Down yonder, a reader writes:
Please help me to better understand this issue. I don’t need convincing on the sinfulness of contraception. I need to better understand the relationship to NFP, which the Church allows.
In your initial post, you state: "The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful". But doesn’t this occur in NFP? Isn’t the couple planning their sexual relations around a time that it is almost certain to be unfruitful? Aren’t they divorcing the pleasure of the act from its openess to life? Isn’t their intent the same as the couple who uses artificial contraception; only the "means" being different?
I do understand that God did not design us so that every sexual act produces children. Of course, NFP takes advantage of this. I also know that there is always a chance of new life, even when practicing NFP properly. But there is also that chance with artificial contraception. It is not 100% effective.
Help me understand the distinction here. My logic must be flawed, because I know the thinkers in the Church are a lot smarter than I am!
You have put your finger on the decisive fact in this: "God did not design us so that every sexual act produces children. . . . NFP takes advantage of this."
In many mammalian species, God designed things so that the males are sexually receptive all the time, while females are only sexually receptive in proximity to their fertile period. Thus such species tend to only engage in sexual activity in proximity to fertility.
But God designed humans different. In our species both genders are sexually receptive in general, not just when a woman is fertile (though there appears to be an increase of sexual receptivity at that time). The result is that humans engage in sexual activity even though most of the time it has no chance of resulting in procreation.
The fact that we cannot, in the case of any given act of marital congress, utterly rule out the possibility of procreation, this says more about the limitations of our predictive ability than anything else. If we had better knowledge of what was happening in a woman’s body (as we well may one day), we would be able to say with certainty that there will be no procreation from a particular act of union.
Even so, we can in the case of a great many couples (those where the husband or the wife or both are infertile, either due to age or some other cause) say with certainty that there will be no procreation as the result of an act of union. Yet the Church has never expected such couples not to have marital congress in such cases.
The issue thus is not whether there is a chance of there being a conception. It is a red herring to suggest that NFP is okay because it is unreliable (always some chance of conception) while contraception is wrong because it is reliable (no chance of conception). In reality, many cases where NFP are used have no objective chance of resulting in conception (we just often can’t identify those cases up front), and in many cases contraceptive sex does have the chance of resulting in conception.
The question is not whether a particular act has the potential for fertility. The question is whether you are doing anything to render the act deliberately infertile. This is what the document I quoted refers to when it speaks of "marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful" (emphasis added).
In the case of an act of NFP the couple is not doing anything to make themselves infertile. They are simply having marital congress when nature makes them infertile.
Similarly, a couple with permanent infertility (due to age or some other cause) is not deliberately making themselves infertile each time they have marital congress. As with the first couple, they are simply having marital congress when they already are infertile.
But when a couple performs a specific act to make themselves infertile (having surgery, taking a chemical, employing a device) then that act is deliberately frustrates God’s design for human sexuality and so is sinful.
(Note the emphasis on "that act." The sinfulness does not extend to future acts of marital congress if the couple repents as they are no longer affirming by their will the act of rendering themselves infertile.)
The issue thus is not whether any given act of union has a chance of producing a child. Nor is the issue whether one ever has children (that is an important issue, but a different one than this). The issue is whether you are doing something to deliberately frustrate the fertility of a particular sexual act.
I agree with most (or perhaps all) of the post, but I wonder about this:
(Note the emphasis on “that act.” The sinfulness does not extend to future acts of marital congress if the couple repents as they are no longer affirming by their will the act of rendering themselves infertile.)
I wonder about the licitness of marital acts for couples who have been deliberately sterilized, even if they have repented. Repentance doesn’t mean that you no longer have to live with the consequences of your prior acts, and deliberately sterilizing yourself objectively renders all future sex acts deliberately infertile. The only way to avoid deliberately infertile particular sex acts, after one has deliberately sterilized onesself, is to comprehensively avoid all sex acts.
That may be difficult to accept, but no more so than (for example) accepting that an invalid second marriage comprehensively renders all sex acts illicit for the rest of your life.
Zippy – . . . deliberately sterilizing yourself objectively renders all future sex acts deliberately infertile.
I’m sure Mr. Akin can and will reply to your point adequately, but I can’t resist pointing out that if the original act of sterilization is genuinely repented of, then one wishes that he/she had never performed the act. This is what repentance is.
That being the case, subsequent acts of marital intimacy that are unfruitful cannot be said to be deliberately unfruitful, as you state above. They are objectively unfruitful, but not deliberately so. And since they are not deliberately unfruitful, they cannot be sinful.
More – compare this to a couple who ‘marry’ a second time without benefit of nullity of their first marriages. It wouldn’t make sense for them to say “we repent of having contracted this second ‘marriage,’ but we’re going to remain married nonetheless, i.e., continue to engage in marital intimacy.” To continue to engage in marital intimacy, in such a case, would belie the genuineness of their repentance.
On the other hand, if one or both of a married couple had themselves sterilized, would it be regarded as a necessary mark of genuine repentance for them to have the sterilization reversed (assuming it could be)? Could the Church insist that they reverse the sterilization to show their true repentance?
I don’t think the Church has chosen to do this. I think this has to do with the Church’s refusal to demand extraordinary penances from the repentant – and that surgery would be considered extraordinary and therefore not likely to be demanded.
…but I can’t resist pointing out that if the original act of sterilization is genuinely repented of, then one wishes that he/she had never performed the act. This is what repentance is.
And I can’t resist pointing out that if that repentance were genuine then the person involved would accept the consequences.
I am not saying that the Church has defined this for us; but then all this sexuality stuff is a matter of natural law, which we are perfectly capable of figuring out for ourselves. One need not be Catholic in order to know through the natural law that contraception is immoral, for example. And it seems to me that someone who claims to regret a deliberate sterilization but who then goes on to enjoy conjugal relations is like a thief who repents of his thievery but goes on spending his take.
Someone who really repented would live with the consequences – not a penance, just the natural consequences.
To continue to engage in marital intimacy, in such a case, would belie the genuineness of their repentance.
This seems to be the case in both situations, by the way. In both cases the expression of the full meaning of the marital act in the current relationship has been rendered impossible by a previous act. That fact that the person repents of that previous act ought to be reflected in an acceptance of that natural consequence, not a rejection of it.
I don’t think reversing a sterilization could necessarily “fix” things either. It isn’t possible to perfectly “un-do” such a self-mutilation, any more than a divorce is ontologically possible. It isn’t obvious to me that something akin to an annulment exists here, because there isn’t any way to make it so that the sterilization never happened in the first place.
And again, I think this is something we can know through natural reason without expecting the Church to dot every i and cross every t for us.
Ok– I hope this isn’t too racy, but how would Jimmy’s way of putting the teaching rule out (for example) an NFP couple engaging in non-coital sex during fertile periods? They’re not specifically doing anything in order to render themselves infertile. They’re just enjoying sexual acts that don’t lead to procreation. Or is this ruled out by some *other* teaching?
They’re just enjoying sexual acts that don’t lead to procreation.
As I understand it, sexual acts that deliberately rule out the possibility of procreation are always illicit. That doesn’t mean that, um, how shall I say this, various activities are illicit when occuring in conjunction with a consummated marital act. Nor even that, say, um, accidentally precluding such a consummation would be wrong. But a deliberately unconsummated deliberately infertile, um, session, the plan or goal of which was to enjoy sexual pleasure while deliberately precluding procreation, would be illicit.
It is pretty sad that the contraceptive culture has led to the necessity of morally dissecting the marital bed with such precision, though. The contraceptive culture undermines sexuality for everyone, even those who rightly reject it.
Zippy – That fact that the person repents of that previous act ought to be reflected in an acceptance of that natural consequence . . .
But you define the “consequence” of sterilization as being “that all subsequent sex acts are deliberately infertile, therefore immoral, and therefore must be abstained from.”
But you’re assuming the very point at issue, namely, whether subsequent sex acts after a sterilization that has been repented of (but not reversed) are immoral or not.
My point is that such subsequent acts are not deliberately infertile (because the sterilization has been repented of), and therefore, in the absence of deliberation, they cannot be immoral. And, if the subsequent acts aren’t immoral, there’s no reason to refrain from them (at least on those grounds).
I am interested in Jimmy’s take on when NFP is illicit. Magisterial documents certainly support the liciety of NFP for grave reasons. In practice some Catholics see that as a blank check for NFP-on-demand; others see it is a far more circumscribed license. Some (e.g. Popcak) seem to think that every Catholic couple ought to learn NFP and ‘discern God’s plan’ (i.e. plan out) how many children they will have; others that NFP ought to be learned only when grave reasons (say physical threat to Mom’s life) present themselves. I don’t know at all where Jimmy stands on this (only been reading the blog a short while, a shame I’ve missed so much good stuff), but I am concerned that NFP may be viewed too licentiously by many Catholics.
Zippy wrote,
“And I can’t resist pointing out that if that repentance were genuine then the person involved would accept the consequences.”
Just to play devil’s advocate, what about the inability of sterilized spouses to have (more) children? I’ve read of couples who’ve repented of sterilization and now mourn that their conjugal acts have lost the procreative dimension. And of course, the unitive dimension suffers as a result. These could be seen as very painful consequences.
I read in Kippley’s _Sex and the Marriage Covenant_ about the thought of sterilized couples abstaining from the conjugal act during times of fertility as one possible way of expressing their repentance. He also discusses the options of reversal and complete abstinence. I don’t know if this gets much discussion.
Cornelius, I do think you and I are using the word “deliberate” differently. “Deliberately” has objective content in addition to some instantaneous state of intent that can be granted or retroactively revoked on the whim of a moral agent. If a thief fills up a bank account with stolen money, and he later repents of his thievery, then spending the money in the bank account on vacations is still spending deliberately stolen money and is indicative of an incomplete repentance. The fact of repentance doesn’t change the ontological status of the money and subsequent acts of spending it. Sex acts subsequent to a deliberate sterilization are still deliberately infecund sex acts, whether the person regrets the sterilization or not. (They are most certainly not accidentally infecund sex acts, which is the alternative). It isn’t as if this forces anyone to sin: nobody is required to engage in sinful sex.
To repent is not the same thing as to retroactively erase intent and its consequences.
Again, my approach here is natural law/natural justice. I don’t know if the Church might provide a mercy (presumably in the form of a plenary indulgence) that would “reset the scales” of temporal justice; although speculation along those lines would seem to imply the possibility of divorce too, so I don’t know how it can be maintained consistently by those who wish to do so.
Regarding Zippy’s comment on when NFP is illicit, the Catholic Church does say for serious reasons one can delay pregnancy. Serious reasons have never been defined and purposely left open to the couple and God.
Is it right to delay pregnancy just so a wife can go to school? If it’s just for more money, then perhaps not. If it’s to ehlp support the family then perhaps.
I often hear that a couple has to save money to have children. A couple needs to afford college. Is that a valid reason?
My retort is how much moeny do you need? What is the price of a child? Private school or public school? Master’s too? What if your child doesn’t go to college? What about other children who never went to college? Are they not worth enough?
This is truly one of the amazing benefits of NFP. Janet Smith in her talk “Contraception, WHy Not?” has a great example. An opportunity comes for intimacy but a conversation begins, “Why should we NOT be intimate?”. Is it because another chld would be a financial burden with the father working two jobs and barely affording a small house, or is it to save money for a boat that would be used only two times a year? Mabye the mother has no time taking care of the current 2 children because the father is working two jobs, or is it becuase he doesn’t help around the house?
The Church only requires that parents love their children and provide a roof, food, cloths, and education. It doesn’t say how much of each.
I used to think lare families (over 2) whould be tough and be too much time and money. Havings numerous friends with over 4 children has helped educate me what is possible when you truly consider it.
I hope this has been helpful. Thanks Jimmy for your NFP comments! I look forward to hearing more.
So many issues discussed!
First of all, non-coital intercourse has been condemned by the Church, and has been since the time of Genesis. It is referred to as the sin of Onan (Genesis 38:8-10). And it certainly is a deliberate act of rendering intercourse infertile. Just because there is no barriers or chemicals used doesn’t make the act any less sinful. Manipulating the act of sex in any way to make it infertile is wrong.
Second, regarding “grave reasons”: the Church can’t discern each person’s situation in life nor their motivations in their family planning, nor should they. The Catechism gives us very clear guidelines, and if we are in a state of grace, living a prayerful life, receiving the Sacraments, and even receiving spiritual direction, we can in good conscience discern God’s will for our family life. Paragraphs 2366-2379 of the Catechism are excellent in guiding and informing our consciences.
And lastly, I am remembering a point broght out by Christopher West in his video series “Theology of the Body”. He asks, what is the difference between a miscarriage and an abortion? The end result is the same, correct? Well of course there is a HUGE difference between the two. One is a natural occurance in-line with natural law and is a part of life. The other is a sinful, manipulative act in which one interjects him/herself into natural law and warps it for their own means. I thought this was a great analogy to use when describing the difference between NFP and artificial contraception.
I am new to the faith and went and talked to a priest about this the other day. My wife and I are both still in school. I was told that the pill was wrong but condoms were OK as long as we were open to life at all times.
Can anyone help with this conundrum?
Can anyone help with this conundrum?
Condoms are not “OK,” nor is any other form of artificial contraception.
I am new to the faith and went and talked to a priest about this the other day. My wife and I are both still in school. I was told that the pill was wrong but condoms were OK as long as we were open to life at all times.
Can anyone help with this conundrum?
Wow.
Can we veer off for a second to homosexual activity? As I understand it, the Church is open to the idea that homosexuals are “born that way”, that is, that they have no choice over their sexual preference. And the Church doesn’t see that, in and of itself, as a sin. The sin comes from homosexual acts, and those seem to be viewed as a sin primarily because they have no procreative potential (on the same moral plane as, say, masturbation or contraception). So my question is: if the homosexual act is naturally infertile, how is it different from a heterosexual act that is naturally infertile (because of disease or age)? Also, if we oppose homosexual behavior because of its inherent infertility, why is it okay for a naturally infertile heterosexual couple to marry?
First of all, the Church does not say that they think homosexuality is something one is born with. They make no statement as to its nature, other than to say it is disordered. Check the Catechism. Homosexual activity is a manipulation of the sexual act and goes completely against natural law. It isn’t forbidden only because it is not procreative. It does not fit within natural law. It’s an abuse of the body and an abuse of sexuality, just as masturbation is.
Infertile couples do not committ immorality when having intercourse because they are not manipulating or perverting the sexual act that would lead to infertility. They are infertile due to the natural processes and humanity of their bodies. Homosexual intercourse is infertile because it is manipulated to be so.
Not to mention the fact that sex should ALWAYS be within the bonds of marriage, and two people of the same gender cannot marry, so homosexual activity is sinful on that front as well.
Jimmy:
Thanks for your thoughtful response to my inquiry. I thought your explanation regarding a “deliberate act” that interferes with the possibility of conception was well stated.
However, I still cannot get my mind completely around this issue (perhaps I never will!). It just seems to me that “intent” has to enter into the picture, at least to some degree. When I try to analyze this issue in my own mind, this is how I look at it:
There are 2 couples. One uses contraception. The other uses NFP. The “process” (for lack of a better term) we are discussing breaks down into 3 parts: 1)intent – this is the same for both couples, i.e. the desire to share intimacy and the pleasure of sexual relations with one’s spouse without producing children. 2)result – this is the same for both couples, i.e. no children conceived. 3) means – the couple that uses contraception commits an act that is sinful. The NFP couple omits an act that they otherwise may have done.
Now, one might immediately argue that the above “act” is sinful, an act of “commission”. However, how can an act of “ommission”, i.e. doing nothing be sinful? I’m not sure, but it seems that when you couple the actual planning/timing of the marital act with the described intention (to enjoy the intimacy and sexual pleasure of the act without conceiving), and relate that to the primary, intended purpose of the act (procreation, with intimacy and sexual pleasure secondary), something doesn’t feel right. I think some of the views posted by others at least allude to this (using NFP for serious reasons only, and not routinely to simply avoid conception). Of course, if the “serious reasons only” concept is correct, it would seem that the other side of the same coin would be that NFP is not routinely acceptable, lacking serious reasons. Then, ultimately, you end up with a discussion on what constitutes serious reasons ( a rather subjective matter), and does God allow us to be burdened with more than for which He will provide graces to us to deal with?? The slopes seem to get slippery!
Anyway, I thought I would provide some final thoughts on my initial inquiry. Perhaps the fog will clear for me over time. Thanks again for your insight.
When I say that the Church is open to the idea that homosexuals are “born that way” I mean that my reading of the Catechism suggests that they take no position on it’s origins. They seem to be saying that “being” homosexual isn’t a sin (although the orientation itself is disordered, it’s not sinful), it’s the behavior that’s sinful and it’s the intrinsic infertility of the behavior that makes it sinful. Men having sex with men is wrong because it can never produce a life. If a man had homosexual relations solely because he wanted sexual satisfaction without the risk of pregnency then that would be one thing, but certainly most homosexuals aren’t willfully subverting their fertility. Rather the consumation of their desires is naturally infertile. So again, what is it (besides the infertility) that is against the natural law?
David,
If we start by not assuming anything about the wrongness of contraception versus NFP, still it is clear that morally they are very different sorts of things.
With contraception, an act which actually takes place is modified. The moral nature of the act is that the act itself is changed fundamentally as it is carried out.
With NFP, the act itself is not changed as it occurs. The act itself is not modified from a licit act and turned into a different, illicit act. It is true though that other acts (of commission or omission) can color the actual act morally. For example, if you hang around with a friend only when he is buying the beer you aren’t much of a friend. Even though there is nothing wrong in itself with drinking your friend’s beer, if you never buy then your act (other things equal) becomes a selfish one. Of course if you happen to be dirt poor and your friend is rich, the fact that he always buys the beer might not color the friendship unworthy after all. You have grave reasons for him to always buy the beer.
So with NFP it is possible for sex acts which would not be morally wrong in themselves to become colored morally wrong by selfishness at other times. But they aren’t wrong taken in themselves, whereas contracepted acts are wrong in the actual performance of the act.
I think Jimmy already said as much in a different way, but I hope that helps.
“Rather the consumation of their [homosexual] desires is naturally infertile.”
It isn’t naturally infertile. It is, like the other illicit sex acts under discussion, unnaturally infertile.
A naturally infertile sex act is an act which is identical to a fertile one but that because of natural causes – causes not deliberately carried out by a person modifying the act – does not produce offspring. The word natural in natural law does not refer to “things found in nature” or “whatever”. Natural law starts from the understanding that things have a purpose – a purpose that we can understand naturally using our reason – and that thwarting a thing’s purpose in pursuit of some proximate end is unnatural.
“So again, what is it (besides the infertility) that is against the natural law?”
What is it besides the unnatural modification, which pursues sexual pleasure as an end in itself which rules out procreation, that is unnatural? Understood properly, the question is like asking “what part of the 747 is artificial other than the bits that are man-made?”
Sorry to be graphic, but what aspect of anal intercourse could possibly be considered natural? Not only that, but there still lies the issue that sexual intercourse should ONLY occur within the bonds of marriage, and men can’t marry men, and women can’t marry women. So any act of intercourse between them is immoral.
Thanks Zippy. I knew that “natural” would get me into trouble. Too many interpretations. I’m just trying to play devil’s advocate because I get into these debates alot. So I want to be clear about what we’re saying to and about the homosexual: “You may not have chosen your sexual orientation, but that orientation is intrinsically disordered. The desires and attractions you feel must not be acted on and homosexual acts are always wrong because they are always infertile and unnatural.” That seems to be the gist of the Catholic message to gays. I don’t mean to hijack this thread but these issues seem to be of a piece with the NFP/contraception stuff and I don’t think we’re doing a very good job of defending and explaining Catholic teaching in this area. I have friends and relatives that are gay. It’s difficult for me to even think about confronting them to say that they should never be in a commited relationship with someone they love. That they can never marry because they’re gay. That they can never have sexual relations because they’re not married. Repairative therapy? That’s a huge hurdle. Imagine how you’d feel if someone suggested therapy to you to change your orientation from straight to gay. Most gays are extremely dismissive, if not outright hostile to the idea. These are battles of ideas and if we’re to win I think we need to be more persuasive.
Zippy – I think your definition of ‘deliberately infertile’ differs not just from mine, but from the Church’s, since she does not proscribe intercourse from a sterilized married couple. You’re not thinking with the “mind of the Church.” Is a sterilized married couple (who have repented the sterilization) who have sex like the thief who repents of his crime but spents his stolen hoard anyway?
Not at all; it’s a false analogy. You’re leaving out the unique nature of marriage, forgetting that marital sex has a two-fold purpose: unitive and procreative. If the Church were to require that the sterile married couple not have sex, she would be negating the unitive purpose of sex, and hence negating the value of the sacramental marriage altogether. Granted, the procreative aspect has been lost by a sinful choice of the couple, but the marriage still has value which even the Church does not have the power to negate (which she clearly does not even wish to do).
This is unlike a second illicit ‘marriage’, where there really is no valid marriage at all, and hence no need to affirm or validate the unitive and/or procreative purposes.
Cornelius, several points:
1) I stated explicitly and several times above that (in the sterilization discussion) I was making a natural law argument, not an argument from magisterial authority. My personal opinion is that insisting that nothing is true unless the magisterium expressly says so is not “thinking with the mind of the Church”.
2) Personally I think the notion that a marriage loses all value if the couple ends up in a circumstance in which they cannot have sex is a denigration of marriage bordering on the offensive. Most couples will experience in their lifetimes some extended periods of time in which they cannot licitly or prudently have sex. It is not my intent here, though, to get into a broader discussion of marriage. My points here are quite specific.
3) I was not making any broad analogies, I was illustrating specific points with concrete examples. To reiterate those specific points without the baggage of concrete examples:
a) It is commonplace for modern people to make choices, sometimes without full knowledge at the time, that get them into circumstances wherein they can never, ever licitly have sex again as long as they live. (This is one of the fruits of the sexual revolution: its relentless production of abstinence-or-damnation circumstances).
b) The fact that a person regrets having made those decisions, confesses his sins, and receives absolution does not remove the circumstances. The person remains in a state in which he can never, ever licitly have sex.
c) The fact that a person regrets or repents of a past action does not render that past action unintended. A person who has deliberately sterilized himself who later engages in sex is engaging in intentionally sterilized sex, whether he has repented of the sterilization or not.
So if engaging in intentionally sterilized sex is illicit, then one of the effects of deliberate sterilization is that it renders all subsequent sexual activity by the person illicit, for the rest of his life.