required to refuse to sell condoms?

[MarysLittleFlower]

Too complicated for me lol  :P. I think..hmm.. This is very complicated. I don't think the Church meant that contraception is intrinsically evil in marriage only but just intrinsically evil in what it is. So what happens when you take another evil thing and have to choose one of two evils - the person giving someone AIDS or using contraception. Both are adding sin to the first sin which should not be at all. If someone uses the condom with the intent of preventing giving AIDS - the part that doesn't work here is that they are still choosing to do the act. The whole thing could be avoided through chastity and they are acting against chastity and then trying to prevent a consequence of their choice. It would be horrible if they didn't even care if they gave the person AIDS - that shows a great hardness of heart - but choosing to reject God's law for their impure desire is also from sin. The fact that they would commit two sins (the act and the contraception) for their lust doesn't make it moral - and there's a third option where God's law is honoured AND no disease is passed on. The existence of this third option makes them culpable IMO even if they care not to give AIDS - since they could have chosen to avoid giving AIDS in a licit way. Soon... I guess I find it too hard to choose between evils. In the case of the friend and the prostitute, I'd probably say something like - "you are calling me to ask if you should use a condom to protect your wife. Doesn't this sound hypocritical to you? If you care for your wife then leave the prostitute and go home. You are already hurting your wife and the condom won't fix that".  

[Peace]

Yup. Those issues are a bit tough to grapple with.

I found an interesting article by Jimmy Akin that goes into the issue:

 

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/understanding-the-popes-dilemma-on-condoms#When:23:14:54Z

Understanding the Pope's Dilemma on Condoms

•  
•  
•  

   
   

by Jimmy Akin 11/21/2010 Comments (79)

In yesterday’s post on Pope Benedict’s remarks concerning the use of condoms in AIDS prevention, I promised there would be more to follow, so here ‘tis.

For those who may not be aware, there is a new, book-length interview with Pope Benedict in which he made remarks that were sure to—and were—widely misunderstood and misrepresented in the press. “Press gets religion story wrong” is about as common a narrative as “Dog bites man” or “Sun rises in east.” Go figure.

Anyway, it’s a fascinating book. YOU CAN ORDER IT HERE.

It was inevitable that the press would parse the Pontiff’s comments along the lines of the Pope “modifying the Catholic Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms,” as Damian Thompson of the Telegraph put it.

I want to give kudos to Thompson, though, for correcting himself very promptly. May his journalistic tribe increase!

The idea that the Catholic Church has an “absolute ban on the use of condoms” is widespread, though, so let’s take a moment to look at it.

Just how absolute is the ban?

Well, as I’ve noted before, on more than one occasion, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (quoting Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae):

“[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil [CCC 2370].

I’ve boldfaced the phrase “conjugal act” because it’s the key to understand what is being said. Many gloss over this phrase and assume it means “sexual act.” It doesn’t. “Conjugal”—like its Latin equivalent, coniugale—doesn’t mean “sexual”; it means “marital.”

If you are having sex with someone you are (heterosexually) married to then you are engaging in the marital act. Otherwise, not. If you are engaging in sexual behavior but not with someone you’re married to then it is a different kind of act (masturbation, adultery, fornication, etc.).

What the Church—in Humanae Vitae and the Catechism—has done is say that one cannot deliberately frustrate the procreative aspect of sexual intercourse between man and wife.

That’s actually a fairly narrow statement. It doesn’t even address all situations that may arise in marriages, because there may be situations in which the law of double effect would allow the toleration of a contraceptive effect as long as this is a side effect of the action rather than being intended as a means or an end.

It thus would rule out the use of a condom to prevent a husband and wife from conceiving a child, but that doesn’t address condom use in other situations. Thus far the Church has not explored the question of condom use—or other, typically contraceptive acts—in cases outside of marriage.

Why not?

The Church holds that all sexual acts outside of marriage are gravely sinful. To start exploring the question of contraceptive use outside of marriage would put the Church in a really weird position that could lead to the subversion of the very moral values it is trying to promote.

We all know how in the public schools sex-ed teachers often pay lip service to the idea that people shouldn’t have sex before marriage and then spend enormous amounts of time spelling out just how to do it and what contraceptive and “safe sex” alternatives there are. The frequent result is thus a message of, “Don’t, but allow me to give you an extended discourse on just what to do in case you decide otherwise.”

School kids recognize the phoniness and pretense of this and that it amounts to a tacit permission for them to go off and sexually misbehave.

The Church, understandably, does not want to be put in the same position. It’s about calling people to authentic moral and ethical values, not giving them advice on how to sin.

And so it’s left the field largely to moral theologians to discuss and not really treated it on the Magisterial level.

That’s something that may change, though. It’s easy to see how changing social factors—including the AIDS crisis—could cause pressure for this question to be treated on the Magisterial level. That’s one reason I’ve addressed this subject in the past, to help people understand what the Magisterium has and has not said thus far, so that if it says something in the future, they will have the context to process and assimilate it.

That this kind of work is needed was evidenced yesterday when many people online were saying how their hearts or stomachs lurched when they encountered the first press reports of the Pope’s remarks.

Now, the Holy See could in the future say that the principles articulated in Humanae Vitae regarding contraception also apply to all sexual acts outside of marriage, or some of them, or none of them. At least it could, hypothetically.

What is it likely to do in practice?

It’s hard to say, but Pope Benedict’s recent interview is suggestive. In the interview he considered the case of a male prostitute. Male prostitutes aren’t all that common from what I’m given to understand. Certainly they aren’t as common as the female variety is supposed to be. Which raises the question of why the Pontiff would zero in on this example.

Presumably, it is because male prostitutes most commonly service male clients, in which case the act is homosexual in nature and thus has no procreative aspect to begin with. The question of contraception thus doesn’t arise because there is no openness to new life in the act in the first place. He also might have chosen this example because males, whether behaving homosexually or heterosexually, have a greater chance of infecting others with HIV, but my guess is that he’s thinking of homosexual prostitution in particular.

It’s easy to see how one could look at that situation and say, “Male homosexual prostitutes are at high risk of both contracting and transmitting HIV; it would be better if they gave up prostitution altogether, but if they are engaging in this activity then the use of a condom would reduce the risk of HIV transmission, and it wouldn’t make the acts they are performing any less open to life than they already are.”

The trouble would be how to present this judgment in a way that does not cause more problems than it solves.

Pope Benedict’s remarks in the interview seem to be an attempt to do just this. He could have phrased himself more clearly, but (a) this was an interview, and in interviews one does not have the kind of leisure to carefully craft one’s remarks that writing allows and (b) he’s straining to find words that communicate the basic moral insight without leading to headlines like “Pope approves condoms!” and “Pope changes Church teaching on sex!”

All in all, his “first step on the road to a more human sexuality” approach is not that bad. Also, addressing the matter in an interview—rather than in a Church document—is a not-that-bad way of getting the subject on the table while blunting some of the problems that could result.

Or not.

One can certainly judge that it would have been better for the Pope to leave the subject unaddressed or to have addressed it in a different way or in a different venue. He himself stated repeatedly in the interview that there have been problems communicating through the press in his reign (even describing the Vatican’s PR efforts as a “failure” on one recent subject), and in hindsight he may (or may not) judge that this was the case here as well.

We’ll have to see.

I have to say that I admire Benedict’s courage.

Oh, and as I predicted, the Holy See swiftly came out with a new statement clarifying the pope’s remarks.

I couldn’t help observing (with some satisfaction) how many of the exact same notes were hit in the clarification that were hit in yesterday’s post, including the fact that the pope was speaking “in a informal and not magisterial form,” to quote papal spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi.

One last thing: Over at The Telegraph, Damian Thompson does a bit of speculating that I’d like to address.

After quoting from the post I did yesterday, Thompson ponders the case of theologically orthodox bloggers

I don’t know if I am a blogger who Thompson admires (though if I am, let me say that I also admire Thompson and, in fact, am envious of The Church Times having once called him a “blood-crazed ferret”). However, one might suppose that I am among those he is talking about here since I am one of two bloggers mentioned by name (the other is Eric Giunta) and I did emphasize the interview nature of the Pope’s remarks and the fact that the increasingly-erratic L’Osservatore Romano did a disservice to the public in releasing the comments the way it did.

So let me clear up any potential misunderstanding: I don’t disagree with the Pope on this issue.

There are issues I do disagree with him on (e.g., I tend to be more skeptical of claims regarding global warming than he appears to be), but this isn’t one of them.

I agree that if you’re going to engage in homosexual prostitution that it is better to do so in a way that lessens the chance of getting or giving someone a fatal disease.

I also believe that if you are going to have extramarital sex that it is better to do so with a person who is a willing accomplice rather than raping someone. However, I wouldn’t want to see false and misleading headlines like:

Certainly there is a disanalogy here. Adultery is intrinsically wrong and can never be done, regardless of the circumstances. On the other hand, if Pope Benedict is right that it is better for a person engaging in homosexual prostitution to limit the danger of HIV by using a condom (as I think he is) then this use does not add a new sin to the ones already being committed.

But there is a danger of sending a highly misleading message here. Headlines stating things like “condoms sometimes permissible” and “condoms can be justified in some cases” or “condoms can be used in fight against AIDS” will not be understood by the general public in the limited sense that the Pope is addressing. They will be understood way more broadly than that, and that makes them fundamentally misleading.

I do acknowledge that there is cognitive dissonance here, but it’s not dissonance caused by disagreement with the Pope. It’s caused by the same communications dilemma the Pope faces: How to communicate a moral truth about limiting the harm caused by sin without appearing to give tacit permission to the sin itself or to other, related sins.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Peace

[Oremus Pro Invicem]

The rape scenario is so far outside the scope of reality that one should not answer it.  However, if one was to entertain such a crazy scenario, then you would not be able to advocate the use of condoms based on the ends justifying the means.  In fact you wouldn't be required to say anything to a madman since he is a madman.  You would be within your right to hang up immediately and contact the police, regardless of if they will or will not make it there in time.  In any case there are many things we believe which others will say "this is an hard saying; who can hear it?" Yet let's step back. Are we forgetting that God decides who lives and who dies? If God permits the woman to get HIV then do we doubt He knows better than us and that He has a plan? 

As for the prostitution scenario it would be weak to fold after the first attempt.  I would tell my friend if he decides to continue with this behavior then I will notify his wife of the conversation and tell her that she should have him tested for STDs when he arrives back home.  If saying this means I lose a friend then so be it. 

[Peace]

The rape scenario is so far outside the scope of reality that one should not answer it.

I take it that you are not a big fan of the Trolley Problem either?

However, if one was to entertain such a crazy scenario, then you would not be able to advocate the use of condoms based on the ends justifying the means.  In fact you wouldn't be required to say anything to a madman since he is a madman.  You would be within your right to hang up immediately and contact the police, regardless of if they will or will not make it there in time.  In any case there are many things we believe which others will say "this is an hard saying; who can hear it?" Yet let's step back. Are we forgetting that God decides who lives and who dies? If God permits the woman to get HIV then do we doubt He knows better than us and that He has a plan? 

As for the prostitution scenario it would be weak to fold after the first attempt.  I would tell my friend if he decides to continue with this behavior then I will notify his wife of the conversation and tell her that she should have him tested for STDs when he arrives back home.  If saying this means I lose a friend then so be it. 

Me thinketh that ye hath evaded answering the question. Tisk. Tisk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment

A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment (from German) considers some hypothesis, theory,^[1] or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. Given the structure of the experiment, it may or may not be possible to actually perform it, and if it can be performed, there need be no intention of any kind to actually perform the experiment in question.

The common goal of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of the principle in question: "A thought experiment is a device with which one performs an intentional, structured process of intellectual deliberation in order to speculate, within a specifiable problem domain, about potential consequents (or antecedents) for a designated antecedent (or consequent)" (Yeates, 2004, p. 150).

[Oremus Pro Invicem]

 

I take it that you are not a big fan of the Trolley Problem either?

Me thinketh that ye hath evaded answering the question. Tisk. Tisk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment

I've answered both questions, just not to your liking.  

[Peace]

I've answered both questions, just not to your liking.  

With all due respect, your response seems like more of a duck than an answer.

But since we disagree on that let me rephrase the question to you in another way:

If a person has decided to commit rape and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop him - should the person use a condom or should he not use a condom when he commits the crime?

To show you that the question is capable of being answered, I will answer it myself:

He should use a condom when he commits the crime. It would the morally correct choice for him to do so.

I honestly have no idea what your answer to the question would be, based on your previous response.

[Oremus Pro Invicem]

With all due respect, your response seems like more of a duck than an answer.

But since we disagree on that let me rephrase the question to you in another way:

If a person has decided to commit rape and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop him - should the person use a condom or should he not use a condom when he commits the crime?

To show you that the question is capable of being answered, I will answer it myself:

He should use a condom when he commits the crime. It would the morally correct choice for him to do so.

I honestly have no idea what your answer to the question would be, based on your previous response.

My response was no, you should not instruct him to use a condom.  People with HIV do not automatically give others HIV during intercourse.  While condoms can lower the chances they are also not 100% effective.  Add that condoms work to close the door to life and you have another reason for why one should not advocate the use of condoms.   One cannot advocate for something evil in order to attain a good.  Ends do not justify the means. God's will is a mystery and for all you know through this rape He could bring forth one of the greatest saints of our time.  To not be open to this possibility is to presume you know better than God and to say, "can anything good come out of Nazareth?"--John 1:46 

The answer is yes, with God all things are possible.

Never are we to advocate the use of condoms when there is the possibility of life! Put your faith in God, not condoms.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Oremus Pro Invicem

[beatitude]

With all due respect, your response seems like more of a duck than an answer.

But since we disagree on that let me rephrase the question to you in another way:

If a person has decided to commit rape and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop him - should the person use a condom or should he not use a condom when he commits the crime?

To show you that the question is capable of being answered, I will answer it myself:

He should use a condom when he commits the crime. It would the morally correct choice for him to do so.

I honestly have no idea what your answer to the question would be, based on your previous response.

I think the problem is that this question doesn't really make sense. It's like asking "But what if a unicorn came into the room, what then?" If a man is prepared to commit a crime of that magnitude then the idea of him sitting down and mulling over the morality of contraception is...unlikely, to say the least. So why waste time and attention on thinking up Catholic responses to such an improbable situation? The answer is don't rape. If a man is prepared to think about the ethics of birth control I'm pretty sure he could also stretch his mind and conscience to thinking about the ethics of not sexually assaulting people.

Prostitution is a more plausible hypothetical when it comes to the contraception question, but the answer is not some abstruse discussion on condoms, it's still the same: don't commit sexual abuse. The Church prohibition on contraception is rooted in our knowledge that the union between a man and a woman should be unitive, self-giving, creative, and lifelong, and contraception is incompatible with these things. If a woman has been trafficked into a brothel and is completely at the mercy of the pimps and johns, and is already at a dizzyingly high risk of HIV and other diseases, then I don't think the man who is abusing her suddenly makes the situation 'more moral' if he decides to increase her disease risk and the risk to his other partners by not using a condom. His sin is already mortal. He should not be doing what he's doing in the first place and anything else is academic. Getting bogged down in hypotheticals risks drawing attention away from the crux of the matter and in some cases it makes it look like we're excusing it by finding ways to make it 'more moral'. It can never be moral.

[Peace]

I think the problem is that this question doesn't really make sense. It's like asking "But what if a unicorn came into the room, what then?" If a man is prepared to commit a crime of that magnitude then the idea of him sitting down and mulling over the morality of contraception is...unlikely, to say the least. So why waste time and attention on thinking up Catholic responses to such an improbable situation?

I think I have already addressed this. Please see the information I posted above concerning thought experiments.

"But what if a unicorn came into the room, what then?" is a perfectly valid question. Human beings are capable of dealing with abstract questions that may not occur in reality. I think that ability is one of the things that distinguishes from animals. The Trolley Problem, for example, is also a question that is very unlikely to happen in reality - but is a question that most moral theologians have contemplated and offered answers to.

In this case specifically, the hypothetical is relevant to the question as to whether the Church's teaching concerning condom use is absolute. In other words, is the use of a condom extrinsically evil under every circumstance? Jimmy Akin concludes that the answer to that question is no (please refer to his article that I posted above).

The answer is don't rape.

I don't think so. The hypothetical states that the person will rape, regardless of any other action, and asks whether a condom should be used under those circumstances.

You answered the question "Is is morally correct to rape?" or "Should a person rape?" But that is not the question I asked.

But if you do not like to deal with hypothetical questions or do not have the ability to do so, it is perfectly your right to do so, of course. I imagine that there are other people who would choose to answer it.

Prostitution is a more plausible hypothetical when it comes to the contraception question, but the answer is not some abstruse discussion on condoms, it's still the same: don't commit sexual abuse.

An even more plausible hypothetical is - should unmarried teenagers who have sex use a condom? Let's say that you have children and you advise them not to have sex. Let's say that even though you tell them not to have sex, put them on punishment, etc., they decide to have sex anyway and there is nothing that you can really do about it (and you really cannot stop a person from having sex who desires to do so without putting him or her in a jail). In that situation, can the parent tell the child "Well. You should not be having sex, but because I know that you are going to do it anyway, please use a condom so that you do not get HIV"? I think these are legitimate questions to ask.

It is nice to think that you can just tell people "Do not have sex before marriage. Do not cheat on your wife. Do not rape." The reality is that these things are going to happen even if you instruct people not to. Given that reality, I do not see what is wrong with encouraging people to limit the harm that results from their actions.

The Church prohibition on contraception is rooted in our knowledge that the union between a man and a woman should be unitive, self-giving, creative, and lifelong, and contraception is incompatible with these things. If a woman has been trafficked into a brothel and is completely at the mercy of the pimps and johns, and is already at a dizzyingly high risk of HIV and other diseases, then I don't think the man who is abusing her suddenly makes the situation 'more moral' if he decides to increase her disease risk and the risk to his other partners by not using a condom. His sin is already mortal.

Of course his sin is already mortal. The question is whether or not he should use a condom.

He should not be doing what he's doing in the first place and anything else is academic.

Do you think that potentially giving someone HIV is academic?

Getting bogged down in hypotheticals risks drawing attention away from the crux of the matter and in some cases it makes it look like we're excusing it by finding ways to make it 'more moral'. It can never be moral.

 Well - that is where we disagree. I think that condom use in some of the situations discussed in the thread above could the moral choice (notwithstanding that a mortal sin has already been committed in the first place).

My response was no, you should not instruct him to use a condom.  People with HIV do not automatically give others HIV during intercourse.  While condoms can lower the chances they are also not 100% effective.  Add that condoms work to close the door to life and you have another reason for why one should not advocate the use of condoms.   One cannot advocate for something evil in order to attain a good.  Ends do not justify the means. God's will is a mystery and for all you know through this rape He could bring forth one of the greatest saints of our time.  To not be open to this possibility is to presume you know better than God and to say, "can anything good come out of Nazareth?"--John 1:46 

The answer is yes, with God all things are possible.

Never are we to advocate the use of condoms when there is the possibility of life! Put your faith in God, not condoms.

Thanks for answering. I do not think that the Church has advocated as rigid of a teaching  as you set for above (and again - I am not the only one who thinks that - see the Jimmy Akin article that I posted above, for example).

But that is not to say that you may not ultimately be right. Perhaps you are right. That is what I have been attempting to discuss here.

I do not think that the Church's teaching concerning contraception is so strict that it would prohibit the use of it in the case of rape (or perhaps in some other situations as well). If you look at the news - you will notice that the Catholic Bishops Conferences in some countries have allowed the use of contraceptive drugs in the case of rape. If a 13 year old girl has been raped and walks into the emergency room of Catholic hospital I think that they would be right to offer her drugs that would prevent pregnancy from occurring.  I would not think it be right for the hospital to say to her "Well - although you have been raped, if you get pregnant it is God's will so we will not offer you anything to prevent that".

[Oremus Pro Invicem]

 

Thanks for answering. I do not think that the Church has advocated as rigid of a teaching  as you set for above (and again - I am not the only one who thinks that - see the Jimmy Akin article that I posted above, for example).

But that is not to say that you may not ultimately be right. Perhaps you are right. That is what I have been attempting to discuss here.

I do not think that the Church's teaching concerning contraception is so strict that it would prohibit the use of it in the case of rape (or perhaps in some other situations as well). If you look at the news - you will notice that the Catholic Bishops Conferences in some countries have allowed the use of contraceptive drugs in the case of rape. If a 13 year old girl has been raped and walks into the emergency room of Catholic hospital I think that they would be right to offer her drugs that would prevent pregnancy from occurring.  I would not think it be right for the hospital to say to her "Well - although you have been raped, if you get pregnant it is God's will so we will not offer you anything to prevent that".

 

I've read Jimmy's article and the point he raises between conjugal and everything else, and that the Church will probably never mention the 'everything else' part due to the unique position that would put the Church in.  Nonetheless, I don't see a Catholic hospital, (or Church) which would not perform an abortion on a rape victim, go forward with issuing emergency contraception to a rape victim.  I'm not saying the two are the same thing, but contraception leads one to an abortion type of mindset. You may think that is harsh, but the reality is contraception would be issued for the sole purpose of stopping the possibility of life, thus  giving the impression that pregnancy and a baby are a bad thing.  If rape victims were given emergency contraception it wouldn't be, IMO, a long shot until we had issues of rape victims asking for emergency abortions.   Yet I'm sure you would probably file that under a 'slippery slope' argument, lol. 

And just to be clear I'm not trying to be mean to a rape victim either. Of course there will need to be consideration taken in handling such a delicate situation, but I don't see that consideration being emergency contraception.  

Edited September 20, 2015 by Oremus Pro Invicem