Fr Gerald Coleman from CHAUSA gave a summary of the ‘position paper’ which was never denounced in order to prevent the situation of the Congo nuns.
Moral and pastoral concerns arose in the early 1960s regarding the plight of religious sisters and other women caught up in Belgian Congo uprisings. These women were given anovulant drugs by “doctors on the mission” in order to ward off pregnancy that might otherwise result from rape, which was a constant threat in that chaotic time. The physicians and their moral advisers did not consider their action either contraception or direct sterilization, in the sense in which the church stood against such interventions to prevent pregnancy.
Eminent Roman moralists Monsignor S. E. Pietro Palazzini, Francesco Hürth, SJ, Monsignor Ferdinando Lambruschini and Marcellino Zalba, SJ, addressed this plight by asking whether or not a nun or any woman who reasonably fears she may be raped can take progestational drugs to induce temporary sterility to prevent a possible conception. The nuns, of course, had no intention of consenting in any way to violent action imposed on them. These theologians gave posi tive replies by appealing to the principle of legitimate self-protection.
Zalba was a strong defendant of Humanae Vitae, and along with John Ford, SJ, persuaded Pope Paul VI to reject the recommendations of the majority opinion of the papal commission on contraception. On the issue at hand, however, he wrote, “the intention … is not the interruption of ovulation but the prevention of the consequences of a … violation of chastity.” The nuns were protecting themselves from physical and emotional disorder created by fear. Due to this “good motive,” the moralists concluded that the medical intervention constituted only “indirect sterilization.” Consequently, the nuns incurred no moral culpability, as all the blame and responsibility rested on the shoulders of the persons violating them.
The theologians explained that direct sterilization condemned by the magisterium as intrinsically evil is the direct sterilization ordered to prevent procreation in persons who want to exercise their sexual function. The nuns under threat of rape acted morally by ingesting progestational drugs because they had no intention of voluntarily exercising their sexual capability.
Zalba concluded, “We can assert with full conviction that pontifical doctrine does not exclude the putting of physical functions, even those which as functions are quite normal, at the service of the legitimate interests of the acting person. This may be done in order to ward off from the body itself hardships which are being imposed upon the person contrary to the person’s will. Or it may be done to deliver the soul and the spirit from calumny, rejection, social difficulties, etc. Or it may be done so that the person may enjoy simply the condition of liberty which the person does not want to give up.”
Cont.
