The current debate over health insurance and contraception has raised interesting questions for people of faith, particularly Catholics. I’m past menopause, and so contraception is not an issue for me. Yet I’m interested in it—in the same way I remain interested in pregnancy or childbirth. Avoiding or embracing pregnancy is the stuff of real life—the vivid centerpiece of youth and middle age. As a woman, a mother, and a Catholic, I’m part of it. I remember the drama, the excitement, the fear. Pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding are intense experiences. For the sustained nature of the physical bond, nothing compares. But it begins with sex, and sex is never simple.
And so it is unsettling when men who may never have experienced sex feel qualified not just to speak about it but to pronounce on it with certainty. In an article in the New York Times (February 18), Fr. Roger Landry, a priest in my old diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, is quoted as saying, “What happens in the use of contraception, rather than embracing us totally as God made the other, with the masculine capacity to become a dad, or the feminine capacity to become a mom, we reject that paternal and maternal leaning.”
Well, no, Fr. Landry, we don’t. We don’t reject it. We make a decision about it. We recognize that pregnancy is a possibility, and we decide whether this is the right time for us to have a baby. We acknowledge that we are more than just potential (or actual) parents. One of the surest signs of youth—in any profession—is an unswerving adherence to literal interpretations. New teachers cling to the curriculum, whether or not the class is getting it. Young doctors focus on the clear x-ray, unable to see the patient in front of them writhing in pain. Parish priests preach the letter of the law, while their parishioners refuse to follow rules created without reference to the reality they know. But the rules aren’t just unrealistic. They are often irrelevant, based on incorrect or incomplete information.
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Fr. Landry goes on to say, “Contraception…make[s] pleasure the point of the act, and any time pleasure becomes the point rather than the fruit of the act, the other person becomes the means to that end. And we’re actually going to hurt the people we love.” At one level, this is insightful and nuanced. When he laments how frequently such objectification happens to women in sexual relationships, Fr. Landry sounds almost feminist. And he is right that a relationship that’s only about the pursuit of pleasure is demeaning and ultimately hurtful.
He is wrong, though, to assume that using contraception automatically makes “pleasure the point of the act.” This is how adolescents think. Teenagers dream of constantly available sex, uninhibited by any possibility of pregnancy. That priests would talk the same way about sex between a husband and wife who have chosen to use contraception reflects inexperience and adolescent projection.
Adults understand that good sex, with or without contraception, goes deeper than pleasure. It is complex and demanding. And pleasure isn’t necessarily a part of it. Any human encounter requiring honesty and surrender has the potential for both revelation and pain. The communication, healing, and strengthening that good sex ensures is foundational to a marriage. Pure pleasure the point of the act? What is Fr. Landry talking about?
Distrust of pleasure is one hallmark of the church’s teaching about sex. This is odd because, as Catholics, we also believe that “eye has not seen nor ear heard the wonders God has prepared for those who love Him.” But that aside, what is the church’s antidote to the dread prospect of people having too much fun in bed? Children.
The thing is, children are also a deep source of pleasure, joy, and fun. The bishops, while recognizing this truth, nonetheless focus on babies as natural results of the biological act, as consequences and responsibilities—not as persons who are sought after and gladly welcomed. (Indeed, people who seek too vigorously to have children are also criticized as trying to play God, to control what should be divinely ordained.)
I understand what is behind the bishops’ anxiety over designer parenthood—the demand for too much control over what kind of children we have. And I agree that sexual license is a serious threat to happiness, order, and the good of the human community.
But every human activity has the potential to become unbalanced. Having children mindlessly, year after year, as former generations of Catholics did, is just as harmful to the social good as the refusal to connect sex with pregnancy. Visit India, Fr. Landry. Talk with the women here who are treated purely as producers of sons.
To defend contraception within marriage is not to defend sexual license. Married couples who have pledged a lifetime of commitment to each other and their families have the right and the duty to make their own decisions about contraception. The church’s role is to help them arrive at the decision that is right for their lives. It is not to dictate one-size-fits-all rules that have no foundation in practical experience.
The church has made a spectacle of itself by promoting an immature version of sexuality that is missing the sinew of lived experience. It used to frighten people into submission. Now it simply makes them smile a little sadly. I’m a prolife Catholic who practiced only Natural Family Planning. But I’m smiling, too. Because I’m sad for my church.
Carolyn:
"Surely, Carlo jests. For centuries, pleasure taught as sin instead of joy, an attitude of marriage as permission to sin, constant questions about what is sinful and what not? "
Sorry, but that's purely mythological view of Church history. That may be true of some times and some places, but it is obviously false of other times and places.
Anglea Stockton and Janet,
One more time, from the top...
Christ gave the Church the power and authority to bind the faithful to certain rules under pain of mortal sin.
Meatless Fridays was one such tule.
It makes no difference how silly or ridiculously unfair you or I think this is - God speaks through his Church, and when he speaks it's our job to listen, not whine like teenagers.
In Genesis, God allegorically forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the tree.
They ate the apple anyway.
The upshot was they were booted from the Garden, they lost their preternatural gifts, they brought death and suffering and the effects of original sin into the world, effecting every human for all time, necessitating a savior to be born, suffer and die in order to reunite us with a God we are separated from, all because they ate one measly apple.
Think about that when you talk about eating meat on Friday.
Ed Micca:
You believe in the doctrine of infallibility, in all its principles, and conclude that contraception is intrinsically evil regardless of circumstances, intentions and ends. Good for you. Yet you directly imply that those that disagree with a doctrine of the Church, such as contraception, are dissenters, infected with the evil of the securlar age, abiding not by a truly informed conscience, or if so, such a conscience is distorted. By your assertion of moral certitude, most theologicans and the laity, and many bishops and about 40% of priests that disagree with HV fall into one these categories as well. You also proclaim that bad popes can issue teachings that are infallible. Perhaps, but if a pope offends morality, it is hard to imagine that such a pope has any credibility in other moral pronouncements. I draw you attention to Pius IX. He kidnapped a young Jewish boy from his parents and keep him in the Vatican until adulthood because a mid-wife baptized the child under fear of death during delivery...without the parent's permission who were Jewish. This is the same pope issued the infamous Syallabus of Errors and proclaimed himself and other popes infallible.
There is profound disagreement about sexual ethics within our Church for more than 50 years. Despite any argument, you believe, as the Church does, in the moral certitude of papal encyclicals.
All you have done Ed Micca is repeat the narrative of the Roman Curia on these issues, especially contraception, but have not addressed any of the concrete cases that demonstated insensibility and unreasonableness. I repeat not these examples but call your attention in brief to the case of a married woman whose life is threatened by another pregnancy. She must practice risky PC or celibacy. She cannot take the pill or be sterilized to safeguard her life. The hierarchy of values in this case is turned upside down by the moral absolute that one must ensure that every marital act must be open to procreation.
Somehow the answers to the unnaturalness and unreasonableness of NFP-PC as the only licit method of birth regulation is "heroic virtue" taken to any extreme in order to preserve and defend HV.
The great Bernard Hering rightly said that there was no moral difference between NFP-PC and contraception. Each is a form of manipulation. Do you really believe that God's Procreative Plan is for spouses to measure temperture and examine cervical mucus each day in order to determine those days that are infertile and limit sexual intercourse to only those days...as the only licit method of birth control. Think about it. Apart from its obvious unintelligibility, you claim that this very fact does not make the teaching wrong. If contraception is the absolute moral truth, and Divine Law, what power does it possess to change behavior if it is unintelligible, unreasonable and not convincing to most Catholics?
Perhaps you believe that a moral teaching proclaimed to be Natural and Divine Law, and taught for centuries by popes and bishops, and not received, continues to be the truth. I ask you for one example.
Bruce:
I also believe that the truth is in Christ, and not in the collective consciences of Catholics. However, you missed my point because I was referring to the Theololgy of Rececption that is often ignored by the Church. I was also referring to the fact the Holy Spirit moves us to the truth in what is claimed to be necessary things, but also in doubtful things. This is part of the Theology of Reception.
You also agrued about the example I used, namely, the divorsed and remarried. You rightly claim that each sin rests on its own merits. I agree. However, the divorsed and remarried may be guilty of two sins: remarriage and contraception. They are habitual sinners. The Church selectively chooses what "habitual sinners" will be given absolution by the principle of gradualness in the sacrament of reconcilation. Married couples who practice contraception can be given absolution and receive the Eucharist regardless of a firm purpose of amendment. Yet, other habitual sinnners are denied absolution and the Eucharist, such as the divorsed and remarried. I hope you can see the contradiction.
Another contradiction between doctrine and pastoral practices is this: every priest knows that most young married couples practice some form of contraception, yet these couples stand in line each week to receive the Eucharist. You never hear anything from the pulpit or in weekly Church bulletins about the requirement to confess this sin, receive absolution, before receiving the Eucharist....otherwise you commit the grave sin of sacrilege. This is called the "silent pulpit" and it applies to parish priests and bishops.
I had a long conversation with the pastor of a local Church a few months ago about this. He pointed to an occasional bulletin that called attention to HV....but also admitted it did not address the issue I mentioned above. He also admitted that many priests don't speak about sexual ethics, especially contraception from the pulpit because, they have no convincing answer to the many questions and comments from their parishioners. Many fear they would lose parishioners and their weekly contributions.
Another priest, in a separate discussion, told me that I should never allow a disagreement with a teaching to distract me, in any way, from my relationship with Christ...that was the most important thing for Catholics to do. He also admitted that contraception continues to be a controversial teaching. Nevertheless, I also know of priests that repeat the narrative of the Church and are strong supporters of HV. My cousin is the Chancellor of a Diocese in Florida. He said when my parish priest told me 35 years ago that contraception, after I had 2 children and wanted no more for good reasons, was an issue of my informed conscience....he said that priest gave you bad advice...he was "wrong". I asked him to explain to me why 40% of priests do this. His only answer was that those statistics reflected mostly older priests, and that newer priests were being trained differently. I respect my cousin, but he is dreaming. Priests today are given the same tools and tired narratives that have not worked for the past 44 years. There is nothing new about the doctrine of contraceptoin. The latest survey by the late Dean Hoge showed that when it comes to sexual ethics, the youngest Catholics hold to their individual consciences on certain issues more so than a papal encyclical that does not make sense to them.
So, when you assert that a teaching, not convincing or received, does not make the teaching untrue,... I say.. nor does it make it true, simply because the pope said so. This is especially relevant if there is contradiction and inconsistency between doctrine and pastoral practices....and between doctrine and human experienc (meaning what is assumed to be true regarding the marital and sexual relationship...versus the reality as clearly demonstrated by Jo McGowan).
To those who insist that the teaching of HV is true, complete, etc., and to be followed to the letter lest one incur the penalty of mortal sin:
What IS the difference between NFP and other forms of birth control? Since you find Roger Landry's defense of HV so satisfying and convincing, how is a couple practicing NFP any LESS rejecting of the "call" to be a mom or dad? Are they not engaging in sexual intercourse during the infertile times of a woman's cycle with the intention of NOT becoming pregnant, hence seeking everything inherently potential/available in the sexual act EXCEPT pregnancy? Aren't they also seeking sexual expression for reasons other than procreation and, in fact, by their careful planning, deliberately doing so? God forbid, but could they be seeking PLEASURE itself as an end? And if they are seeking pleasure in itself (which one must admit since they are distinctly seeking to avoid pregnancy by practicing NFP), how is this less "objectifying" or "harmful" to the partner than if they were to use a condom, the Pill or an IUD? I know others have already posed this in different ways, but I haven't yet read a satisfactory reply here. It would also be great to hear from faithful married couples whose lives have been harmed by the use of contraception...methinks they are rare to non-existent. If anyone is harmed by contraception (and surely many are), it is not the thoughtful, faithful married folks who know what it means to discern what's true and follow their consciences.
Ed Micca: Still waiting for evidence for what you claim to be PPVI's reason for calling the BC Commission...or maybe there isn't evidence; maybe you heard some pope say it (so it must be true). And by the way, your "from the top" reply above is just more of the same: irrational, unconvincing and yet another signal that you perhaps have turned the institutional church into an idol. This is very, very dangerous. In Scripture, idolatry is THE sin. I would be very careful if I were you.
Carolyn: "Surely, Carlo jests. For centuries, pleasure taught as sin instead of joy, an attitude of marriage as permission to sin, constant questions about what is sinful and what not? "
Carlo: "Sorry, but that's purely mythological view of Church history. That may be true of some times and some places, but it is obviously false of other times and places."
Of what "other times" do you speak, Carlo? The testimony of the fathers, the scholastics, popes and council decrees, not to mention popular examinations of conscience from medieval times on show a preoccupation with the potential for committing a "near occasion of sin," if not sin itself, at every turn when sex is involved. Even though the Church never condemned marital sex, as certain heretical sects did; a fear of the potential for sin in sex has always been paramount. The focus on concupiscence as a major consequence of original sin is both symptomatic and causal.
This has been true in every age, except perhaps the present, but even today there are scrupulous Catholics who worry about every random sexual thought and seem to fear they'll be implicated in others' sins as well. (The bishops' claim to concern over a "potential" for material cooperation in sin with regard to provisions of the health care law certainly does nothing to ameliorate their state of mind; and note that the "sins" involved are sexual; no similar concern with a potential for material cooperation in sin has been voiced with regard to Catholics participating in wars the bishops have called unjust, interrogation techniques that include torture, capital punishment, etc. Only sexual issues elicit that scrupulous concern with minutiae or becoming even remotely involved.)
I know the enemies of the Church are fond of pointing out this problem, and for years I tried to do as you and justify what could be justified. But that's not in the Church's best interest. Look at the worldwide priestly child-abuse scandal and the sexual deviance of leaders of movements to "save" the Church such as the Legionairies of Christ. Denying there's a problem, or problems, just hasn't worked.
PS to Ed Micca: God forbad the eating of the fruit for a REASON and explained it to them! How resepctful and humble of God to do this. It wasn't simply an arbitrary "because I said so." My goodness, even the Lord Jesus debated and discussed things with others. And please don't put the Genesis story on the same level as the prohibition against eating meat on Fridays...Your view of the institutional church is downright scary.
Janet and Beverly...bravo for your most insightful comments.
Ed Micca:
If we trace the doctrine of contraception to its root, we find ourselves with the Onan story in Genesis 38. The Church teaches that God killed Onan because of coitus interruptus. Anyone familiar with this story knows that Onan promised to marry and give children to his widow sister-in-law. This was Levirate Law. Below is part of an essay I wrote awhile back about how Biblical exegesis can shed light of a different interpretation of the "Onan Story" which was carried forth from ancient times to Augustine. Note how I start with the profound error about reproductive biology that was accepted as truth for thousands of years...namey that the male seed contained all that was necessary for human reproduction; the woman's womb was only considered a vessel so that the male seed could grow into a fully human being. She contributed nothing else. Therefore spilling the seed in a place not suitable for reproduction was considered quasi homicide.
From ancient times to at least the fourteenth century, coitus interuptus was akin to quasi homicide.[1] Could these earlier beliefs fueled the reason God killed Onan? Onan also defrauded his father and widowed sister-in-law, coveted his brother’s property and violated a sacred vow before God. Could God have killed Onan for these reasons since a violation of the spirit of Levirate law was punishable by public infamy, or a harsher penalty, but not death (Deut. 25: 9)? Additionally, coitus interuptus was not prohibited by the codes of ancient law. Therefore, it seems unlikely that, in the absence of a clear prohibition, coitus interuptus was immoral.[2]
Consider a broader biblical context. Lot was willing to allow his daughters to be raped, a despicable sin (Gn 19: 8). Lot's daughters also slept with him and conceived children (Gn 19: 30-38). This was a sin of incest. David lusted after Bathsheba, committed adultery and eventually murdered her husband (2 Kgs 25: 23-42). Yet, God did not kill any of them. If God did not kill Lot and David for actions that were clearly prohibited by Natural and Divine law, then coitus interuptus, which was not explicitly prohibited by ancient law, may not be the reason God killed Onan. While these conclusions are plausible, it is by faith that we accept the fact that in Genesis 38 coitus interuptus was condemned by God. This continued to the twentieth century.
During the 1950s, the issue of contraception was turned upside down when the first pill was introduced. Unlike the condom or coitus interuptus, the pill was not physically interfering with the marital act per se. It was temporarily suspending ovulation.
[1] John T. Noonan, Jr., Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986) 1-581, at 235, 364.
[2] Ibid., 35.
As you can probably discern, when a narrative is repeated for thousands of years it becomes the absolute moral truth. The question is: Is the above interpretation plausible? Notice how HV turned the entire history of this so-called doctrine about immoral sexual acts into a new theory of contraception. Suddenly, the Onan Story became a prohibition against spilling the male seed in an improper place for reproduction. This made some sense when the condom was widely availablle around 1850. When the pill was invented, it was not interfering with the sex act. The male seed was being desposited in its proper place. The answer: HV turned the Onan story into a new and novel moral absolute. The Onan Story was really about preventing procreation and most importantly, there was now 2 dimensions of the marital act that could not be separated....because it was claimed to be Divine Law. Thanks to the spiritual insight of Pius XII and proclaimed again in HV, there was only 1 morally acceptable method of birth control..called...NFP-PC.
Unfortunately, for most Catholics and theologians, and many bishops and priests, there is little difference, if any, between NFP-PC and contraception....as the many blog comments in this tread has made clear.
Adolescent thinking -- something I still have vestiges of after almost 60 years. When I became a teenager in 1953, there were two main viewpoints on girls available to me, neither one stressing the importance of regarding them as persons, of not objectifying them. The messages of my peer group and of my church both objectified them, although in different ways: They were sexual objects or they were occasions of sin. Some choices. Some ways to regard females.
Thank God I didn't enter the seminary in 8th grade, as was common then, and as I had considered. I shudder to think of this. Now, after almost 45 years of marriage, three daughters and two grandkids, I am mostly rid of adolescent thinking. But reading Jo McGowan's excellent article made me realize how such thinking is hard to completely eradicate. Speaking strictly for me, I might well be stuck in it if I had gone into the seminary and seen it through to the priesthood way back then.
It is good these days to see concerns about objectification being discussed. Yet in discussions about birth control and abortion too often the woman's personhood is insufficiently considered.
Lindsay Wilcox writes:
If two spouses determine this is not the time to have children, let them wait to have sex until a time when the sex will not produce a child
How is this different from the practice of artificial contraception condemend by the church? Is it because it's natural vs. artifical? That does not seem to be Roger Landry's point...for him, not being open to the possibility of life is the problem, and it seems that the NFP-ers are simply doing the same thing as the artificial contraceptors...both are seeking sexual union and "rejecting" their call to be moms/dads. Is THIS the sin, or is it the latex and chemicals that make one method sinful and the other not? The church needs to get this straight, don't you think? But perhaps if they did try to get it straight, they would soon see the folly of allowing NFP as well, since it, too, is contraceptive and could never be upheld as moral in the framework they have already established (that every act of intercourse be open to life..). Not to mention that they would have to then pronounce that post-menopausal sex and infertile sex are also immoral. Hmm...not sure that would work too well.