Reflexiones sobre los comentarios del Papa respecto al sida y a los preservativos - Martin Rhonheimer

por Martin Rhonheimer

In www.chiesa.espressonline.it

¿Por qué el papa Benedicto decide de repente tratar el tema del SIDA y de los preservativos? ¿Y por qué lo llevó a cabo en la forma que lo hizo?

A partir de lo que él le dice a Peter Seewald en "Luz del Mundo", estaba frustrado por las reacciones a sus comentarios sobre este tema, durante su viaje a África en marzo del 2009. La tormenta de fuego mediática posterior a esos comentarios mostró que había tres creencias extendidas ampliamente en la sociedad occidental: que los preservativos eran la solución para el SIDA en África; que la doctrina de la Iglesia sobre la anticoncepción implicaba una prohibición del uso del preservativo para las personas involucradas en estilos de vida inmorales y de alto riesgo; y que cuando el papa Benedicto dijo que las campañas que promocionan los preservativos para combatir el Sida en África eran "ineficaces", se pensaba que él se estaba refiriendo a denuncias hechas en el año 2004 por el cardenal Alfonso López Trujillo, en ese entonces responsable del Pontificio Consejo para la Familia, en el sentido que los preservativos son demasiado porosos como para actuar como barrera efectiva contra la transmisión del VIH.

El papa Benedicto estaba dispuesto a disipar esos mitos, y en su libro-entrevista lo hace en unos pocos parágrafos breves. Puso en claro que las campañas que promueven los preservativos trivializan (“banalizan”) la sexualidad, provocando que el virus se expanda más, y que sólo mediante la “humanización” de la sexualidad se puede poner freno a la difusión del virus. Pero él siguió diciendo que el uso de un preservativo por parte de un prostituto, cuando se lo hace para prevenir la infección, sería al menos “una primera asunción de responsabilidad”; y al decir esto él implícitamente descartó los otros dos mitos: si los preservativos fuesen ineficaces para poner freno a la transmisión del virus entre los grupos de alto riesgo, no sería responsable su utilización. Y si, tal como algunos han pedido, la Iglesia enseñara que los preservativos son “intrínsecamente malos”, entonces difícilmente el Papa podría reconocer su utilización como un “primer paso” en el camino hacia un desarrollo moral.

Personalmente, me sentí muy reconfortado que él clarificara el último punto, porque cuando algunos años atrás sostuve eso mismo en un artículo (“La verdad sobre los preservativos”, 10 de julio de 2004) en "The Tablet" de Londres, fui acusado por un gran número de católicos buenos y fieles de defender la distribución de preservativos para detener la epidemia de SIDA y, en consecuencia, de socavar los esfuerzos de la Iglesia para defender los valores del matrimonio, la fidelidad y la castidad. Pero mientras el artículo provocó críticas públicas, principalmente de colegas en teología moral, se me hizo saber que la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, en ese entonces presidida por el cardenal Ratzinger, no planteó ningún problema con ninguno de sus argumentos.

Lo que me llevó a escribir ese artículo fue el hecho que en el anterior número de "The Tablet", su entonces vice-editor, Austen Ivereigh, en un artículo en el que comentó sobre un programa de la BBC, "Panorama" en el que se analizaron las afirmaciones del cardenal López Trujillo, contrastó dos posiciones en la Iglesia sobre la cuestión del uso de preservativos contra el SIDA.

La primera posición la representaba el cardenal Godfried Danneels, en esa época arzobispo de Bruselas, de quien él citó palabras parecidas a las siguientes: “si una persona infectada con VIH ha decidido no respetar la abstinencia, entonces tiene que proteger a su pareja y puede hacer eso – en este caso utilizando un preservativo". Obrar de otra manera, dijo el cardenal, sería “quebrantar el quinto mandamiento”, el que dice que no se debe matar.

La segunda posición la representaba una cita del entonces funcionario de educación del Linacre Center, en Londres, Hugh Henry, quien, en desacuerdo con la declaración del cardenal Daneels, dijo a Ivereigh que el uso de un preservativo era un pecado contra el sexto mandamiento, que "al fallar al no honrar la estructura fértil que debe tener el acto marital, no puede constituir una donación personal mutua y completa y, en consecuencia, viola el sexto mandamiento".

Esto sugería que, tal como escribió Ivereigh, un “trabajador migrante que va a un burdel en Sudáfrica no debe, por supuesto, tener sexo; pero si lo hace, parece sugerir Henry, él no debería utilizar un preservativo para prevenir contagiar a la mujer con SIDA, porque su acción falla al no honrar la estructura fértil que debe tener el acto marital". Y concluía de esta manera: “los lectores deben decidir si es el cardenal Danneels o el Linacre Centre el que está ofreciendo el consejo extraño".

Éste era mi punto de vista al leer este artículo: que ambos consejos eran esencialmente defectuosos, y elegir entre ellos era una falacia. El problema radicaba en que ambos estaban expresando sus posiciones en términos de normas u obligaciones morales – utilizar o no un preservativo – cuando un enfoque normativo era inadecuado para tratar esta cuestión.

Lo que el Linacre Centre propuso como la auténtica posición católica era que existe una obligación moral para las personas no castas que se involucran en actos sexuales pecaminosos que como mínimo se abstienen de utilizar preservativos, que consiste en evitar otro pecado contra el sexto mandamiento y, en consecuencia, hacen que su acto pecaminoso lo sea menos, inclusive si ellos infectan a otras personas o se infectan ellos mismos con una enfermedad mortal. Este tipo de argumento es el que hace que las personas crean equivocadamente que es la enseñanza de la Iglesia sobre la anticoncepción la que lleva a tales consecuencias contrarias al sentido común; pero esa enseñanza se ocupa esencialmente del amor marital y de sus expresiones en la relación sexual, y no se aplica en tales circunstancias. Por el contrario, si bien la posición del cardenal Danneels tiene alguna plausibilidad, simplemente invierte la falacia de Henry para convertir ahora en una norma moral para esas personas la obligación de utilizar al menos un preservativo (en orden no a pecar adicionalmente contra el quinto mandamiento). Al igual que Henry, el cardenal Danneels establece una norma moral con la finalidad de hacer que un comportamiento intrínsicamente inmoral sea menos inmoral.

Volvamos a la declaración del Linacre Centre: la enseñanza de la "Humanae vitae" no incluye la declaración de una norma moral sobre cómo llevar a cabo acciones intrínsecamente malas; la Iglesia no ha proclamado nunca tal enseñanza, ni tampoco lo hará alguna vez, porque tal enseñanza sería absolutamente contraria al sentido común. Lo único que la Iglesia puede enseñar posiblemente sobre la violación, por ejemplo, es la obligación moral de abstenerse absolutamente de ella, no cómo llevarla a cabo en una forma menos inmoral. Hay contextos en los que las orientaciones morales pierden completamente su significado normativo porque a lo sumo pueden disminuir un mal, pero no orientarlo hacia el bien; lo que tiene que ser superado, y ello es normativo, es el mismo intrínseco desorden moral. Como escribí en el 2004, “sería simplemente absurdo establecer normas morales para tipos de comportamiento intrínsecamente inmorales”.

La enseñanza de la Iglesia sobre la anticoncepción no es una enseñanza sobre "preservativos", sino sobre el verdadero significado y sentido de la sexualidad y del amor marital. La cuestión de la anticoncepción es diferente de la cuestión del uso profiláctico del preservativo. La anticoncepción declarada como intrínsecamente mala está descripta en la "Humanae vitae" n.14 (reafirmada en el Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica n. 2370) como una acción que “o en previsión del acto conyugal, o en su realización, o en el desarrollo de sus consecuencias naturales, se proponga [en latín, "intendat"], como fin o como medio, hacer imposible la procreación”. La anticoncepción no es simplemente una acción que de hecho impide la procreación, sino una acción que impide la procreación que es efectuada precisamente con una intención anticonceptiva (el impedimento fáctico de la anticoncepción no es suficiente para que sea, en un sentido moral, un acción anticonceptiva; es por eso que utilizar píldoras anti-ovulatorias para regular el ciclo de una mujer por razones médicas no es anticoncepción en el sentido moral).

¿Pero se deduce de esto que se debería aconsejar positivamente utilizar preservativos con propósitos meramente profilácticos? Las personas que no están dispuestas a cambiar su modo de vida y que utilizan preservativos para prevenir infectarse a ellos mismos o a otros me parece que al menos han conservado un cierto sentido de responsabilidad – tal como el Papa mismo dijo la semana pasada. Pero no podemos decir que ellos "deben hacer eso" o que están "moralmente obligados a hacerlo", tal como pareció sugerir el cardenal Danneels. El papa Benedicto subraya esto cuando deja en claro que no es una “solución moral”. Es por eso que es erróneo también afirmar principios en este caso, como puede ser el del "mal menor", el cual sostiene que en orden a evitar un mal mayor se puede elegir un mal menor si hay un motivo adecuado para ello. Esta metodología moral, conocida como “proporcionalismo”, no es enseñanza de la Iglesia, y fue rechazada por el papa Juan Pablo II en su encíclica "Veritatis splendor", del año 1993, con la que el papa Benedicto XVI está totalmente de acuerdo.

Pero al hablar como él lo hace - que alguien actúa con "un cierto sentido de responsabilidad" al tratar de evitar una infección, el Papa no dice que utilizar preservativos para prevenir la infección del VIH significa actuar responsablemente. La responsabilidad real, para las prostitutas, significaría abstenerse completamente de contactos sexuales riesgos e inmorales y cambiar completamente su estilo de vida. Si no lo hacen (porque no pueden o no quieren), al menos subjetivamente actúan en una forma responsable al intentar prevenir la infección, o al menos actúan menos irresponsablemente que los que no lo hacen, lo cual es una formulación bastante diferente.

Es una declaración de sentido común, expresada en términos personalistas; no es una norma moral positiva que permite un "mal menor". La Iglesia debe aconsejar siempre a las personas que hagan el bien, no el mal menor; y la cosa buena que hay que hacer - y en consecuencia aconsejar – no es obrar en forma inmoral y al mismo tiempo reducir esta inmoralidad minimizando el posible daño causado por ello, sino abstenerse en forma absoluta de todo comportamiento inmoral. Es por eso que es errónea la justificación del uso profiláctico de los preservativos como un "mal menor" - y también peligroso, porque abre el camino para justificar cualquier forma de opción moral "menos mala": hacer el mal que puede venir un bien. Está también fuera de lugar. Los preservativos "per se", considerados como “cosas", no son "malos". En la enseñanza de la Iglesia, su uso en las acciones anticonceptivas tal como está definido por la "Humanae vitae" es malo, pero tal como hemos establecido, esta encíclica no es aplicable para la profilaxis.


Los comentarios del papa Benedicto no hicieron referencia al caso de los cónyuges cuando uno de los dos está infectado, razón por la cual uno de ellos utiliza un preservativo para evitar que el otro cónyuge se infecte. En mi artículo del año 2004, más bien hice referencia incidentalmente a tales casos, hablando sobre “razones pastorales o razones simplemente prudenciales” que aconsejarían contra la utilización de los preservativos en esas circunstancias. Este caso es diferente del anterior, y más complejo, porque aquí está en juego lo que constituye propiamente una acción marital. Es importante enfatizar que la cuestión de la anticoncepción en el matrimonio y la cuestión de la prevención de la infección mediante el uso de preservativos se refieren a dos problemas morales diferentes.

Indudablemente, la cuestión seguirá siendo debatida, pero lo que sea que la Iglesia declare eventualmente sobre este tema, habrá siempre buenas razones para insistir en la abstinencia en esta situación, porque utilizar un preservativo exclusivamente por razones médicas es en realidad mera teoría. Es probable que - al menos para las parejas fértiles - la intención de prevenir una infección se fusione con la intención propiamente anticonceptiva de prevenir la concepción de un bebé infectado. Personalmente, yo nunca alentaría a una pareja a utilizar un preservativo, sino a abstenerse de tener relaciones sexuales. Si ellos no están de acuerdo, yo no pensaría que su relación sexual sea lo que los teólogos morales llaman un pecado "contra natura" igual a la masturbación o a la sodomía, tal como afirman algunos teólogos morales. Pero la abstinencia completa sería la mejor opción moral, no sólo por razones prudenciales (los preservativos no son completamente seguros inclusive cuando son utilizados en forma consistente y apropiada), sino porque corresponde mejor a la perfección moral – a una vida virtuosa – abstenerse completamente de llevar a cabo acciones peligrosas, más que prevenir su peligrosidad utilizando un dispositivo que ayuda a disimular la necesidad del sacrificio.

Al defender la enseñanza de la Iglesia y su enfoque para prevenir la transmisión del VIH no se debería invocar argumentos contraproducentes y absurdos que distorsionan la enseñanza eclesial. Al insistir en la abstinencia, la fidelidad y la monogamia como las verdaderas soluciones para detener la epidemia del SIDA, no debemos negar que el uso de preservativos por parte de grupos de alto riesgo provoca la disminución de los índices de infección, mientras contiene la expansión de la epidemia en otras partes de la población. Pero esta tarea es principalmente la responsabilidad de las autoridades civiles.

El rol de la Iglesia en la lucha contra el SIDA no es la del bombero que trata de contener un incendio, sino la de enseñar y ayudar a las personas a edificar casas a pruebas de fuego y a evitar hacer lo que puede causar una hoguera, mientras que, por supuesto, atiende a los que sufren quemaduras. Más importante aún, ella hace eso para ofrecer la reconciliación con Dios y la sanación de las almas de los que han sido lastimados en su dignidad humana por su propio comportamiento inmoral o por las terribles opciones y circunstancias impuestas por el SIDA.

Reflections on the Pope’s remarks on aids and condoms - Fr. M. Rhonheimer

by Martin Rhonheimer

In www.espressoline.it

Why did Pope Benedict decide suddenly to address the issue of AIDS and condoms? And why did he do so in the way that he did?

From what he tells Peter Seewald in "Light of the World", he was frustrated by the reactions to his remarks on this issue during his trip to Africa in March 2009. The media firestorm which followed showed that three beliefs were widespread in western society: that condoms were the solution to AIDS in Africa; that the Church’s teaching on contraception implied a prohibition of condom use by people engaged in immoral and high-risk life styles; and that when Pope Benedict said that campaigns promoting condoms to combat AIDS in Africa were “ineffective”, it was thought he was referring to claims made in 2004 by Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, then head of the pontifical council for the family, that condoms were too porous to act as an effective barrier to the transmission of the HIV virus.

Pope Benedict was keen to dispel those myths, and in his book-long interview he does so in a few brief paragraphs. He made clear that campaigns promoting condoms trivialize (“banalize”) sexuality, causing the virus to spread further, and that only by “humanizing” sexuality can the spread of the virus be curbed. But he went on to say that the use of a condom by a prostitute, when used to prevent infection, would be at least “a first assumption of responsibility;” and in saying this he implicitly dismissed the two other myths: for if condoms were ineffective in curbing virus transmission among high-risk groups, it would not be responsible to use them. And if, as some had claimed, the Church taught that condoms were “intrinsically evil”, then the pope could hardly recognize their use as a “first step” on the way to moral development.

Personally, I was much relieved that he made the last point clear, because when, some years ago, I argued as much in an article (“The truth about condoms”, 10 July 2004) in "The Tablet" of London, I was accused by a number of good and faithful catholics of advocating the distribution of condoms to stop the AIDS epidemic and, therefore, of undermining the Church’s efforts to defend the values of marriage, faithfulness and chastity. But while the article drew public criticism, mainly from colleagues in moral theology, I was informed that the congregation of the doctrine of the faith, then headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, had no problem with it or its arguments.

What led me to write that article was that in the preceding "The Tablet", its then deputy editor, Austen Ivereigh, in an article commenting on a BBC "Panorama" program examining the claims of Cardinal López Trujillo, contrasted two positions in the Church on the question of the use condoms against AIDS.

The first was that of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, at that time archbishop of Brussels, whom he quoted as saying: “If a person infected with HIV has decided not to respect abstinence, then he has to protect his partner and he can do that – in this case by using a condom.” To do otherwise, the cardinal said, would be “to break the fifth commandment”, that you shall not murder.

The second was a quotation from the then education officer of the catholic Linacre Centre in London, Hugh Henry, who, disagreeing with Cardinal Danneels’s statement, told Ivereigh that the use of a condom was a sin against the sixth commandment, which, “in failing to honour the fertile structure that marital acts must have, cannot constitute mutual and complete personal self-giving and thus violates the sixth commandment.”

This suggested that, as Ivereigh wrote, a “migrant worker who goes to a brothel in South Africa should not, of course, have sex; but if he does, Henry appears to suggest, he should not use a condom to prevent giving the woman AIDS because his act fails to honour the fertile structure that marital acts must have.” And he concluded: “Readers must decide whether it is Cardinal Danneels or the Linacre Centre which is offering the stranger advice.”

It was my view, reading this article, that both pieces of advice were essentially flawed, and the choice between them a fallacious one. The problem was that both were expressing their positions in terms of moral norms or obligations – to use or not to use a condom – whereas a normative approach was inadequate for addressing this question.

What the Linacre Centre proposed as the authentic catholic position was that there exists a moral obligation for unchaste people engaging in sinful sexual acts at least to abstain from using condoms – so as to avoid a further sin against the sixth commandment and therefore to render their sinful acts less sinful, even if they thereby will infect other people or themselves with a deadly disease. Such an argument makes people falsely believe that it is the Church’s teaching on contraception which leads to such counterintuitive consequences; but that teaching is concerned essentially with marital love and its expression in sexual intercourse, and does not apply in such circumstances. Conversely, while Cardinal Danneels’s position has some plausibility, it simply reverses Henry’s fallacy by converting now into a moral norm for such people the obligation to at least use a condom, in order not to sin additionally against the fifth commandment. Like Henry, Cardinal Danneels thus establishes a moral norm in view of making intrinsically immoral behavior less immoral.

To turn first to the Linacre Centre statement: the teaching of "Humanae vitae" does not include the statement of a moral norm about how to perform intrinsically evil acts; the Church has never pronounced such a teaching, nor will she ever do so, because such a teaching would be plainly against common sense. The only thing the Church can possibly teach about rape, for example, is the moral obligation to completely refrain from it, not how to carry it out in a less immoral way. There are contexts in which moral orientations completely lose their normative significance because they can at most lessen an evil, not be directed to the good; what has to be overcome, and is normative to surmount, is the intrinsic moral disorder itself. As I wrote in 2004, “it would be simply nonsensical to establish moral norms for intrinsically immoral types of behaviour”.

The Church’s teaching about contraception is not a teaching about “condoms”, but about the true meaning and sense of sexuality and marital love. The question of contraception is different from the question of prophylactic condom use. Contraception as declared to be intrinsically evil is described by "Humanae vitae" n. 14 (restated in the Catechisms of the Catholic Church n. 2370) as an action which “whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes [Latin "intendat"], whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible." Contraception is not simply an action which in fact impedes procreation, but an action impeding procreation which is precisely carried out with a contraceptive intent. (The factual impeding of conception is not sufficient for an act to be, in a moral sense, an act of contraception; this is why using anti-ovulatory pills for regulating a woman’s cycle for medical reasons is not contraception in the moral sense).

But does it follow that one should positively advise to use condoms for merely prophylactic purposes? People who are not willing to change their way of life and who use condoms to prevent infection of themselves or others seem to me to have at least conserved a certain sense of responsibility – as Pope Benedict himself said [in “Light of the World"]. But we cannot say they “should do so” or are “morally obliged” to do so, as Cardinal Danneels seemed to suggest. Pope Benedict underlines this when he makes clear that this is not a “moral solution”. That is why it is also wrong to assert principles in this case such as “lesser evil”, which holds that in order to avoid a greater evil a lesser evil may be chosen if there is a proportionate reason. This moral methodology, known as “proportionalism”, is not a teaching of the Church, and was rejected by Pope John Paul II in his 1993 encyclical "Veritatis splendor" – with which Pope Benedict XVI is in full agreement.

By saying, as he does, that someone acts with “a certain sense of responsibility” in seeking to avoid infection, the Pope does not claim that using condoms to prevent HIV-infection means to act responsibly. Real responsibility, for prostitutes, would mean abstaining completely from risky and immoral sexual contacts and to completely change their life style. If they do not (because they cannot, or will not), they act at least subjectively in a responsible way by seeking to prevent infection, or at least act less irresponsibly than those who do not, which is a rather different proposition.

This is a statement of common sense, expressed in personalistic terms; it is not a positive moral norm permitting a “lesser evil”. The Church must always advise people to do the good, not the lesser evil; and the good thing to do – and therefore to advise – is not to act immorally and simultaneously to reduce this immorality by minimizing the possible damage caused by it, but to abstain from immoral behavior altogether. This is why a justification of the prophylactic use of condoms as “lesser evil” is mistaken – and also dangerous, because it opens the way to justify any kind of “lesser evil” moral choice: doing evil that good may come. It is also misplaced. Condoms "per se," considered as “things,” are not “evil”; in Church teaching, their use in the contraceptive acts as defined by "Humanae vitae" is evil, but as we have established, this encyclical does not apply to prophylaxis.

What Pope Benedict’s remarks did not deal with was the case of a married couple in which one of the spouses is infected, in which a condom is used to protect the other from infection. In my 2004 article I rather incidentally referred to such cases, talking about “pastoral or simply prudential reasons” which would advise against using condoms in these circumstances. This case is different from the preceding one, and more complex, because here what properly constitutes a marital act is at stake. It is important to emphasize that the question of contraception in marriage and of preventing infection by using condoms are referring to two different moral problems.

The question will no doubt continue to be debated; but whatever the Church eventually declares on this issue, there will always be good reasons for pastors to urge abstinence in this situation, because using a condom exclusively for medical purposes is in reality theoretical. It is likely that – at least for fertile couples – the intention of preventing infection will fuse with the properly contraceptive intent of preventing the conception of an infected baby. Personally I would never encourage a couple to use a condom, but to abstain. If they disagreed, I would not think their intercourse to be what moral theologians call a sin “against nature” equal to masturbation or sodomy, as some moral theologians claim. But complete abstinence would be the morally better choice, not only for prudential reasons (condoms are not completely safe even when used consistently and properly), but because it better corresponds to moral perfection – to a virtuous life – to abstain completely from dangerous acts, than to prevent their danger by using a device that helps to circumvent the need for sacrifice.

Defending the Church’s teaching and her approach to preventing the transmission of HIV should not require invoking self-defeating and nonsensical arguments which distort Church's teaching. By urging abstinence, fidelity and monogamy as the true solutions to stop the AIDS epidemic, we do not need to deny that the use of condoms by high-risk groups causes infection rates to decrease, while containing the spread of the epidemic into other parts of the population. But this task is mainly the responsibility of civil authorities.

The Church’s role in the struggle against AIDS is not that of the fireman trying to contain the conflagration, but that of teaching and helping people to build fireproof houses and to avoid doing what may cause a blaze, while of course treating those with burns. She does so, most importantly, to offer reconciliation with God and healing of the souls of those who have been hurt in their human dignity by their own immoral behavior or the terrible choices and circumstances imposed by AIDS.

Church and Condoms. The "No" of the Diehards Ratzingerians

por Sandro Magister

A note from the bishops of Kenya and three authoritative "Ratzingerians" maintain that the pope is also for a condemnation with no exceptions. And those who say the contrary are betraying his thought. Read more

Iglesia y preservativo. El "no" de los intransigentes ratzingerianos

por Sandro Magister

In www.chiesa.espressonline.it

ROMA, 4 de diciembre 2010 – La discusión sobre la licitud o no del uso del preservativo, no con fines anticonceptivos sino para proteger la vida de otros, registra nuevos desarrollos.

Los primeros impactos de la discusión – suscitada por algunas afirmaciones del papa Benedicto XVI en el libro "Luz del mundo" – son los resumidos por www.chiesa en este servicio anterior:

Fuego amigo sobre Benedicto XVI, por culpa de un preservativo

Pero entre tanto han ingresado otras voces al campo, entre ellas la de una Conferencia episcopal, la de Kenia, la primera en pronunciarse sobre el tema.

En una nota fechada el 29 de noviembre, suscripta por el cardenal John Njue, arzobispo de Nairobi, y por otros 24 obispos, la Conferencia episcopal de este país africano tomó posición en términos restrictivos, afirmando que "la posición de la Iglesia Católica sobre el uso del preservativo, tanto como medio de anticoncepción o como medio para afrontar el grave problema del VIH/SIDA, no ha cambiado, y sigue siendo inaceptable como siempre".

Sostener lo contrario, prosigue la nota, "sería una ofensa a la inteligencia del Papa y una manipulación gratuita de sus palabras".

Al citar este documento, el jesuita Joseph Fessio, editor de "Luz del mundo" en Estados Unidos y además miembro del Schülerkreis, el círculo de discípulos que tuvieron a Ratzinger como profesor de teología, nos ha escrito:

"Veo que mi interpretación de las palabras del Papa es compartida al menos por alguien de la jerarquía, y por los que están más directamente involucrados".

En efecto, desde el comienzo de la polémica el padre Fessio ha sido uno de los más decididos difusores de la ilicitud del uso del preservativo, en general y en particular.

A juicio suyo, éste es también el pensamiento del Papa en la materia, el que habría sido opacado a causa de las distintas interpretaciones equivocadas de sus palabras.

Pero otros exponentes católicos intransigentes se han apurado en atribuir al mismo Papa una parte de responsabilidad en la "confusión".

En consecuencia, al registrar sus posturas, www.chiesa ha titulado el servicio "Fuego amigo sobre Benedicto XVI", subrayando que las críticas provenían precisamente de algunos fervientes "ratzingerianos".

Pero este título no les ha gustado a los principales personajes citados. Tres de ellos nos han escrito para aclarar su pensamiento y sobre todo para confirmar que sus críticas no pretenden de ninguna manera culpar al Papa.

El Papa, dicen ellos, no ha sido bien entendido. El error no es suyo, sino de quien lo ha malentendido y "traicionado".

A continuación se reproducen íntegramente las cartas que nos han llegado del padre Joseph Fessio, de Christine de Marcellus Vollmer, miembro de la Pontificia Academia para la Vida, y de Steven Long, profesor de teología en la Universidad Ave María.

Precede a las tres cartas la nota de los obispos de Kenia, también reproducida íntegramente.

__________



NOTA ACERCA DE LAS DECLARACIONES SOBRE EL PRESERVATIVO ATRIBUIDAS AL SANTO

Conferencia Episcopal de Kenya


Hemos sido testigos de recientes informes sobre los comentarios atribuidos al Santo Padre, difundidos por los medios de comunicación locales e internacionales, que han deformado las definiciones del papa Benedicto XVI en materia de moralidad sexual y la lucha contra el VIH y el SIDA.

Ante todo, queremos purificar el aire y clarificar a los católicos y a todos respecto a la posición de la Iglesia sobre el uso del preservativo, para dar paz a las almas y para ofrecer una orientación justa.

1. Confirmamos y reafirmamos que la posición de la Iglesia Católica sobre el uso del preservativo, tanto como medio anticonceptivo y como medio para afrontar el grave problema del VHI/SIDA no ha cambiado, y sigue siendo inaceptable como siempre lo ha sido.

2. Los informes de los medios de comunicación han citado incorrectamente al Papa, fuera de contexto, y han banalizado las delicadísimas cuestiones médicas, morales y pastorales del VHI/SIDA y del acompañamiento de los que están infectados o enfermos, reduciendo las discusiones sobre los problemas de moral sexual a un mero comentario sobre los preservativos.

3. El libro en cuestión, "Luz del mundo. El Papa, la Iglesia y los signos de los tiempos. Una conversación con Peter Seewald", es el resultado de una entrevista. No ha sido escrito por el Papa aunque exprese sus ideas, sus ansias y sus sufrimientos durante todos estos años, sus proyectos pastorales y sus esperanzas para el futuro.

4. Reducir "toda la entrevista a una frase sacada de contexto y del conjunto del pensamiento del papa Benedicto XVI sería una ofensa a la inteligencia del Papa y una manipulación gratuita de sus palabras".

5. El Papa no ha hablado específicamente de la moralidad del uso del preservativo, sino más en general "de las grandes cuestiones que desafían a la teología moderna, de los diversos acontecimientos políticos que han marcado siempre las relaciones entre los Estados y, por último, de los temas que muchas veces ocupan una gran parte del debate público".

6. Es importante explicar que la moralidad de las acciones humanas depende siempre de las intenciones de las personas. Es el modo con el que usamos las cosas lo que hace buena o mala a una acción. El uso de los preservativos es inaceptable, porque es con frecuencia una manifestación externa de la mala intención y una visión distorsionada de la sexualidad.

7. La Iglesia y el Santo Padre reafirman que "naturalmente la Iglesia no considera a los preservativos como la 'auténtica solución moral' del problema del SIDA". Es más bien un verdadero cambio del corazón, o conversión, lo que dará a la sexualidad su valor humano y también sobrenatural. Necesitamos apreciar mejor el don de la sexualidad, que nos humaniza y, cuando es apreciado justamente, permanece abierto al plan de Dios.

8. El cuadro reproducido por los medios de comunicación, que citan una entrevista hecha al Papa por un periodista alemán, incluye el juicio del Papa sobre el recorrido moral subjetivo de sujetos que ya están implicados en actos gravemente inmorales en sí mismos, en particular en actos de homosexualidad o de prostitución masculina, afortunadamente totalmente extraños a nuestra sociedad keniata. Él no habla de la moralidad del uso de los preservativos, sino de algo que puede ser cierto para el estado psicológico de los que hacen uso de ellos. Si estos individuos hacen uso del preservativo para evitar infectar a los demás, al final pueden darse cuenta que los actos sexuales entre miembros del mismo sexo son intrínsecamente nocivos, porque no son acordes a la naturaleza humana. Esto no perdona de ninguna manera el uso del preservativo en cuanto tal.

9. El Santo Padre fija un punto importante, que también quienes se encuentran profundamente inmersos en una vida inmoral pueden caminar gradualmente hacia una conversión y una aceptación de las leyes de Dios. Este camino puede tener escalones que en sí mismos pueden no incluir todavía una sumisión plena a la ley de Dios, sino que más bien llevan a aceptarla. En todo caso, tales actos siguen siendo todavía pecaminosos.

10. La Iglesia se concentra siempre en alejar a las personas de los actos inmorales para acercarlos al amor de Jesús, a la virtud y la santidad. Podemos decir que claramente el Santo Padre no ha querido focalizarse en los preservativos, sino que quiere hablar del crecimiento en sentido moral, el cual debe ser un crecimiento orientado hacia Jesús. Esto vale también para aquéllos que viven estilos de vida decididamente inmorales. Nosotros debemos esforzarnos cada vez más en comprender la moralidad de las acciones humanas, y en juzgar ante todo la acción de las personas, no el objeto usado para una acción inmoral.

11. La Iglesia impulsa a la conversión a los que están involucrados en la prostitución y en otros actos o estilos de vida gravemente inmorales. A pesar de comprender las muy desafortunadas razones que muchas veces conducen a estos estilos de vida, ella no los absuelve y los considera moralmente malos.

12. La Iglesia está profundamente preocupada por la vida, por la salud y por las condiciones generales de aquéllos que se encuentran en esta difícil y dolorosa situación de infección con HIV/SIDA. En realidad, la suma de los esfuerzos y de los recursos empeñados por la Iglesia Católica, tanto en sociedad con otros como por sí sola, estará siempre destinada a buscar soluciones humanas y liberadoras de esta pandemia.

13. El problema es realmente más grande que el debate excluyente sobre el preservativo. Es sobre todo una curación interior, que dé esperanza a las personas y las ayude a redescubrir la simplicidad y el radicalismo del Evangelio y del cristianismo para ayudar a volver a dar esperanza a quien está infectado y a quien está enfermo.

La Iglesia reafirma nuevamente su compromiso de continuar animando a todo el pueblo a luchar para vivir vidas moralmente buenas, lo cual conlleva siempre grandes sacrificios, por el "reino de Dios". La Iglesia confirma de nuevo su solidaridad con todos los que sufren HIV/SIDA. Hay muchos caminos para afrontar esta situación. Sobre todo, la Iglesia tiene confianza en el poder de la Gracia y en la fuerza que Dios da, para responder positivamente a los desafíos que presenta esta nueva situación, y junto a toda la familia de Dios camina con esperanza hacia nuestra patria celestial.

Expresamos nuestra solicitud y solidaridad con estos hermanos y hermanas nuestros y los bendecimos.

Nairobi, 29 de noviembre de 2010

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JOSEPH FESSIO: "NO CRITICO AL SANTO PADRE, LO DEFIENDO"


Estimado Sandro,

Usted sabe cuánto aprecio su pensamiento y sus escritos. No espero ningún tratamiento especial por esto. Pero me desagrada mucho que usted me haya puesto junto a los que critican al Santo Padre. Lo que sucede es lo contrario. Yo defiendo al Santo Padre, no sólo porque soy jesuita y esto es lo que se espera de nosotros, sino porque estoy convencido que el Santo Padre dice lo justo. Critico justamente a los que han malinterpretado o entendido mal lo que ha dicho Benedicto XVI, incluido usted.

Bajo el título de "Fuego amigo sobre Benedicto XVI", mi nombre es el primero citado en el resumen que está a comienzos del artículo. Sandro, quisiera que usted publique una rectificación.

Permítame explicar algo. No pienso que lo que el Papa ha escrito realmente, lo que él ha aprobado en la nota de Lombardi publicada el domingo, o también lo que él le ha dicho personalmente a Lombardi, sean de apoyo a las posiciones de Rhonheimer. Obviamente, ya hay un equívoco en el hecho que Rhonheimer y, a por lo que parece, usted, piensen que todo esto sustenta sus posiciones. Esto no significa que cuando yo critico vuestras posiciones estoy criticando al Papa. Usted hace referencia, en el resumen del título, a las "aperturas del Papa al uso del profiláctico", pero ésta es su – discutible – interpretación. El Papa ha definido claramente como inmoral el uso del preservativo. Decir que un acto malvado puede ser acompañado, en parte, por una buena intención, no significa una "apertura" al acto malvado. Pero lo que me importa decir aquí es que "no" critico lo que el Papa ha dicho, ni la autorizada nota de Lombardi; no critico las "aperturas del Papa al uso del profiláctico". Sin embargo, esto es lo que usted dice en el resumen del título, y ello es falso e injusto. Por eso le ruego que se rectifique.

Más adelante hay también otro error serio. Usted habla de dos inexactitudes en la traducción ("una prostituta" y "justificados"), luego dice que "pero se sabe que la primera y la segunda inexactitud de la versión del libro no han sido consideradas por el autor, es decir, por Benedicto XV, lesivas de su razonamiento". Esto no es cierto. Es sólo sobre la primera inexactitud que se ha pronunciado el Papa. El razonamiento del Papa sigue siendo el mismo también en relación a las prostitutas femeninas. De todos modos, "justificado" en su primer significado quiere decir aquí algo "moralmente" justificado. Pero el Papa ha dicho que tal comportamiento "no es una... solución moral".

Otro error se refiere a lo que he dicho antes. Usted justifica sus posiciones respecto a esos sacerdotes que "admiten pacíficamente el uso del preservativo" diciendo que es lo "mismo" que aparece en la nota del padre Lombardi publicada el domingo. Pero esto no es así. La nota de Lombardi se refiere a lo que ha escrito Benedicto XVI. Pero su observación remite a una "interpretación" – a mi juicio errónea – de lo que ha escrito el Papa. Pero el Papa nunca "ha admitido el uso del preservativo", tanto en lo que ha escrito él como en lo que ha escrito el padre Lombardi. El Papa sólo ha dicho que el uso inmoral (que jamás puede ser admitido o consentido) puede estar acompañado por una buena intención (aquí asumo "admitir" no en el sentido banal de reconocimiento de algo que se comprende, sino como aprobación).

Dejo de lado otros importantes puntos de discusión, en particular que "... la licitud del uso del preservativo, en casos como éste, es pacíficamente enseñado desde hace años...".

Sandro, usted es siempre mi vaticanista preferido. Pero también Homero dormita.

Con aprecio,

Padre Joseph Fessio, S.J.

1 de diciembre de 2010

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CHRISTINE VOLLMER: "EL ERROR NO ES DEL PAPA, SINO DE QUIEN LO HA TRAICIONADO"


Apreciado Sr. Magister,

Como una lectora que lo admira mucho, me dio pena ver que entre tantas correspondencias serias que he tenido sobre la confusión que ha suscitado la precipitada presentación del libro del Papa, usted me haya citado en un comentario muy casual, y no formal.

Sí, me parece que es una lástima que el tema de las aberraciones sexuales, (contra cuales, con otros pecados y crímenes, lucha la Iglesia y el Santo Padre como su jefe supremo, desde todos los siglos), hoy día tengan que dominar las noticias.

Nuestro Santo Padre tiene una riqueza inagotable de formas de expresar la Buena Nueva del Evangelio, y la expresa a diario. Es una pena que lo único que parece salir a la prensa en general es lo que tiene que ver con el sexo aberrante.

En esta ocasión, ha sido una traición a nuestro gran Papa, y así lo he dicho a quien me haya preguntado, la presentación prematura, sin preparación ni explicación, a la prensa internacional de aquellas pocas frases de "Lux mundi" sobre el condón. Que esos párrafos hayan sido además en una mala y traicionera traducción, refuerza esa traición.

El mundo Católico está en ascuas, tanto por la confusión creada como por la evidente deslealtad al Magisterio que ha demostrado esta forma indelicada y ambigua de manejar un tema tan minado de peligros para la interpretación correcta de las enseñanzas de "Veritatis splendor", "Casti connubii", "Humanae vitae" y otras.

En falta evidentemente no es el Papa, quien ha escrito con gran delicadeza y sutileza, sino los directores de "L'Osservatore Romano" y la Sala Stampa, quienes, como usted bien ha recordado, crearon la desinformación acerca de la licitud de abortar en el caso Recife el año pasado.

Si fuera posible rectificar la impresión que ha dado de mi posición, se lo agradecería,

Atentamente,

Christine de Marcellus Vollmer
Presidente Alianza para la Familia
Caracas, Venezuela
Miembro de la Pontificia Academia para la Vida

1 de diciembre de 2010

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STEVEN LONG: "LAS PALABRAS AUTÉNTICAS DEL PAPA VALEN MÁS QUE LAS DE UN PROFESOR"


Amable señor Magister,

sigo sus escritos con atención, lo aprecio y muchas veces me instruyo con ellos. Pero a la vez me mantengo crítico sobre la forma en que usted ha tratado la reciente cuestión respecto al uso del preservativo, me importa decir que he considerado mi intervención no como un ataque a los comentarios del Santo Padre, sino como una explicación y una defensa de sus palabras.

Es verdad que he expresado reservas respecto a la prudencia de su intento de comunicar una materia tan difícil a través de una entrevista periodística, como también respecto a la claridad de sus palabras para una platea mundial no totalmente equipada – así me ha parecido – como para recoger sus palabras. Pero por más impreciso que pueda ser en mis afirmaciones, lo que he pensado hacer es al menos defender las "ipsissima verba" de la enseñanza que el Santo Padre ha expresado en esa entrevista. Es por eso que me duele ser considerado alguien que ataca al Santo Padre, que no es lo que quiero hacer, tanto más en cuanto considero el comentario que he provisto como la entrega de una fiel defensa de su enseñanza, como expreso en la entrevista. Puedo entonces equivocarme en la comprensión, pero por lo menos he tenido la intención de explicar y defender las consideraciones del Papa.

Dado que usted es un periodista que está muy dispuesto a informar las cosas con exactitud, quiero comunicarle lo siguiente. Ciertamente, mi intención no era desalentar a la gente para que no leyera sus artículos, o hacerla desconfiada respecto a ellos, sino que es más que nada mi diferencia en el juicio moral respecto a la naturaleza del análisis del padre Rhonheimer lo que me ha impulsado a criticar su modo de tratar el caso de los cónyuges afectados por el SIDA y el uso del preservativo. Es un tema complejo, y el padre Rhonheimer lo ha analizado a fondo, al igual que lo han hecho sus críticos, entre los cuales pienso ser contado, si bien he ingresado en la discusión inicialmente con gran reticencia. Pero no creo que sea realmente correcto sostener que es enseñanza ordinaria de la Iglesia que los cónyuges afectados por el SIDA puedan usar el preservativo. No hay ninguna enseñanza del Magisterio sobre este punto, y la aprobación de un profesor en particular no nos autoriza a inferir esto, especialmente cuando es claro que lo que se busca es un cambio total de la comprensión de lo "directo" e "indirecto" que prevalece en la teología moral.

Ciertamente, ésta es una materia enorme y compleja, con su historia, y estoy seguro que usted hará lo mejor al tratar de delinear sus alcances y sus desarrollos en los artículos que elabora, que como siempre seguiré con gran interés.

Disculpándome por haberme agregado a lo que debe ser uno de los correos electrónicos con más intercambio epistolar en el mundo, le agradezco y le ofrezco mis mejores saludos y augurios.

Sinceramente suyo,

Prof. Steven Long
Department of Theology, Ave Maria University
Florida, U.S.A.

2 de diciembre de 2010

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Traducción en español de José Arturo Quarracino, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Marriage and the Prophylactic Use of Condoms - by Luke Gormally

by Luke Gormally

In The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Winter 2005, pp. 735-749

The background to this article is a friendly e-mail exchange I had with Fr. Martin Rhonheimer in the late summer of 2004, following an article he published in the July 10, 2004, issue of The Tablet. In that article he maintained that

a married man who is HIV-infected and uses the condom to protect his wife from infection is not acting to render procreation impossible, but to prevent infection. If conception is prevented, this will be an—unintentional—sideeffect and will not therefore shape the moral meaning of the act as a contraceptive act. There may be other reasons to warn against the use of a condom in such a case, or to advise total continence, but these will not be because of the Church’s teaching on contraception but for pastoral or simply prudential reasons— the risk, for example, of the condom not working. (1)

In the e-mail exchange, two points emerged as crucial. The first is the requirement that for an act of sexual intercourse to be marital, it should be a generative or procreative type of act, an act which of its kind is apt for generation. The most fundamental disagreement between Rhonheimer and me is about what is necessary for an act to be of the generative kind. This disagreement underlies the disagreement which arose between us on the second crucial point.

That point is that there are two ways in which a sexual act may embody an intention to act in a manner per se inapt for generation. One is by deliberately choosing a behavioral pattern in sexual activity which is per se inapt for generation (as people do, for example, in sodomy). The other is by deliberately producing “physical circumstances” which render inapt for generation a behavioral pattern which otherwise would be per se apt for generation (as happens when women take oral contraceptives to render infertile an act which otherwise might have been fertile).

In the e-mail debate, I argued that “condomistic” intercourse exhibits a behavioral pattern which is per se inapt for generation. Rhonheimer argued that the behavioral pattern exhibited is that of normal sexual intercourse, and that the use of a latex rubber sheath by the husband is merely a “physical circumstance” which happens to render the act inapt for generation. But since the condom in the scenario envisaged is not adopted with a contraceptive purpose, use of it does not embody an intention to act in a manner inapt for generation, and so there can be no objection to condomistic intercourse within a marriage on the basis of the type of act it is.

I have no difficulty agreeing with the claim that in the scenario envisaged by Rhonheimer, the husband is not aiming to prevent conception. So his behavior is not to be faulted on the grounds that, in acting as he does, he has the intention of preventing conception by creating a “physical circumstance” by which a generative pattern of behavior is rendered inapt for generation. In my view, his behavior is to be faulted because of the non-generative behavioral pattern it exhibits.

In Fr. Rhonheimer’s recent response to criticism from Fr. Benedict Guevin, readers of this journal will have encountered the claim that “the act as such [i.e. condomistic intercourse] is of a generative kind, but it is modified by human intervention.” (2) And since the modification is prophylactic in intent, not contraceptive, he reasserts his view that the choice of condomistic intercourse within marriage for prophylactic purposes cannot be excluded on the grounds that it is an intrinsically evil choice. He helps himself to this conclusion by insisting that the “object” of the choice to engage in condomistic intercourse is “an act of preventing HIV transmission.” But preventing HIV transmission can only be the hoped-for objective of first ensuring that ejaculation is into a condom. Fr. Rhonheimer surely foreshortens the practical reasoning of the HIV-infected husband who chooses to wear a condom. An accurate representation of the practical reasoning of the husband, as exhibited in what he does in choosing to wear a condom, would be along the following lines: “I must wear a condom in order to ejaculate into it rather than into my wife’s vagina so as to prevent the transmission of HIV.” The “so as to” identifies the further intention with which he chooses to wear the condom; the immediate (or proximate) object

In what follows, I shall seek to show that an essential element of the behavioral pattern required for intercourse to be of the generative kind is ejaculation by the man into the woman’s reproductive tract. It is essential to Fr. Rhonheimer’s case to deny this. The effect of his doing so, I believe, is radically to disconnect the notion of the procreative meaning of sexual intercourse from any reasonable criterion of what is to count as generative behavior, and by the same stroke to remove the traditional content from the notion of the unitive meaning of intercourse.

Clearly, what is at issue, then, is what has to hold true of a behavioral pattern in sexual activity if it is to be characterized as the kind which is apt for generation. I shall proceed along the following lines in seeking to settle the issue.

First, I shall offer one line of reasoning for the Church’s teaching that intercourse should be of the generative kind, and in doing so will seek to bring out precisely what in the behavioral pattern of generative intercourse is the necessary condition of its being unitive, and thus marital.

Then, I shall look at the development of canonical jurisprudence concerning what kind of “potency” is required in a man for him to be capable of consummating a marriage. I will show that canon law has specified that there must be a capacity for engaging in a particular kind of performance rather than a capacity for achieving the biological goal of that performance.

Finally, I shall conclude with some observations on why it is only if intercourse exhibits the specific behavioral pattern of that performance that it can be said to possess the symbolic, and therefore sacramental, significance that the Church attributes to the consummation of marriage.


Why Marital Intercourse Should Be of the Generative Kind


Marriage realizes a unique kind of unity of biological process, sensual experience, emotional responsiveness, and human rationality (in which I include the spiritual).

One starting point for understanding what makes marriage necessary, and what kind of relationship it is, is to look at what is evident biologically, namely, that the central purpose of sex in human life, as in other forms of animal life, is to produce offspring. Sexual organs are reproductive organs. Any biology textbook will tell you that they are part of the reproductive system. Therefore, how we conduct ourselves in the matter of sex is going to shape our relationship to the central human good of offspring, which our sexual powers exist to realize.

Human offspring are in fundamental ways different from the offspring of other animals, and it is those fundamental differences that make necessary the distinctive kind of relationship that marriage is.

Marriage exists for the good of children. Because children are such a fundamental good of human society—a good without which societies could not survive— we have the fundamental institution of marriage. Man is a political animal, Aristotle said, the kind of being who needs a civic community in order to flourish. But prior to civic community, St. Thomas Aquinas noted, human beings need the society of the family, which is ordered to meeting the most basic needs without which civil society would not exist—namely, the begetting and rearing of children. (3) That task should not be understood in minimalist terms. It is nothing less, in St. Augustine’s words, than the task of “receiving [children] lovingly, nourishing them humanely, and educating them religiously.” (4)

The first thing to be said about the marriage relationship is that it needs to be appropriate to the nature of the child. In thinking in this context about the nature of the child, we should reflect in particular on two truths emphasized in Christian teaching. The first is the truth that each human soul is directly created by God in His own image. Our very existence is a gift from God in a quite distinctive sense. In the normal use of the term gift, there is implied a recipient of that gift. If we think of the child herself, then the gift of human existence has no prior recipient, for the gift of human life is what brings the child into existence. Our existence has the character of sheer “givenness,” so that we are radically dependent on God. But God’s creative activity in bringing each of us into existence is an activity of collaboration, so to speak, with our parents. So a child is entrusted to his or her parents as a gift which surpasses in its nature anything they are capable of producing by the mastery of material. This is the reason why children should not be generated in a manner analogous to the productive mastery of materials.

The second truth about the child is that God’s intention for each of us is that our fulfillment as human beings should be through union with the persons of the Blessed Trinity.

These two truths mean that each child possesses a “connatural” dignity—a dignity that belongs to the child simply by virtue of his existence as a human being— which is equal in significance to the connatural dignity of the child’s parents. This equality is evidently not the equality in utility value of replaceable goods. Human beings are not replaceable, precisely because they are each created by God as unique individuals for fulfillment in union with Him. All of us are equal in having that kind of awesome dignity, a dignity in virtue of which we are irreplaceable. (5)

These truths about the child require that the relationship between a man and a woman be conducive to their treating the child as an irreplaceable gift from God, equal in dignity to themselves. A relationship between a man and a woman which securely grounds that kind of relationship to their child has two indispensable features. The first is that the man and the woman are committed to treating each other as irreplaceable, within the sexual relationship in which the child is begotten; in other words, they are committed to marriage as a lifelong bond which, negatively, excludes other sexual relationships and, positively, commits them to a shared life of mutual support. The commitment of husband and wife to an exclusive sexual relationship in which each seeks the good of the other realizes that good of marriage which Catholic tradition calls fides—the faithful commitment to be united in mind and body with one’s spouse in that distinctive form of friendship which is marriage. (6) This friendship can be realized only through a self-giving love on the part of each spouse. A marriage relationship shaped by that kind of commitment provides what one might call the “moral ecology” which the child needs. A man and woman who treat each other in their sexual relationship as irreplaceable, and to be accepted and loved for just the persons they are, convey to the child a sense of his own dignity as an irreplaceable human being who is cherished for just the person he is.

The second key feature of marriage which is dictated by what is needed for the good of children is that the sexual activity of the man and woman should be consistent with their relationship being a marital relationship, in which they are open to children as gifts from God. What is required for the sexual expression of a relationship to be truly marital in this sense? It is that sexual intercourse should be normal intercourse which is both unitive and procreative in its significance. Pope Paul VI, in his encyclical Humanae vitae, clearly teaches that there is an “inseparable connection— established by God and not to be broken by human choice—between the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning which are both inherent in the conjugal act.” (7) The Church teaches that intercourse does not unite a couple in an authentic way if it does not retain its procreative or generative significance.

Normal sexual intercourse is of its nature a generative or procreative type of act. It has that meaning because of the fundamental role it plays in generating new human life. Each occasion of normal sexual intercourse does not have to result in conception for it to qualify as a generative type of act. It retains its generative significance so long as those who engage in it do not do anything with the purpose of rendering it sterile when it might otherwise be fertile.

There are two reasons why it is important that sexual intercourse should be a generative type of activity, one referring to the good of the child, the other to the good of the couple.

Since children are the central human good that is at issue in sexual activity, it is important that people engage only in such sexual activity as leaves them well disposed to the good of children—and that means, only in marital intercourse. But if people choose to engage in sexual activity which, for one reason or another, is of a kind inapt for generation, and believe themselves justified in doing so, they embrace a rationale for sexual activity of a kind that excludes its significance as generative activity. People so disposed to think and act cannot consistently think there is a good reason for confining sexual activity to marriage. If one breaks the link between sex and marriage, one undermines the disposition to be open to the gift of a child precisely in and through one’s sexual activity. To preserve in oneself the sense that sexual activity is essentially generative activity is to preserve in oneself a sense that it belongs only in marriage and, in doing so, to keep oneself rightly disposed to the good of children.

Deliberately non-generative completed sexual acts are not merely hostile to the good of children but, within marriage, are destructive of the unity proper to marriage. Only completed sexual acts which actualize bodily unity are capable of expressing marital unity.

Our Lord, in responding to the question of the Pharisees about the permissibility of divorce, recalled the text of Genesis 2:24, which states God’s primordial plan for marriage:

Some Pharisees approached him and to test him they said, “Is it against the law for a man to divorce his wife on any pretext whatever?” He answered, “Have you not read that the Creator from the beginning made them male and female, and that He said, ‘This is why a man must leave father and mother and cling to his wife and the two become one body’? They are no longer two therefore but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide.” (Mt 19:3–6)

A man and a woman are made “one body” in normal sexual intercourse, for a sexual act which remains generative brings into being a unique kind of oneness. We exercise most of our natural capacities individually even if we depend on others to develop those capacities. I see by myself, think by myself, speak by myself. But a human individual’s capacity to reproduce is, you might say, only half a capacity; it is radically incomplete: each of us needs the complementary capacity and activity of someone of the opposite sex in order to reproduce. It is in acting together in a way that is apt for reproduction that a man and a woman form a quasi-organic unity—they become in a sense “one body.” It is not under their control that they actually conceive a child or that they are fertile.

What is under their control is that they act in a way which, if they are fertile, leaves open the possibility that their conjoined powers of reproduction cooperate in the conception of a child. But at the level of common-sense experience (of a kind that is transculturally accessible), it is evident that what is required in the way of chosen behavior for a conjoining of reproductive powers must involve the husband’s ejaculating semen into his wife’s vagina.

The unity thereby realized is a necessary but not sufficient condition for marital unity. After all, as St. Paul observed, “a man who goes with a prostitute is one body with her” (1 Cor 6: 16). Unity at the level of generative performance must be the expression of an exclusive marital commitment, of that self-giving love on the part of husband and wife which is open to the gift of children and bears fruit in a community of life through which each may transcend the confining egoisms to which we are prone. In this way the structure of marriage in working for the good of children simultaneously works for the good of the spouses in drawing them into an evermore generous love for each other and for the children God gives them.

So far, in exploring the rationale of a Catholic sexual ethic, I have tried to show how the requirement that we should engage only in marital sexual activity, understood as sexual activity which is inseparably unitive and generative in its significance, can be seen to arise from what is needed for the good of children—the good of children being the central human good at issue in sexual activity.

It has emerged from the account I have given that a necessary condition of the “one body” unity which should characterize marriage is that sexual intercourse between husband and wife should be of the kind that is apt for reproduction—i.e., of the generative kind. As was noted at the outset, sexual activity may fail to be of the generative kind either through the adoption of a pattern of behavior which is per se inapt for generation, or through the deliberate production of “physical circumstances” that render causally inapt for generation a behavioral pattern which is otherwise apt for generation.

It is important to be clear that when we talk of a behavioral pattern, we are talking about what can be chosen: about behavior which can be the object of choice. I have suggested that it is phenomenologically evident that, to be per se apt for generation, the behavior in question must involve the husband’s ejaculation of semen into his wife’s reproductive tract. I turn now to a consideration of whether canonical jurisprudence bears out this claim.


Canon Law on the Character of Intercourse Necessary to Consummate a Marriage


In the canon law on marriage, the Church’s theology of marriage engages with the very down-to-earth realities of the relationship. (8) One of its central concerns is distinguishing between what counts as a valid marriage and what fails to do so.

According to Canon 1061 of the current (1983) Code of Canon Law,

A valid marriage between baptized persons is said to be merely ratified, if it is not consummated; ratified and consummated, if the spouses have in a human manner engaged together in a conjugal act in itself apt for the generation of offspring. To this act marriage is by its nature ordered and by it the spouses become one flesh. (9)

And in Canon 1084 we read,

Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have sexual intercourse, whether on the part of the man or on that of the woman, whether absolute or relative, by its very nature invalidates marriage. (10)

The sexual intercourse referred to in this canon is the kind necessary to consummate a marriage, i.e., the generative kind. (11)

What is meant when canon law speaks of spouses engaging together “in a conjugal act in itself apt for the generation of offspring”? In the history of the Church’s doctrine of marriage, the procreation of children has been held to be the primary purpose of marital intercourse, but not the sole purpose. From early in the tradition, a secondary purpose was recognized. Augustine put it this way:

Husband and wife owe one another not only the faithful association of sexual union for the sake of getting children—which makes the first society of the human race in this our mortality—but more than that a kind of mutual service of bearing the burden of one another’s weakness, so as to prevent unlawful intercourse. (12)

This secondary purpose was known in short as the remedium concupiscentiae—the remedy for disordered sexual desire provided by the satisfaction of sexual desire within the honorable state of marriage. Marriage is a remedy precisely in transforming what would be disordered into something ordered through observance of the norms of marital intercourse. The remedium concupiscentiae

What did “capable of intercourse” mean? The majority of theologians and canonists prior to the late sixteenth century held that this capacity existed in the man if he was capable of erection, penetration, and the ejaculation of some semen into the vagina (whether or not the semen as such was suitable for generation), and it existed in the woman if she was capable of receiving the ejaculate in her vagina. Insemination by the husband was deemed necessary to achieving the secondary end of marriage, for without insemination there was held to be no sedatio concupiscentiae

This inference about eunuchs came to seem untenable to many commentators in the light of a papal brief, Cum frequenter,numero infinito,” he wrote.

Little more than a year later, Pope Sixtus V issued Cum frequenter. It is a complex document that has given rise to an immense volume of exegesis, which of necessity I must largely ignore here. Suffice it to say that the brief required that those eunuchs who not only lacked both testicles but also were incapable of intercourse were to be prohibited from entering marriage, on the grounds that they were incapable of contracting marriage in any way whatsoever. Those who had already contracted marriages were to be separated and their marriages declared null and invalid.

What is of interest for my argument is that the description of the eunuchs in the preliminary, expository paragraph of the brief refers to them as incapable of producing “verum semen”—genuine semen. At the time of Cum frequenter, the precise contribution of the testicles to the production of semen—namely, the contribution of spermatozoa—was unknown. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the most influential interpretation of the phrase verum semen that had emerged was that it referred to what was produced in the testicles (“in testiculis elaboratum”). (14) From this, it followed that men who are without testicles are incapable of marriage.

The view that the capacity to consummate a marriage required in a man the capacity to produce semen derived (at least in part) from the testicles decisively influenced judgments on the validity of marriages passed by judges of the Roman Rota, the highest marriage tribunal of the Church. Over the first six decades or so of the twentieth century, a number of cases came before the Rota of marriages in which the husbands, prior to marriage, had undergone vasectomies. (In consequence of the tying or cutting of the vasa deferentia, spermatozoa cannot reach the ejaculatory duct; although a man remains capable of sexual intercourse, his ejaculate contains nothing produced in the testicles.) The majority of these marriages were declared invalid by judges of the Rota. On a number of occasions, however, the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, the Roman dicastery now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, rejected the basis of those judgments, declaring that vasectomy is not an impediment to marriage. (15) The situation was extremely confused and could not be allowed to continue. In consequence, Pope Paul VI ordered an indepth investigation of the issue in 1972 by both the Congregation and the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law. (16) This resulted in the Congregation’s decree of May 13, 1977, stating that it is not necessary for marital intercourse—that is, intercourse which is of its kind apt for generation—to involve the ejaculation of semen that has its origins (at least in part) in the testicles. (17) Since there are good reasons for holding that the papal approval of the decree was in forma specifica (in other words, a solemn approval), the teaching of the decree rests on the authority of the Pope himself. (18)

What fundamental consideration lies behind the decree? The following, I think: Marriage belongs to the order of creation, and what is required for the consummation of marriage should therefore be in principle universally graspable. What is universally graspable are the elements of the performance—what I earlier called the “behavioral pattern”—which embodies marital intercourse. Those elements for the man are erection, penetration, and ejaculation within the vagina. The most important of these is the ejaculation of semen: inability to deposit semen in the vagina amounts to an inability to perform the kind of act which is per se apt for generation. A sexual performance in which a wife has not received within her reproductive tract her husband’s semen is at a phenomenological level clearly not an act “ordered to procreation.”

It is important to emphasize that these criteria for the integrity of the act are about the nature of a performance. Whether a performance which follows a normal behavioral pattern (and in which neither spouse produces “physical circumstances” rendering it inapt for procreation) is actually fertile or sterile is not determined by the performance as such.

In Question 15, article 2, of his Disputed Questions on Evil (a question about whether every act of lust is a mortal sin), Aquinas considers an objection which seeks to infer the permissibility of a range of non-generative sexual activities from the permissibility of intercourse in marriage with a sterile wife. He replies:

that act is said to be contrary to nature in the genus of lust from which, according to the general character [“species”] of the act generation cannot follow, but not that act from which it cannot follow because of some particular incidental [“accidens”] circumstance such as old age or infirmity. (19)

This may sound obscure. What is meant, I think, is that while the character of your performance can ensure that generation cannot follow, if what you do is the normal kind of sexual intercourse, your happening to be sterile does not alter the character of the act as the kind of performance which, in its behavioral pattern, is apt for generation.

What has all this to do with my argument with Fr. Rhonheimer? If a husband ejaculates into a condom, his wife is not receiving his ejaculate in her reproductive tract. His chosen act has, therefore, the character of an act from which generation cannot follow. That generation cannot follow is not a per accidens feature of the act, arising from biological characteristics of the spouses which are extrinsic to the character of the performance as such. On the contrary, it is an essential feature of the chosen character of the performance that generation cannot follow from it; it is essentially a type of act inapt for generation.

Recall Fr. Rhonheimer’s key claims. They are 1) that condomistic intercourse conforms to the normal behavioral pattern of generative intercourse, and 2) that it is rendered non-generative by producing “physical circumstances” which make sterile what might have been fertile.

The first of these claims seems to me wholly implausible. The performance that constitutes condomistic intercourse includes the man’s chosen act of sheathing his penis in a latex rubber cover in order to ensure that ejaculation is into the condom rather than his wife’s vagina. So what happens fails to instantiate an essential feature of the behavioral pattern of generative intercourse: there is no deposition of semen in the woman’s reproductive tract. A condom is as inappropriate a receptacle for the deposition of semen as the anus. Choosing to ejaculate into either amounts to the choice of a type of act which in the very character of the performance

Fr. Rhonheimer has sought to argue that insistence on the deposition of semen in the woman’s reproductive tract as essential to the behavioral pattern of generative intercourse rests on the antiquated “scientific” assumption that semen is the uniquely generative agent. Since we now know, in the light of more accurate science, that an ovum is necessary as well as sperm for generation, we should, if we were following the logic which originally required the deposition of semen for the completion of marital intercourse, now require the presence of an ovum if there is to be marital intercourse. But we do not. So (he concludes), we should not require the deposition of semen.

However erroneous earlier views may have been about the precise nature of the biological contribution husband and wife make toward generation, it has always been recognized that each made some

It is because of the distinctive significance for generation of the husband’s chosen behavior that the Church’s canonical jurisprudence, culminating in the authoritative determination under Pope Paul VI of what constitutes capacity to consummate a marriage, requires a specific behavioral pattern in the husband’s performance, including ejaculation of semen in his wife’s vagina. It does not require what is not controllable by chosen behavior, whether that be the condition of the semen or the fertility of the woman.

The husband’s capacity to perform in accordance with such a behavioral pattern necessarily has a physiological component. There are many kinds of human performance which cannot be chosen in the absence of certain physiological capacities: think of writing, reading, sprinting, swimming, doing a cartwheel, singing the part of Sarastro in Mozart’s Magic Flute, and so on. But the criteria for what count as such chosen performances are not reducible to physiological categories. It is simply a muddle to think that if a person insists that a particular kind of performance requires a certain kind of physiological capacity if one is to engage in it, that person has a “physicalistic” understanding of the performance, meaning an understanding which fails to recognize the essential role of intention in specifying the character of action . (21) The fact is that one can intend and choose to do only what one is capable of doing.

But intention is not limited just by capacity. It is also the case that only certain kinds of performance can embody certain kinds of intention. As Fr. Rhonheimer has rightly noted, “not any intention can reasonably inform any act or behavior: one cannot swallow stones with the intention of nourishing oneself ”; (22) nor, I would add, can one exhibit “openness to serve … the task of transmitting human life” (23) by ejaculating into a condom. Fr. Rhonheimer’s interpretation of Humanae vitae n.12 radically disconnects the notion of “procreative meaning” from what is surely a minimal criterion of what is to count as generative or procreative behavior. That criterion, as we have seen, does not refer to biological conditions of generative success, but rather refers to a behavioral pattern which, if those conditions are present, is conducive to generation.

What Church teaching and canonical jurisprudence require in the way of physiological capacity is simply what is necessary for a human performance to be the kind that is conducive to generation qua performance. The biological conditions for generation do not have to exist for “one body, one flesh” unity to be actualized, but generative performance is necessary for it to be actualized. (24) Condomistic intercourse, as essentially non-generative, simply cannot, contrary to Fr. Rhonheimer’s belief, “still [have] a point as a marital act of loving union.” (25)


The Sacramental Significance of the Behavioral Pattern of Marital Intercourse


It should by now be clear that the question about the permissibility of condomistic intercourse within marriage, which may strike some as a marginal issue, in reality goes to the heart of the Christian understanding of marriage. In this final section, I would like to bring out how fundamentally Fr. Rhonheimer’s position departs from the understanding of the significance of marital intercourse within the Christian understanding of marriage as a sacrament.

A marriage is consummated only in sexual intercourse of the generative kind. Consummation belongs at the heart of the symbolic and therefore sacramental significance of marriage.

In the previous section, concerning canonical jurisprudence on consummation, I considered what is required on the side of the man in the character of sexual intercourse in order to consummate marriage. An inability to so perform is called male impotence, and if it is antecedent and permanent, it is an impediment to contracting a valid marriage. In this section, in order to bring out the symbolic and sacramental significance of marital intercourse, I first draw attention to the import of the possible canonical effect of failing to consummate marriage, namely, that the marriage can be dissolved, as Canon 1142 says, “by the Roman Pontiff for a just reason.” (26) But as the previous Canon (1141) indicates, “a marriage which is ratified and consummated cannot be dissolved by any human power or by any cause other than death.” (27)

In the development of the Church’s doctrine of marriage and its canonical practice, the rationale for this power to dissolve and its significance crystallized in the twelfth century. In Gratian’s Decretum we find a transformed text of Pope Leo the Great that reads as follows:

Since the social bond of marriage was instituted from the beginning in such a way that without sexual intercourse marriages would not contain the symbol of the union of Christ and the Church, there is no doubt that a woman whom we learn to have been without the nuptial mystery does not pertain to marriage. (28)

Professor David d’Avray has recently shown that there was extensive scope for the exercise of the power to dissolve in the late Middle Ages since it was not infrequently the case that consummation was delayed, sometimes for a considerable time, after the words of present consent were exchanged by the spouses. Sometimes this was because the spouses, especially the bride, were deemed too young to consummate; sometimes the bridegroom would delay consummation until the bride’s father had paid the dowry. (29)

What is of interest here, however, is not canonical practice but the theological rationale for the canonical practice. The basis of that rationale is the famous passage in Chapter 5 of the Letter to the Ephesians:

Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church. [Eph 5: 28–32]

In connection with this passage, recall the words just quoted from Gratian: “without sexual intercourse marriages would not contain the symbol of the union of Christ and the Church.” The “one body” unity of baptized spouses actualized in intercourse is not an extrinsic symbol of the Church’s unity in the body of Christ. (30) It is what St. Paul calls a mysterion of that unity, a sacramental realization of a kind of unity which shares in the unity of Christ and the Church, and in doing so reflects the nature of that unity. Now the unity of Christ and the Church is created by the self-giving love of Christ, centrally through his passion, death, and resurrection and through our participation in his victory over sin and death principally by our partaking of the risen body of Christ in the Eucharist. Marriage distinctively shares in the unity of the body of Christ as husband and wife enact in their lives both the self-giving of Christ and the receptivity of the Church. And the action which both signifies and realizes this unity is marital intercourse. But in order for it to do so, there clearly must be both a giving by the husband of his substance to his wife and a receiving of it by the wife. When this giving and receiving are fruitful in the birth of children, we have the reality that is called the “domestic church.”

From this account of the sacramental significance of marital intercourse, it is clear that condomistic intercourse could not possibly be described as marital intercourse, for in condomistic intercourse there is neither the giving nor the receiving which are essential features of the symbolism. It seems to me that the fundamental rationale of marriage as an institution ordered to the good of children and requiring therefore that intercourse should be of the generative kind, together with the interpretation of that requirement in the canonical jurisprudence of the Church, underpinned by the theology of marriage, all point to the conclusion that condomistic intercourse exhibits a behavioral pattern of a kind that is intrinsically non-generative and hence nonmarital. And if that is so, one would have to conclude that there is no possible place for the prophylactic use of condoms within marriage.

__________


AUTHOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this paper was delivered as the Linacre Lecture at Ave Maria School of Law on April 12, 2005. In revising the text for publication, I have been helped by observations from some of my original audience, as well as from my colleagues Helen Watt and Anthony McCarthy, and most particularly by criticisms from John Finnis and from Fr. Aidan McGrath, O.F.M. Since I have not taken all of the advice offered to me, I alone am responsible for errors remaining in the paper. I have not sought to alter its original character as an oral presentation.

(1) Martin Rhonheimer, “The Truth about Condoms,” The Tablet

(2) See argument of Martin Rhonheimer, in Benedict Guevin and Martin Rhonheimer, “On the Use of Condoms to Prevent Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 5.1 (Spring 2005): 44.

(3) R. M. Spiazzi, O.P., ed., Sancti Thomae Aquinatis in Decem Libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum Expositio, 3rd ed. (Turin, Italy: Marietti, 1964), Liber 1, Lectio 1.4, 3. See also Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, Q. 47.10, reply 2.

(4) Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 9.7.

(5) On connatural dignity, see further Luke Gormally, “Human Dignity: The Christian View and the Secularist View,” in The Culture of Life: Foundations and Dimensions: Proceedings of the Seventh Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life (Vatican City: March 1–4, 2001), ed. Juan de Dios Vial Correa and Elio Sgreccia (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002), 52–66; Luke Gormally, “Pope John Paul II’s Teaching on Human Dignity and Its Implications for Bioethics,” in John Paul II’s Contribution to Catholic Bioethics, ed. Christopher Tollefsen. Philosophy and Medicine, vol. 84 (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2004), 7–33.

(6) See John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory

(7) My translation of Paul VI, Humanae vitae, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 60 (1968): 488, n. 12. The original reads, “Huiusmodi doctrina, quae ab Ecclesiae Magisterio saepe exposita est, in nexu indissolubili nititur, a Deo statuto, quem homini sua sponte infringere non licet, inter significationem unitatis et significationem procreationis, quae ambae in actu coniugali insunt.”

(8) In this section, I rely heavily on Aidan McGrath, O.F.M., A Controversy concerning Male Impotence. Analecta Gregoriana, vol. 247 (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1988).

(9) Code of Canon Law in English Translation (London: Collins, 1983).

(10) Ibid.

(11) By which I mean, “the generative kind in its behavioral pattern.” The text of the canon was emended to refer explicitly to impotentia coeundi (inability to have intercourse), in order to dispel any residual confusion over the concept of impotentia generandi

(12) Quoted in Elizabeth Anscombe, Contraception and Chastity

(13) For the historical background alluded to here, see McGrath, A Controversy concerning Male Impotence, 13–15. It is relevant to an accurate understanding of the papal brief that probably all of the eunuchs to whom the nuncio was referring were castrati, i.e., men who had been castrated prior to puberty to preserve their treble or alto voices, and whose normal sexual development had in consequence been arrested. That sort of eunuch would have been incapable of what was required for the performance of normal intercourse and so incapable of achieving sedatio concupiscentiae.

(14) McGrath names Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, in the third edition (1904) of his highly influential Tractatus canonicus de matrimonio, as the author who gave authoritative currency to the identification of verum semen with semen in testiculis elaboratum. McGrath, A Controversy concerning Male Impotence, 126–127.

(15) The Holy Office judged that a man who had a vasectomy possessed a potentia coeundi—in particular, that he was capable of ejaculating semen—even if he did not possess a potentia generandi, because his semen lacked sperm. See McGrath, A Controversy concerning Male Impotence, 159–164.

(16) McGrath, A Controversy concerning Male Impotence, 119–121.

(17) Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Decretum circa impotentiam quae matrimonium dirimit, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 69 (1977): 426.

(18) See the argument in McGrath, A Controversy concerning Male Impotence, 251– 257, for this understanding of the authority of the decree.

(19) Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo, Q. 15.2, reply 14, in Quaestiones Disputatae, vol. 2, ed. P. Bazzi et al. (Turin, Italy: Marietti, 1965), 652; see also the English translation (slightly modified) in Aquinas, On Evil, trans. John Oesterle and Jean Oesterle (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 435 (emphasis added).

(20) Observations over millennia about the barrenness of certain women rest on a recognition that there is something present in fertile women (and lacking in the barren) which contributes to generation.

(21) I use the term “intention” to refer not just to the “further intention” with which an act is done, but also to the “proximate object” of the act.

(22) Guevin and Rhonheimer, “On the Use of Condoms,” 44 (original emphasis).

(23) Ibid., 46.

(24) See section 2 above.

(25) Guevin and Rhonheimer, “On the Use of Condoms,” 44.

(26) Code of Canon Law in English Translation.

(27) Ibid.

(28) Gratian, Decretum, Pars II, C. 27, q.2, c.17, quoted in David d’Avray, Medieval Marriage: Symbolism and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 179.

(29) d’Avray, Medieval Marriage, 180–188.

(30) An “extrinsic symbol” could not have the consequence marital intercourse has: indissolubility.

of his choice is that of ensuring ejaculation into the condom rather than into his wife’s vagina. was always regarded as secondary to the primary purpose, which requires that intercourse should always be of the generative kind. But that did not mean that intercourse had to be fertile, or even that a couple had to be fertile to contract a marriage. If the secondary end of marriage was realizable, a marriage could be consummated. Hence, marriage of the elderly, who were believed to be sterile, was permitted, provided they were capable of intercourse and that their intercourse was—in behavioral pattern—of the generative kind. (assuaging of sensual desire). This view of what counted as “capacity for intercourse” in the man was compatible in principle with holding that men who had been castrated after reaching sexual maturity and who were capable of erection, penetration, and producing a seminal ejaculate were therefore capable of consummating marriage. published on June 27, 1587. The brief was a response to a letter to the Secretariat of State of the Holy See written on May 30 of the previous year by Cesare Spacciani, Bishop of Novara and the papal nuncio to Spain. In the letter, Spacciani expressed concern about the serious practical and pastoral implications of the division among theologians and canonists in Spain (and, indeed, elsewhere in Europe) about the validity of marriages entered into by men who were eunuchs and castrati. (13) According to Spacciani, there were innumerable such marriages in Spain—“ plainly detaches sex from its ordering to the good of children. And that, as St. Thomas teaches, is the essence of “unnatural vice.” contribution. (20) The significant difference between them is that, while the wife’s behavior in intercourse has to be such that she receives her husband’s deposition of semen vaginally, her precise biological contribution to generation remains—as it always has been—independent of that behavior. By contrast, the husband’s contribution to generation does depend upon his willing and carrying out the marital act of ejaculating semen into his wife’s reproductive tract. If he engages in coitus interruptus or condomistic intercourse, he engages in a kind of behavior which, qua performance, precisely does exclude his (possible) biological contribution to generation. 258.8545 (July 10, 2004): 11. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 145, and the references to Aquinas there. (inability to procreate) that affected the debate in the early decades of the twentieth century, to which I refer later. See in particular footnote 15, below. (1977; repr., London: Catholic Truth Society, 2003), 15–16.