered act, even if the wife is pregnant or elderly and so cannot conceive. Sexual acts must have the proper ordering toward only good, and never evil.

In the case of disease transmission, contraception directly prevents conception, and only indirectly prevents disease transmission, since the prevention of transmission is entirely dependent on (and logically subsequent to) the prevention of conception.

But the case of abortifacient contraception is worse, since one is choosing an act ordered toward two evil ends: the death of the innocent prenatal and the deprivation of the procreative meaning.

Sorry Ron, your argument doesn’t seem, to get off the starting blocks.
You need to make a case that the **matter **of the act in question is contraceptive in its inner teleology.
But If “ception” is not on the table in pregnant sex how can “contra-ception” be? It isn’t.
It can only be in the intention - which is unlikely in a rational person who is aware his wife is pregnant,

In short there is no contraceptive object.
I don’t believe that mantra’s that derive from a theology of contracepted sex by the fertile can be so easily ported to cases where natural infertility is in play.

Your apparent view that marital sex by the (assumed) infertile needs to be justified seems a bit strange.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Actually, you have the burden of proof… It is common knowledge (here at least) that the Church teaches that separating the two components of the marital act (unitive and procreative) is NEVER permissible. If there were some exception, you will need to provide the document. It is clear that you, like so many others, fail to understand what is actually meant by “moral object,” if this was even on your radar in the first place. The object here is the sterilization of the marital act, while the intent is the prevention of disease. In normal contraception, the object is the sterilization of the marital act, while the intent is the prevention of pregnancy. Compare this with a defensive use of an oral contraceptive that prevents conception (like in this all of a sudden super popular but possibly mythical Paul VI and Congolese nuns example)… The moral object is the rejection of someone’s sperm, while the intent is the prevention of pregnancy. As Pope Francis said in his now famous/infamous Mexico-Rome flight, preventing pregnancy is NOT in itself evil. It is fine to do something that avoids pregnancy intentionally, like abstinence, or not marrying, or, dare I say it, using NFP.

They aren’t separated in this example, at least not by man.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

This doesn’t make sense to me. If a woman is pregnant, how could sex during her pregnancy be ordered to procreation? Can a pregnant woman get doubly pregnant? And of course the reason for using the condom during pregnancy where there is a possibility of Zika infection is indeed to make the sex “safer”.

(a) If the actors do not act in such a way as to thwart the procreative teleology of the sexual act then I believe they may be said to be open to life and the act is left unhindered and so left ordered to procreation by the nature of the genital powers involved.

(b) Whether the genital powers of any particular couple are actually fertile or not in this act is therefore irrelevant. That is not the couple’s responsibility.

However, from this last observation (b) some conclude that having moral certainty about the infertility of one’s wife (ie pregnancy) still has no bearing on (a).

That is, use of a condom in pregnant sex is still a case of (a) above.
I find this opinion theologically ludicrous.

The use of a condom in this situation is not thwarting the known, particular here and now, actual teleology of the sexual powers of this specific couple at this specific time. So the purpose of using a condom cannot, on objective grounds, be a contraceptive one either.
Which is indeed the case, its to protect the fetus from harm while engaging in legitimate non fertile sex…

Opponents of this view understand “procreative teleology” in an idealised,abstract, universalised, non specific understanding of the sexual powers. They are not interested in specific instances or whether fertile potential is actually active at any given time. The sexual powers just by the fact they are “sexual” have by definition a teleology in the sexual act that may never be physically impeded.

This contrary view about the use of condoms is of course quite correct when the partners cannot be certain that their sex is not fertile (ie for natural reasons).

But when the partners know for certain procreation is not on the table…these two contrary understandings no longer converge and we have disagreement over the use of condoms.

I go for condoms being OK in pregnant sex because this model makes more sense of what is actually going on. It readily explains that the actors have no contraceptive intent hidden or explicit at all - they just want to enjoy unitive sex and protect their fetus.

The alternative “theology” disagrees. It states the couple are not open to life and have a hidden intent to thwart its creation in some sort of abstract sense even if not at this time.
That to me is the sort of non-falsifiable belief that leads to madness.

 

[Rau]

…What is the reference/quote [Canon Law].

The Church [eg. HV 11, FC 32, CCC2366] emphasises that “each and every” conjugal act must be open to new life. Canon 1061 Makes the point that a marriage is consummated “…if the spouses have performed between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring, to which marriage is ordered by its nature and by which the spouses become one flesh.”

Although the question of condoms and communicable diseases does not turn on whether the act is an act of contraception (i.e., whether it possesses the intentionality of preventing conception), whether or not the sexual act (with condom) is a “kind of behavior” that is “apt for generation” is nevertheless crucial in determining whether it is a conjugal act. Certain acts having nothing to do with contraception, such as sodomy or mutual masturbation, are also immoral (unchaste) on the basis of a similar inaptness.

Blue - You asserted that sex with a condom is “not impermissible”. Please explain how you come to that position, in light of Church teaching. Further - please explain why stimulation to orgasm via latex, where the couple do not become “one flesh”, and do not perform an act *per se *apt for generation, should be viewed as morally distinct from mutual masturbation.

The debate is not about what is “unitive”. A hug could be said to be unitive.

 

[Rau]

…

…i’ts to protect the fetus from harm while engaging in **legitimate **non fertile sex…

I go for condoms being OK in pregnant sex because this model makes more sense of what is actually going on. It readily explains that the actors have no contraceptive intent hidden or explicit at all - they just want to enjoy unitive sex and protect their fetus.

If you hold this view, then please explain why mutual masturbation is not perfectly fine when the wife is pregnant. Please explain why enclosing the penis in latex, and inserting that into the wife, is morally distinct from another form of mutual masturbation. What makes that “legitimate”?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

If you hold this view, then please explain why mutual masturbation is not perfectly fine when the wife is pregnant.

For the same reason that sex while pregnant is perfectly fine.
Or do you disagree?

 

[Rau]

For the same reason that sex while pregnant is perfectly fine.
Or do you disagree?

Does not make sense - or are you saying mutual masturbation is perfectly fine? [Of course sex while pregnant is fine.]

I have posed several questions above - could you answer directly without responding in riddles or via other questions.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Does not make sense. I have posed several questions above - could you answer directly without responding in riddles or via other questions.

Because you cannot understand does not mean I have not clearly answered.
Sometimes our less than adequate understandings of things get in the way.
In which case there is nothing more I could say to provide any further clarity.

 

[Rau]

Because you cannot understand does not mean I have not clearly answered.
Sometimes our less than adequate understandings of things get in the way.
In which case there is nothing more I could say to provide any further clarity.

In other words - you prefer not to engage. [But you make time for an ad hominem.] OK.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The Church [eg. HV 11, FC 32, CCC2366] emphasises that “each and every” conjugal act must be open to new life.

Surely not to impede the here and now genital powers in their inherent teleology to produce a fetus is a valid form of “being open to life”
Condomised pregnant sex does not interfere with that.

Canon 1061 Makes the point that a marriage is consummated “…if the spouses have performed between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring, to which marriage is ordered by its nature and by which the spouses become one flesh.”

If we are talking about a pregnant wife the single act of consummation happened previously. Therefore your logic of applying this cannon to later sex acts, especially when one is pregnant (which obviously cannot be in mind here) falls over.
Therefore we cannot know, at least from this cannon, what “suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring” means in the context of the case we presently discuss.

Although the question of condoms and communicable diseases does not turn on whether the act is an act of contraception (i.e., whether it possesses the intentionality of preventing conception), whether or not the sexual act (with condom) is a “kind of behavior” that is “apt for generation” is nevertheless crucial in determining whether it is a conjugal act. Certain acts having nothing to do with contraception, such as sodomy or mutual masturbation, are also immoral (unchaste) on the basis of a similar inaptness.

OK, I agree this is far better than Thistle’s (contraceptive act) approach to the alleged impermissibility of condoms even in pregnant sex.

However I am not aware that condomised sex is clearly excluded from being a marital act, the more so if contraceptive intent is not on the cards as in pregnant sex.

I tend to agree with you that condomised sex cannot support a definition of consummation but I have not seen an explicit and undisputed Magisterial view on this, have you?

please explain why stimulation to orgasm via latex, where the couple do not become “one flesh”…

As above, can you provide a clear Magisterial source or undisputed moral theologian of weight who has consensus on this assertion of not becoming one flesh? I am not aware of one but maybe I’ve missed something. Obviously many elements of becoming one flesh are achieved despite latex.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

In other words - you prefer not to engage. [But you make time for an ad hominem.] OK.

 

[Rau]

Did you forget that you wrote post #30? Confusion resolved?

 

[Rau]

Surely not to impede the here and now genital powers in their inherent teleology to produce a fetus is a valid form of “being open to life”
Condomised pregnant sex does not interfere with that.

If we are talking about a pregnant wife the single act of consummation happened previously. Therefore your logic of applying this cannon to later sex acts, especially when one is pregnant (which obviously cannot be in mind here) falls over.

I would have thought a clear picture of the appropriate manner of sexual intercourse emerges when you “join the dots” provided by the elements of teaching I provided.

Therefore we cannot know, at least from this cannon, what “suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring” means in the context of the case we presently discuss.

The words describe a form of act, with no reference to the condition or fertility of the participants. A pregnant widow marrying while pregnant may consummate her (new) marriage notwithstanding her pregnant state, by an act conforming to the Canon. An infertile couple may consummate their marriage by an act in accordance with the Canon. So, you see, there is no ambiguity in the words of the canon; they don’t cease to have meaning according to the pregnancy/fertility of the persons involved.

Obviously many elements of becoming one flesh are achieved despite latex.

Which are those? How does that set of elements compare with that arising in the case of another form of mutual masturbation? [You’ve yet to explain how inserting a latex-clad penis into the vagina of one’s spouse differs morally from another forms of mutual masturbation.]

 

[Ron_Conte]

This doesn’t make sense to me. If a woman is pregnant, how could sex during her pregnancy be ordered to procreation? Can a pregnant woman get doubly pregnant? And of course the reason for using the condom during pregnancy where there is a possibility of Zika infection is indeed to make the sex “safer”.

The knowing choice of an act ordered toward an evil moral object is always immoral, even when that object is not attained. For example, if a man attempts to murder his neighbor, but he fails, then the moral object (the death of an innocent person) is not attained, but the chosen act is still gravely immoral. If a surgeon attempt to save a man’s life, and fails so that the man dies on the operating table, the act is still good, even though the moral object (saving a life) was not attained.

It is not the attainment of the moral object that makes the act inherently good or evil, but rather the knowing choice of that act, with its moral nature (which is its ordering toward the object).

Choosing to use contraception is immoral, even if the contraception fails, and a child is conceived. Having natural marital relations open to life is moral, even if the couple cannot conceive due to pregnancy or old age.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Did you forget that you wrote post #30? Confusion resolved?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The words describe a form of act, with no reference to the condition or fertility of the participants. A pregnant widow marrying while pregnant may consummate her (new) marriage notwithstanding her pregnant state, by an act conforming to the Canon. An infertile couple may consummate their marriage by an act in accordance with the Canon. So, you see, there is no ambiguity in the words of the canon; they don’t cease to have meaning according to the pregnancy/fertility of the persons involved.

Rau if you cannot see the silliness of using this Canon about Consummation of a Marriage to explicitly address the different issue under discussion here (which in 99.9% of case will not be an act of consummation) we do not have common-sense grounds for continuing on this point.

As above, can you provide a clear Magisterial source or undisputed moral theologian of weight who has consensus on this assertion of not becoming one flesh? I am not aware of one but maybe I’ve missed something. Obviously many elements of becoming one flesh are achieved despite latex.

Which are those? How does that set of elements compare with that arising in the case of another form of mutual masturbation?

When you can make a strong case that a condomised marital act, especially by the pregnant, is in no way “becoming one flesh” (the basis of the unitive end of the act) we can take this angle further.

[You’ve yet to explain how inserting a latex-clad penis into the vagina of one’s spouse differs morally from another forms of mutual masturbation.]

You’ve simply reworded your above unsubstantiated assertion. This “all or nothing” approach to imperfect marital acts is as misdirected as when we used to think that other Christian Denominations are not salvific because they aren’t Catholic.

Taking the broader picture…
If Pope Francis, Fr Lombardi (a Vatican Spokesperson) and the Phillipine Bishops are agreed that there are unusual occasions when condomised marital acts are acceptable that seems to contradict your theology.

If that’s the case you will have to excuse me if I go with the former’s interpretation of past magisterial statements (which support my own fallible theology) rather than your own in these confusing times.

 

[surritter]

This doesn’t make sense to me. If a woman is pregnant, how could sex during her pregnancy be ordered to procreation? Can a pregnant woman get doubly pregnant?..

I don’t know if the others ever gave you a full answer to this, so…
When we say that the sexual act must be ordered toward procreation, that doesn’t mean that procreation must happen, nor that procreation must even be possible. It’s a technical term, meaning that the act must be done in a way so its nature is not intentionally compromised, even if other factors (such as pregnancy or sterility) mean that conception is impossible.

The key is that the person/couple is not to actively do anything to thwart the procreative nature of sex. Pregnancy (or sterility) are biological things that happen on their own; they are not injected into the sexual act for the purposes of thwarting the biological “order.”

The classic analogy to this is eating, which is “ordered” toward nutrition. So if someone has a delicious meal but then barfs it up, we all would agree that he/she suffers from an eating disorder; there’s just something plain wrong about separating the enjoyment of food from the biological function of food. So in a sense, contraception is the bulimia of the sexual organs; the intentional rupture of the love-giving and life-giving aspects of sex is intrinsically wrong. (Like any analogy, there are obviously some differences, but I hope I’ve helped to clarify the point about the term “ordered.”)

 

[Thorolfr]

The key is that the person/couple is not to actively do anything to thwart the procreative nature of sex. Pregnancy (or sterility) are biological things that happen on their own; they are not injected into the sexual act for the purposes of** thwarting the biological “order.”**

If one is using a condom to prevent infection with a virus like the Zika virus, then by that act, one is, of course, “thwarting the biological order” just as one is thwarting the biological order by taking antibiotics or getting a vaccination against some viral or bacterial disease. Viruses and bacteria are part of the biological order and infecting other organisms is what they do. But sometimes, I would think it’s OK to thwart the biological order, especially in the case of using a condom when conception is impossible but preventing disease is possible.

I understand Catholic doctrine against using condoms, but applying that doctrine when conception is impossible but protecting an unborn child is possible doesn’t make sense to me.