Condoms for illicit affairs

[jssaxon]

The good Catholic adulterer should never, never wear a condom! Only Protestant adulterers are allowed to do that. Who cares about the wife, she is out of the equation friends. No, we are only concerned with the fact that the adulterer lives in a vacuum, and if he has sex with a condom, that adds a very grievious mortal sin on top of another another mortal sin, adding up to two mortal sins!

Would his concern for the health of his wife, mother of his kids, offset that mortal sin of wearing a condom for adultery? I DON’T THINK SO! :tsktsk:

We are only concerned that this adultery is open to the possibility of life and of communicable disease. That’s all God wants…

 

[ABostonCatholic]

Actually you should just avoid stepping in the piles of poop in the first place. You’re not going to smell any better if you step in the smaller pile.

The scenario might be different if the guy had no choice but to commit adultery. I have never heard of someone forced to have an affair, so the guy has a choice. The choice should be not to have an affair to begin with. Or we could say once you do one evil act-have an affair-then you are going to have to continue doing evil so why not avoid doing wrong in the first place.

You’re thinking of this as if someone is asking for our advice what to do in this situation, rather than looking at it purely as an objective observer.

Again, the issue is compounded sin.

But consider whether someone asks you: is it more or less evil for a man to intentionally hit a woman with his car versus accidentally hitting her? You would say: More evil. Why? Because the sin is compounded with an evil intention. In this case, it the sin would actually shift from a venial to a mortal sin. But you would not respond, “just don’t hit the pedestrian” as if there is no distinction between mortal and venial sins, or no distinction between accidental sins and intended sins.

Likewise, you can look at two sins that are mortal sins where one is compounded upon the other, and determine which is more evil and which is less evil. But pointing out that they’re both mortal sins so it doesn’t matter isn’t answering the question.

 

[ABostonCatholic]

Would his concern for the health of his wife, mother of his kids, offset that mortal sin of wearing a condom for adultery? I DON’T THINK SO! :tsktsk:

The question is NOT whether the sin would be offset, but whether or not the compounded sin of wearing a condom+having an affair would be greater than the sin of having and affair without wearing a condom.

 

[deb1]

You’re .

But consider whether someone asks you: is it more or less evil for a man to intentionally hit a woman with his car versus accidentally hitting her? You would say: More evil

Actually I would respond that it isn’t evil at all to accidentally hit someone. In order to be a sin you have to do something on purpose.Just like a victim of rape is not culpable of adultery, neither is a person guilty of murder if they accidentally hit someone with their car.

 

[deb1]

The good Catholic adulterer should never, never wear a condom! Only Protestant adulterers are allowed to do that. Who cares about the wife, she is out of the equation friends. No, we are only concerned with the fact that the adulterer lives in a vacuum, and if he has sex with a condom, that adds a very grievious mortal sin on top of another another mortal sin, adding up to two mortal sins!

Would his concern for the health of his wife, mother of his kids, offset that mortal sin of wearing a condom for adultery? I DON’T THINK SO! :tsktsk:

We are only concerned that this adultery is open to the possibility of life and of communicable disease. That’s all God wants…

God doesn’t want you to have the affair in the first place. People don’t accidentally have affairs. If you have enough control to consider the condom in the first place then you have enough control to not have the affair.

Thankfully none of us walk down the street and accidentally end up with our bady parts connected to the opposite sex.

Rape is a different story. I have heard of a rape case, many years ago, being thrown out because the victim asked the rapist to wear a condom. (No, I don’t understand why it was thrown out:shrug: )I might have a bit more sympathy for that scenario then I do the one that has been presented.

 

[ABostonCatholic]

Actually I would respond that it isn’t evil at all to accidentally hit someone. In order to be a sin you have to do something on purpose.Just like a victim of rape is not culpable of adultery, neither is a person guilty of murder if they accidentally hit someone with their car.

No, objectively it is evil and sinful. That is the difference between a mortal sin and a venial sin (if a person does something which is objectively sinful, even if he knows not that it is sinful, it is still a sin, albeit a venial sin rather than a mortal sin).

If someone throws himself in front of my car, it is an attempt at suicide, and I have no culpability. The evil act is on the pedestrian. But if I hit someone due to my negligence, such as disciplining a child in the back seat which momentarily distracts me, then I would have some culpability, but much lesser so than I would if I intentionally hit the person.

Likewise, if I see someone in my way but I fail to swerve because I don’t care if I hit them or not, I have committed a more evil action than above, but still less evil than if I were to chase him down with my car.

Morality is chiefly in the will, which brings up another distinction to the adultery-condom issue. If a man is using a condom to prevent the spread of disease to his wife, although his moral bearings are still severely damaged, it is a nevertheless an objectively good intention within him.

But if he is using the condom because he doesn’t want to get caught, either due to pregnancy, or his wife waking up and saying, “where did these warts come from?” his intention is selfish. He shows no concern for his wife whatsoever, whereas in the former situation he shows some kind of concern, even if it is adulterated (pun intended) on account of his adultery.

 

[ABostonCatholic]

Rape is a different story. I have heard of a rape case, many years ago, being thrown out because the victim asked the rapist to wear a condom. (No, I don’t understand why it was thrown out:shrug: )I might have a bit more sympathy for that scenario then I do the one that has been presented.

Every now and then a rumor arises that a bishops conference or the Vatican at one point or in the future will allow women to wear female condoms in case of rape. Does anyone know of any truth to these rumors?

I think it could be legit for a woman to do this, sense it is essentially self-defense. Just as we can use force and kill someone to protect ourselves, why couldn’t we use condoms? Furthermore, rape, in some sense, isn’t an act of intercourse for the victim, for that would imply consent. That is why Catholic theology has always held that a raped virgin is still a virgin.

 

[rboo124]

Imagine a man dissatisfied with his marriage who decides to have an affair. He doesn’t go to church anymore, and hasn’t prayed in years. He’s with his girlfriend, and doesn’t want to use a condom, but he feels guilt about the possibility of bringing home disease to his wife. But then he rationalizes “the church says condoms are immoral, so I won’t use one. No point in compounding evil.”

It’s not that farfetched. There are cultures in parts of the world where cheating is rampant and the people are (at least nominally) catholic and use the church’s ban on condoms as an excuse not to be safe, and are bringing home AIDS to their spouses.

I personally think that condoms are evil when they’re used within a marriage. I think if the sex act is already illicit, then condoms don’t make it any more wrong, and in fact might lessen the wrongness.

(Note, this is hypothetical, it’s not about a decision I’m facing in my own life )

I understand what you’re saying…I personally have to work at not thinking in that manner, though.

I am easily sidetracked into sin by that way of thinking…I spent many years in that mindset, and tried to do the ‘best’ I could within those parameters. It doesn’t work. All it did was gradually allow me to make a complete mess of my life. I was never ‘purely’ evil…I’d sprinkle a little dash here and there…the end result was the same, it just took me longer to get there…miserable.

I still fall into that ‘justifiable’ type of thinking. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully escape it, the ‘convenience’ it provides to relieve me of a tough or guilty situation is very hard to ignore. I’m in a tough situation in my life right now…and I’m guilty about it. There are plenty of ‘understandable’ reasons for me to remain in this situation, but I know it’s wrong. (NO…I’m not cheating on my wife! It’s a very different situation, not nearly as damaging, but I’m still struggling with it.)

The man is wrong…he’s just adding to the number of topics he is wrong about. ‘One sin is too many, twenty is not enough’ when you apply that type of rationalization to avoid God’s will. It may help me sleep better at night short term, but it always comes back a nightmare.

He should pray, go back to Church, go to confession, leave his girlfriend, reconcile with his wife, throw away his condoms and put his will into God’s hands and go from there. It’s very simple…but simple doesn’t mean easy!

 

[rboo124]

Every now and then a rumor arises that a bishops conference or the Vatican at one point or in the future will allow women to wear female condoms in case of rape. Does anyone know of any truth to these rumors?

I think it could be legit for a woman to do this, sense it is essentially self-defense. Just as we can use force and kill someone to protect ourselves, why couldn’t we use condoms? Furthermore, rape, in some sense, isn’t an act of intercourse for the victim, for that would imply consent. That is why Catholic theology has always held that a raped virgin is still a virgin.

That’s interesting. I haven’t heard of that. I guess it’s somewhat like legally carrying a gun through a bad section of town? I mean, you aren’t going there to shoot anyone, but, the gun is your protection in case someone tries to shoot you? Then, it’s not murder…it’s self defense…and you preserved your life. Tough one!

I get so messed up from some of these ‘what if’ scenarios! One minute I’ll sound like a staunch conservative on one topic, the next moment a left wing liberal on another. Help! lol

 

[ABostonCatholic]

I get so messed up from some of these ‘what if’ scenarios! One minute I’ll sound like a staunch conservative on one topic, the next moment a left wing liberal on another. Help! lol

That’s because Christ is in the center.

 

[Seatuck]

I find it hard to believe the guy is worried about his wife’s health in all this, anyway. More likely he would be worried about himself. He’d be worried about picking up STD’s that would affect him.The guy’s judgement is all off anyway since he is with someone who’s sexual health he can’t be sure of and is too stupid to get a clean bill of health for.

 

[rwoehmke]

If a man cares enough about his religion to wonder if using a condom is wrong then he would care enough not to have an affair. So, I don’t really think that this question makes sense.

Any guy who would step out on his wife in such a manner is not gonna give a second thought to whether or not to use a condom. Probably the only context in which it would make sense is when he finally accepts his wrong doing and goes to confession. Then he has two or perhaps even more sins to be shriven of.

 

[jssaxon]

Not every man who has an affair is a total moral basket case. There are some men who have a sexual addiction or compulsion, but still care about their wives and children. Maybe the wife has let herself gain 200 pounds and he doesn’t want to dump her, but feels like he needs to gratify his sexual desires. Maybe he doesn’t want a divorce to protect his children. Maybe he’s going through a mid-life crisis and is tempted by a sexy woman, but he really doesn’t want to wreck his family life.

 

[ABostonCatholic]

Not every man who has an affair is a total moral basket case. There are some men who have a sexual addiction or compulsion, but still care about their wives and children. Maybe the wife has let herself gain 200 pounds and he doesn’t want to dump her, but feels like he needs to gratify his sexual desires. Maybe he doesn’t want a divorce to protect his children. Maybe he’s going through a mid-life crisis and is tempted by a sexy woman, but he really doesn’t want to wreck his family life.

Exactly. We shouldn’t give up one someone because of one mortal sin, no matter how bad it might be, especially one in which there is often an addiction coupled with it.

Often, I think the opposite might be true. Someone who is addicted to sex might seek to minimize the evil that they know they are committing, because that is what they have control over.

(Cp, too: a person addicted to internet pornography might disable any tracking software, not for the purpose of “not getting caught” but for the purpose of not wrecking their family. The person knows that it is wrong and shouldn’t be doing it, and probably feels guilty while doing it, but their moral compass is not completely shot)

And that brings us to the initial question that too many people want to casually dismiss: is it more or less evil to use a condom when committing adultery?

 

[deb1]

If the point of this thread is to discuss situations in which a person might think that doing wrong in one situation might prevent a worse evil then perhaps we can do a different type of scenario? One that more people would have sympathy with.

Like, lying to Nazi guards to protect the whereabouts of a Jewish person.

 

[ABostonCatholic]

If the point of this thread is to discuss situations in which a person might think that doing wrong in one situation might prevent a worse evil then perhaps we can do a different type of scenario? One that more people would have sympathy with.

Like, lying to Nazi guards to protect the whereabouts of a Jewish person.

Except that the holocaust ended 62 years ago, whereas men are still cheating on their wives.

 

[deb1]

Except that the holocaust ended 62 years ago, whereas men are still cheating on their wives.

Whose to say that we might not one day be again faced with a similar situation. THe holocaust is not the only example of genocide that has happened in the world.

 

[Markstorm]

The answer to this question is rather obvious. For any Catholics who voted that the man should use condoms in this case, please take 10 minutes of your time to read the relevant sections of Humanae Vitae.

Adultery is a mortal sin, so the hypothetical man that the OP describes is already guilty of that. Contraception, being intrinsically evil, is not validated by intention. So using it in a case of adultery is just adding one sin to another.

It would be shocking to learn that so many Catholics are ignorant of this Church teaching. Perhaps it is safe to assume that the 12 people so far who’ve voted for the wrong option are not Catholic?

 

[deb1]

or maybe we could change the original scenario just a bit. I think that people react differently toward affairs sometimes depending on the gender of the adultering party.

So imagine that a woman is married to a workaholic. She loves her husband but he works constantly and is to tired to have sex. Not only that she rarely sees him. She has a purely physical affair. Would she be justified in asking her lover to wear a condom?

Just so you know my same issues with the man having an affair apply to a female. I was curious if people’s opinion changed though when the genders were reversed.

 

[Markstorm]

or maybe we could change the original scenario just a bit. I think that people react differently toward affairs sometimes depending on the gender of the adultering party.

So imagine that a woman is married to a workaholic. She loves her husband but he works constantly and is to tired to have sex. Not only that she rarely sees him. She has a purely physical affair. Would she be justified in asking her lover to wear a condom?

Just so you know my same issues with the man having an affair apply to a female. I was curious if people’s opinion changed though when the genders were reversed.

It’s the exact same story. Adultery is committed, and then another intrinsically evil act is committed. What exactly are you asking? Whether someone is justified in performing an objectively evil act in the context of having committed another grave sin?

What do you think?