Contraception use during fornication

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I’m sure there is a wide variety of opinions on this, but if we could please stick to official Church teaching, that would be great. Does the use of contraception while fornicating constitute another sin in addition to the act of fornication?
 
Why wouldn’t it? I would assume you are using contraception to “cover your tracks” so to speak, so how is this different from stealing, and then lying to say that you had not committed theft?
 
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Well, that’s what I think, but I’ve come across more than one devout Catholic who believes fornication is a mortal sin, and also believes that contraception is a sin when used in marriage. However these same devout Catholics also believe that it’s not a sin to use contraception while fornicating or committing adultery and actually consider it responsible to do so (to prevent pregnancy and STD’s among unmarried people). So, I’m just wondering what the Church’s official teaching is on this.
 
Has the Church even addressed this particular subject of contraception while in an illicit relationship in the Catechism? I know I have looked and not found anything. Am I missing it?
 
While yes, it is a sin, I would say that if a person is going to fornicate no matter what, (Let’s say in the case of a prostitute feeding her family) I think (personally) it would be responsible (and maybe even less sinful, due to reduced culpability) for her to use a condom/ other form of contraception for protection, yes.
 
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Unlikely to find Church teaching on this because fornication is already itself sinful and shouldn’t be done anyway, so the question of contraception shouldn’t even come into play.

But that said, because people do fornicate, the question does arise, and I think moralists are not settled on the issue. In the absence of Church teaching surrounding this specific scenario, I would think that it does not add culpability to the already grave sin of fornication itself.
 
The concern I guess is do you have to pay extra purgatory time for the fact that you used contraception on top of fornicating, like it’s 2 criminal charges of “mortal sin” for which you “serve time” instead of just one.

From a logical standpoint, while I wouldn’t say using contraception during fornication or adultery makes the sin less, I would say it’s a wash because you already committed the gravest grave sin anyway and the least you can do is try to minimize the damage that might be caused by having unprotected fornication or adultery, especially if you’re using some method that provides some protection against STD. But that’s just my opinion and not anything official from the Church.
 
I’ve actually gone 180 on this topic. I used to hold your view. My logic was that since fornication is wrong and contraception is wrong then using contraception during fornication would be wrong x2. However I’ve since become convinced by the alternative argument which is that the sin of contraception is that of divorcing the procreative from the unitive within the marital act. Since there is no marital act, it does not make sense to speak of the sin of contraception. If you read Humanae Vitae it speaks of contraception as a sin in anticipation of the conjugal act. There is no conjugal act when two unmarried people have sex. So fornication is gravely wrong and there may be sin involved in procuring contraceptives or supporting the contraceptive industry but I don’t believe that an unmarried person who used a condom while fornicating would need to confess that as an additional sin.
 
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Maximilian75 said:
While yes, it is a sin, I would say that if a person is going to fornicate no matter what,
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slippery slope warning
This line of reasoning was used repeatedly in the last 60 years to bring our culture to where we are now.
("If a woman is going to commit suicide unless we let her get an abortion, well in that case…) and many other instances.

Fornication goes against the Moral Law. Contraception, regardless of if the couple is married or unmarried, goes against both the Moral Law and the Natural Law. It is the greater evil, though that does not make fornication by itself unimportant.
 
That said, I wouldn’t say it’s “responsible” to mitigate the temporal consequences of an action which is mortally sinful. If someone came to me and said, “We’re going to have premarital sex. Should we contracept?” I would say, “Don’t have premarital sex.” Full stop.
 
nodito said:
Since there is no marital act, it does not make sense to speak of the sin of contraception.
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Yes, there is a conjugal-type, or “marital act”, even though there is no sacramental marriage.
 
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commenter said:
Yes, there is a conjugal-type, or “marital act”, even though there is no sacramental marriage.
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No, I believe you’re wrong. The marital act is proper to marriage. When the Church discusses offenses against chastity involving unmarried people she uses phrases such as “carnal union” or “deliberate stimulation of genital organs” etc. she does not say that they engage unlawfully in the marital act because that would be impossible. One cannot engage in the marital act if one is not married, sacramentally or otherwise.
 
Judie Brown at EWTN points out that the use of any form of contraception is immoral, and, when contraception is used in sex outside of marriage, there are two wrongs: contraception and extra-marital sex.
http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage.asp?number=366738

Fr. Richard Hogan at EWTN takes essentially the same position. When contraception is used outside of marriage, both acts are gravely immoral. “Intercourse outside of marriage is seriously sinful. Contraception within or outside of marriage is seriously sinful.”
http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage.asp?number=318332&Pg=Forum11

E. Christian Brugger answers the question: “Does the Catholic Church’s condemnation of contraception bind only on married couples or is it a universal moral norm?” His answer is that contraception is intrinsically evil; it is gravely immoral regardless of marital state. “If contraceptive acts were wrong for married persons, but legitimate for unmarried persons, they would not be wrong per se, would not be intrinsically evil, but circumstantially evil. Although some Catholics hold this, the view seems clearly to be inconsistent with both the Church’s theological and doctrinal traditions.”
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/zcontmar.HTM

Christopher O. Tollefsen: “contraceptive acts are intrinsically wrong, and not merely always wrong within the marital context,” and, “tradition as a whole has also consistently treated contraception as wrong outside of marriage.”

Catholic Answers article:
The question: “Does Humanae Vitae state that birth control is only forbidden for married couples?”
The answer: Contraception “is always objectively evil, regardless of the context (within marriage or outside of it) in which it is carried out.”

 
Why does it matter? If someone is sinning with intent, then they’re off the path anyway.
 
nodito said:
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commenter:
Yes, there is a conjugal-type, or “marital act”, even though there is no sacramental marriage.
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No, I believe you’re wrong. The marital act is proper to marriage. When the Church discusses offenses against chastity involving unmarried people she uses phrases such as “carnal union” or “deliberate stimulation of genital organs” etc. she does not say that they engage unlawfully in the marital act because that would be impossible. One cannot engage in the marital act if one is not married, sacramentally or otherwise.
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Pope Paul likely did not anticipate such a high percentage of the population, and of Catholics, would soon accept gay marriage. So he did not feel the need to reinforce the Natural Law teaching on that front. But his “silence” on that matter does not mean the Natural Law does not still extend on that matter, or that he was now (1968) limiting the application of the Natural Law.

The fact that the pope had marriage in mind when he was reminding people of one aspect of the natural law does not preclude its application to other aspects. Our local Catholic Charities has a program on “Domestic Violence”.

Most of people involved are not in any kind of sacramental marriage. The Church in many ways does recognize some marriage-type patterns (good and bad) in couples who are not married, and Pope Francis urges priests to reach out to them, not ignore the realities of their situation just because they are not “married” in the eyes of the Church. There are marriage-type moral implications in some of their actions.
 
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It’s interesting to me that I have seen this question pop up many times. It makes me wonder what the underlying reason is that this question occurs to so many people.

You won’t see an official statement from the Church. Why would it be necessary to clarify a more or less sinful way to commit a sin?

Probably the closest you’d come is Pope Benedict’s (often misconstrued) comments in the “Light of the World” book-length interview.
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.
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Note, this is not an official Church document, but an interview. Note he says there “may” be a basis in “some” cases" where it would be a “first step” towards living a more moral life. That’s not a ringing endorsement of artificial contraception.
 
kptrs said:
I’m sure there is a wide variety of opinions on this, but if we could please stick to official Church teaching, that would be great. Does the use of contraception while fornicating constitute another sin in addition to the act of fornication?
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Technically, it would count as a 2nd sin. So instead of one mortal sin, you have two.

However, I would assume that fornication is the bigger sin in this situation.
 
phil19034 said:
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kptrs:
I’m sure there is a wide variety of opinions on this, but if we could please stick to official Church teaching, that would be great. Does the use of contraception while fornicating constitute another sin in addition to the act of fornication?
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Technically, it would count as a 2nd sin. So instead of one mortal sin, you have two.

However, I would assume that fornication is the bigger sin in this situation.
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That depends on how much you weigh the Natural Law.
 
Pope Paul VI
Humanae Vitae (1968)

http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-v...ments/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html

Pope Paul VI was aware of the so-called Sexual Revolution and the rise of Hippies and Anarchists promoting sex without marriage and a rejection of the Church and mom and dad (Don’t trust anyone over 30!). I was there for that. A Hippie friend of mine called fornication “performing natural acts.” They began to appear in our neighborhoods to promote their false gospel. He reaffirmed constant Church teaching against artificial contraception, which became a bigger problem after The Pill began to get a marketing campaign going in 1967. His decision did not sit well with a group of advisors who recommended he relax the rules for Catholics.

In 1968, within 24 hours, a full page ad appeared in the New York Times signed by Catholic theologians that went against what the Pope was teaching, far beyond their authority as theologians. They claimed artificial contraception was OK in marriage.
 
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