There’s a category of moral obligations that occur in funny circumstances. Given that you are doing a certain immoral thing, there are nevertheless obligations that you have. The pope has recently conceded (finally) that there are such obligations involving condom use. It’s wrong to be a male prostitute, but it’s “a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility” if the prostitute uses a condom. In other words, if you’re going to be immoral, you do have the moral obligation of wearing a condom. You shouldn’t be doing the initial immoral thing to begin with, but if you’re going to do it you still have another obligation to be responsible and wear a condom, or else you fail at a further obligation.
The fullest quote I’ve seen is, “There may be justified individual cases, for example when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be … a first bit of responsibility, to re-develop the understanding that not everything is permitted and that one may not do everything one wishes.”
Perhaps we could call this sort of thing a secondary moral obligation, one you don’t have unless you’re doing something you have a moral obligation not to do.Since some secondary moral obligations might be immoral themselves were it not for the primary moral obligation, there really is an interesting character to them. That’s certainly how the pope’s view in this case works. Condom use is normally immoral, according to his view. But given certain immoral actions, you then have a secondary moral obligation to perform that normally-immoral act of using a condom.
I want to say something about Andrew Sullivan’s response, because I think Sullivan latches on to something important that most people haven’t picked up, but he’s also got it completely wrong in another respect. What Sullivan notices is that “Benedict has chosen a case where transmission of new life (barring a real miracle) is already impossible”. It’s not clear if he would say the same thing about a female prostitute, where conception might be possible. It’s quite possible that this is why he chose this example. I’m not sure. Does the recognition of secondary moral obligations only occur when the stakes of the effects of risky sex are greater than the stakes of contraception, and the latter still appear in cases of heterosexual non-marital sex?
I suspect Sullivan is wrong about this, though, and the pope would still invoke what I’m calling a secondary moral obligation in cases where there’s high risk of STDs with immoral sex of any sort, but Sullivan has given a possible distinction that might come into play. I credit him for spotting that possibility, but I’m wondering if he has any evidence other than the fact that he chose this example when he could have chosen another (which is no more than speculation, actually).
I have to criticize Sullivan’s understanding of the larger issue. I don’t think he gets the point being made. He describes this statement is taking one form of gay sex as being more moral than another. That strikes me as at least very misleading, if more moral means anything other than less immoral. When you say something is more moral, it sounds as if there’s a continuum between things not moral and things most moral, and this is in between somewhere. That’s not what Benedict said, though. What he said is that both are immoral, but one is moreso.
What he goes on to say next, however, does seem right to me. It does follow that moral considerations of this secondary sort would apply in gay sex. If gay sex is immoral, there are some instances that are less so than others. Anonymous gay sex is more immoral than gay sex in a committed partnership. Duh. But is such a position really anathema to the Roman Catholic Church? Is Benedict likely to say that there’s no moral distinction between killing someone while robbing a bank in order to get away safely and taking sadistic delight in blowing up the entire bank with forty hostages as you go, even though none of their deaths were required for your escape?
I’d be pretty shocked if he thought such a thing. In fact, an alternate position by John Allen strikes me as more likely: “Pope Benedict XVI has signaled that in some limited cases, where the intent is to prevent the transmission of disease rather than to prevent pregnancy, the use of condoms might be morally justified.” So the issue is intent, as is unsurprising. Pope Paul VI’s statement on sexual morality allowed for some cases where an act that would normally be immoral might in certain contexts be justified given that the intent is not to prevent conception but to save a life. The case of a married couple with one spouse HIV-positive seems to be another, and I know of several instances of Catholic bishops and even a cardinal endorsing condom use in such a case (and the entire Phillipines conference of bishops even made a public statement to that effect).
So is Sullivan’s conclusion that the pope is now opened up to a gray-scale of morality rather than black and white morality? Hardly. There’s still a fact about what you ought to do and what you ought not to do. The gradations are not between right and wrong, where it’s factually uncertain which things are which (or even worse that there are no facts about where the line lies). I’ve seen nothing to indicate anything other than a sharp line between right and wrong in Benedict’s moral thinking. It’s just that there are degrees in how wrong something can be. Out of the things that are simply wrong, some have a greater degree of wrongness to them than others. Using a condom to have gay sex in a committed same-sex legal marriage is, on the Catholic view, simply wrong, even if it’s not as bad as having unprotected sex with a male prostitute in a one-time encounter.
Given what the pope’s position is, it’s interesting to see the headlines news outlets are giving to the pronouncement (and I’m just looking at what’s on the top of the Google listings). Yahoo’s is pretty good: Pope says some condom use ‘first step’ of morality. CBN seems to be using the same headline. ABC is also in this category, as is Catholic Herald.
Politics Daily, on the other hand, gets it entirely wrong: “Pope OKs Condoms in Some Cases, Such As Prostitutes Avoiding HIV”. That doesn’t get the point at all. It’s not that he’s OKing it for them. It’s that he can see it as a movement from being thoroughly immoral to being a little less immoral, all the while insisting that they should be doing none of it to begin with. You have the same problem with the New York Times: Pope Says Condoms to Stop AIDS May Be Acceptable. NPR has the same problem with different language: Pope Says Condoms Can Be Used in Some Cases. Al Jazeera has an initial headline that’s fine, but then they have a sub-headline that’s as bad as any of these. First: Pope softens stand on condoms. Then the summary immediately below says he considers it acceptable in some cases. Others in this category include the New York Post, CNN, and the Huffington Post. The Daily Beast is perhaps the worst: Pope Partly Endorses Condoms.
FOX News is only a little better: Pope: Condom Use Can Be Justified in Some Cases. The reason I think that’s a little better is because it’s actually true, whereas the NYT and Politics Today headlines are simply false. The pope has not said that it’s OK or acceptable to use condoms to stop AIDS, just that it’s less immoral than engaging in such behavior without a condom. I think it’s technically correct to say, however, that it can be justified in some cases, if the view is that you incur a moral obligation to use a condom in such circumstances by engaging in the immoral behavior. But it’s pretty misleading. It suggests that this is all right, even if it doesn’t go as far as the others in asserting that. MSNBC has a similar headline, with “OK” instead of “Justified”. That strikes me as better than saying he OKs it or that it may be acceptable, but I think calling it justified is a little better.
November 21st, 2010 | 9:40 am | #1
“Since some secondary moral obligations might be immoral themselves were it not for the primary moral obligation, there really is an interesting character to them. That’s certainly how the pope’s view in this case works.”
A very helpful analysis Jeremy. Thanks for your thoughts.
November 21st, 2010 | 9:56 am | #2
“AIDS has quietly caused the deaths of hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in the United States although other causes may be listed on some of their death certificates, the Kansas City Star reported today. The newspaper said its examination of death certificates and interviews with experts indicates several hundred priests have died of AIDS-related illnesses since the mid-1980s. The death rate of priests from AIDS is at least four times that of the general population, the newspaper said. Kansas City Bishop Raymond Boland says the AIDS deaths show that priests are human.”
Read the rest at The Gay Priest Problem.
Perhaps some of the Catholic priests who died from AIDS might not have died if both they and their partners had worn condoms. As a secondary moral obligation, that is.
November 21st, 2010 | 1:29 pm | #3
As evinced by that “fullest” quotation you cite earlier, the pope regards condom use as sometimes justifiable. For such circumstances, the pope is, in that sense, “OKing” condom use. Moreover, if the pope indeed regards using a condom in such cases as morally obligatory (as your term “secondary moral obligation” would suggest), then it should also be accurate to say that the pope endorses condom use in such circumstances.
November 21st, 2010 | 1:35 pm | #4
How’s this for an accurate headline: Gay love covers a multitude of sins.
November 21st, 2010 | 5:25 pm | #5
It’s only obligatory given an act that he considers immoral, though. So he’s not OKing it. He’s saying that if you’re going to do an evil act then you ought to do another act to make it not quite so evil.
Consider the bank robbing analogy, but alter it in the following way. You ought not to rob a bank. If you’re going to rob a bank, you ought to keep your threats to kill bank employees at the level of empty threats. There’s an obligation merely to threaten rather than act on a threat. That doesn’t mean I’m OKing making threats to kill bank tellers. But I’d insist that if you’re robbing a bank you do have an obligation to make you’re gun-pointing acts (evil acts you shouldn’t commit) no more than threats. Anyone reading this and claiming that I’m endorsing pointing a gun at a bank teller has got me completely wrong, but that’s what these headlines pretty much have done to the pope.
TUAD: That’s a fair point of the ones who died because they committed sex acts that they themselves should have seen as wrong by the requirements of their own church (and employer, for that matter). But is it safe to assume that the higher number of priests is entirely due to gay sex? Aren’t priests a lot more likely to have been involved in caring for people at risk for AIDS, and especially going back to the time when it wasn’t a well-studied disease you might have expected less concern for sanitary conditions. I don’t have a clue which should be a more likely explanation for any case chosen at random without knowing more information. I certainly wouldn’t assume a priori that any given percentage of them must have been due to gay sex.
November 21st, 2010 | 5:48 pm | #6
Here’s a completely different kind of example with virtually no morally-loaded issues. I’m grading a student paper at the moment, and it has a number of parenthetical citations (e.g. “Smith, 2008″) with no page numbers. I told the student that she needs to give page numbers if she’s going to cite but that she shouldn’t cite (in this kind of short class paper, anyway) unless she gives a quote from the text.
That’s a secondary moral obligation, as I’ve defined it above. She shouldn’t be doing these parenthetical citations all over the place in this kind of paper. But if she does, she ought to give a page number for each. How does that amount to OKing the listing of a page number for every point the student is making? I flatly insist that she not do such a thing, even though that’s what she ought to do if she cites every little point, as she is doing.
November 21st, 2010 | 6:27 pm | #7
So for something to be “less immoral” does not entail that it is “more moral.” Interesting.
November 21st, 2010 | 6:30 pm | #8
Mr. Pierce, you wrote, “But is it safe to assume that the higher number of priests is entirely due to gay sex? Aren’t priests a lot more likely to have been involved in caring for people at risk for AIDS, and especially going back to the time when it wasn’t a well-studied disease you might have expected less concern for sanitary conditions. I don’t have a clue which should be a more likely explanation for any case chosen at random without knowing more information. I certainly wouldn’t assume a priori that any given percentage of them must have been due to gay sex.”
This is a charitable interpretation, but unlikely. Isn’t HIV rather difficult to contract in the normal run of things, even when one is around people with HIV? Infection is far more likely to occur in the way one would expect it to occur, is it not?
November 21st, 2010 | 6:33 pm | #9
Okay, let me amend Post 7: “except in the sense that it fulfills a secondary moral obligation that shouldn’t have arisen in the first place.” Still interesting.
November 21st, 2010 | 7:59 pm | #10
Craig Payne: You’re right, HIV is very difficult to catch. For one thing, it’s a very fragile virus. And, when exposed to air, begins to be deactivated. In fact, I cannot think of a single case where it was acquired via handshakes, hugs, kissing, normal, everyday interaction. The virus, if it happens to have made it, somewhere outside of its victim’s body, will very quickly “die” or, more accurately (since viruses, strictly speaking, are not “alive”) deactivate.
Even if a person has sexual relations with a person, wh’s a victim of HIV, it does not necessarily mean she/he will then become HIV positive. It depends on the particular sex act, and the amount of HIV in the fluids being transmitted. But it’s certainly a stupid risk to knowingly have sex with an HIV infected person.
November 22nd, 2010 | 8:01 am | #11
[...] on the Evangel blog, Jeremy Pierce explains the moral reasoning behind Pope Benedict’s recent comment on the use of condoms: There’s a category of moral [...]
November 22nd, 2010 | 9:05 am | #12
[...] Moral obligations in the midst of immoral behavior. [...]
November 22nd, 2010 | 9:05 am | #13
[...] Moral obligations in the midst of immoral behavior. [...]
November 22nd, 2010 | 10:16 am | #14
First, thanks for this very thoughtful analysis.
Second, I have to say that I must disagree with Mr. Pierce when he discusses Andrew Sullivan’s response as regards the issue of a heterosexual couple using a condom. The use of a condom is not immoral if it has no contraceptive effect. Unless I am mistaken, the Church’s objection to condoms is because they are an instrument or means of artificial contraception. If they are not being used as a means of artificial contraception then their use per se is not sinful. Of course, the example which Pope Benedict gave for their possible use involves a gravely immoral act, but, as Mr. Pierce points out, if one is going to engage in that act anyway, then the use of the condom does not add to the acts immorality nor add to it another immoral act. On the other hand, an sexual act between a man and a woman which is by its nature potentially procreative (whether the act is moral (i.e., between a husband and wife) or immoral (e.g., adultery, incest, prostitution, or other act of fornication) is, like the act the Pope described, immoral in itself and the use of a condom would, as I understand Catholic teaching, add another immoral act, artificial contraception. If the Church takes the position that a man and a woman may use a condom for health reason even though it will act as an artificial contraceptive, that — at least as I understand the longstanding Catholic position — would be a change in the Church’s teaching. (Obviously, if the sexual act between a man and a woman was not by its nature potentially procreative, then, just as with the pope’s example, the act itself would be immoral, but the use of a condom would not add to it immorality or add an additional immoral act.)
See Para. 2370 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which reads, in part: ” ‘[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible’ is intrinsically evil.”
At the least, if Mr. Pierce’s criticism of Mr. Sullivan’s analysis is correct, it would be a clarification which would to many of us reflect an understanding of the Church’s teaching which we previously misapprehended and which would appear to deviate sharply from the reasoning which we understood to be the basis for the Church’s objection to the use of condoms to fight AIDS when the sexual partners are of the opposite sex.
As I understand the Pope’s remarks, then, I see no change in the Church’s teaching. If his remarks go further, as Mr. Pierce speculates may be the case, then I would welcome greater clarification and I expect that many others would as well. Without additional clarification, I must assume that Mr. Sullivan is correct and Mr. Pierce is mistaken.
November 22nd, 2010 | 10:24 am | #15
Let me add that I’m not agreeing with the general tenor of Mr. Sullivan’s profanity-laden analysis, but merely with the distinction which he notes, and which Mr. Pierce comments on, between acts which may by their nature be potentially procreative and acts which cannot by their nature be potentially procreative as regards the morality of the use of a condom in performing those acts. As usual, Mr. Sullivan uses his pen to attack the Catholic Church and, through it, the natural moral law.
November 22nd, 2010 | 11:52 am | #16
“So for something to be “less immoral” does not entail that it is “more moral.” Interesting.”
It’s interesting yes, but true.
In fact thinking about it, I would contend that immoral is relative, but moral is absolute. Something is moral or not. Some either meets the standards of moral behavior or it does not, but if not it can be farther or closer to those standards. Killing is more immoral, than name calling, but giving 200$ to charity is not more moral than giving $100, or for that matter spending $200 on a TV set, because there is nothing inherently immoral about buying a TV set, all three are moral (licit). It similar to civil law, there are levels of illegality, but one act can’t be more legal than some other act.
November 22nd, 2010 | 1:04 pm | #17
“Secondary Moral Obligations” seems to have been under consideration for awhile at the Vatican. Here are excerpts from an article from nearly 4 years ago:
“The Roman Catholic church has taken the first step towards what could be a historic shift away from its total ban on the use of condoms.
Pope Benedict XVI’s “health minister” is understood to be urging him to accept that in restricted circumstances – specifically the prevention of Aids – barrier contraception is the lesser of two evils.
The recommendations, which have not been made public, still have to be reviewed by the traditionally conservative Vatican department responsible for safeguarding theological orthodoxy, and then by the Pope himself, before any decision is made.
Campaigners and organisations involved in the fight against Aids have long been pressing the Vatican to change its stance on condoms, which they believe obstructs attempts to save millions of lives. Last year the head of HIV/Aids at the World Health Organisation initiated talks with the Vatican to see if any movement could be made on the issue.
The Mexican cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, who heads the papal department responsible for health issues, revealed on Tuesday that he had completed the first stage of the review. A 200-page report, reflecting opinion within the church, had been sent to the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s “theology ministry”, he said.
He did not reveal its conclusions. But Cardinal Barragán is known to favour reform and Vatican sources said it was highly likely that he had come out in support of using condoms in marriages where one of the partners was HIV-positive.
The first-hand experience of Roman Catholic missionaries and pastors in the developing world has been the driving force behind the current rethink. But it is also noted in the Vatican that the Pope, when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, left open the possibility of a change in the church’s stance.
The 1987 document Donum Vitae, which he signed together with the late Pope, declared that the Roman Catholic church could never agree to the use of contraceptives in homosexual relationships or by men and women who were not married. However, it omitted to mention married couples. In recent years, the case for condoms as a defence against Aids has been taken up publicly by several Roman Catholic leaders. The Belgian cardinal Godfried Daneels broke the taboo in 2004 when he said it was morally different from using a condom for birth control.
The following year, the Pope’s own theologian, Cardinal Georges Cottier signalled doubts within the papal household and argued that the Roman Catholic “theology of life” could be used to justify a lifting of the ban. “The virus is transmitted during a sexual act; so at the same time as [bringing] life there is also a risk of transmitting death,” he said. “And that is where the commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’ is valid.”
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a former archbishop of Milan who was considered a candidate for the papacy, said earlier this year that a married person with HIV was “obliged” to protect his or her partner from the disease.”
From Here.
(H/T to Steve Hays)
November 22nd, 2010 | 2:09 pm | #18
i agree with mr. laughlin. if the catholic church were to condone condom use in instances of potentially procreative sexual acts, it would signal a profound change in her doctrine. it would also mean the introduction of consequentialism into the church’s moral theology.
i am confident pope benedict knows these facts to be true and has no plans to commit such grave doctrinal and philosophical errors.
finally, why “most people haven’t picked up” on the distinction between unprocreative genital acts and procreative genital acts is a mystery to me. it was the first thought in my mind!
November 22nd, 2010 | 2:25 pm | #19
It seems to be the conclusion of some people that if a male prostitute infected with HIV has sex with a male client, he may licitly use a condom to prevent HIV transmission. However, if the male prostitute has a female client, he may not use a condom. Therefore, it is fulfilling a “secondary moral obligation” to prevent the infection of a male client, but the male prostitute must put the female client at risk both of pregnancy and HIV infection. This strikes me as bizarre. Suppose instead of a male prostitute with a female customer, we have a male rapist. Would anyone argue that it compounds the evil of rape for a rapist to wear a condom to protect a female victim from either disease or pregnancy? Does a rapist have a “secondary moral obligation” NOT to use contraception?
November 22nd, 2010 | 2:32 pm | #20
to mr. nickol,
i might be wrong, but i believe in instances of rape, the church’s position is that it would be licit for condoms to be used. just as it would be licit to kill someone in self-defense.
November 22nd, 2010 | 3:06 pm | #21
@David Nickols
I do not know that the pope is calling the use of condoms “licit”. He said what he said, that the use of condoms in situations in which their use is not otherwise immoral (i.e., is not contraceptive) is “a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility.” Does that mean that the use is licit? I’m not so sure. What it is is not immoral. The acts in which the condoms are used in the pope’s example are gravely sinful, but the use of the condoms per se in such acts is not immoral.
The pope could hardly approve in any fashion, however, of an intrinsically immoral act to achieve a desire end (“the ends do not justify the means” or “one may not do evil so that good may result”). In cases in which the use of a condom would be potentially contraceptive, that use would be immoral according to the teaching of the Catholic Church and, therefore, would never be justifiable, licit or moral. In cases in which their use would have no contraceptive effect, then their use is not, per se, immoral or evil. That’s all it seems to me the pope has said and he could not, it seems to me, say what you propose regarding coitus without dramatically altering the teaching of the Catholic Church and saying, in effect, that one might do evil that good would result or that the ends justify the means. I doubt he would ever say such a thing. I certainly hope he would not.
November 22nd, 2010 | 3:21 pm | #22
Gregory Laughlin: “At the least, if Mr. Pierce’s criticism of Mr. Sullivan’s analysis is correct, it would be a clarification which would to many of us reflect an understanding of the Church’s teaching which we previously misapprehended and which would appear to deviate sharply from the reasoning which we understood to be the basis for the Church’s objection to the use of condoms to fight AIDS when the sexual partners are of the opposite sex.
As I understand the Pope’s remarks, then, I see no change in the Church’s teaching. If his remarks go further, as Mr. Pierce speculates may be the case, then I would welcome greater clarification and I expect that many others would as well. Without additional clarification,….”
As a side observation, I can’t help but notice all the remarks about “clarification” in the above comment.
One of the objections to Sola Scriptura from a Roman Catholic doctrinal perspective is the lack of perspicuity in Scripture. Hence the need for an Infallible Magisterium to Infallibly Interpret Scripture Authoritatively.
Yet oddly, when there’s a need for clarity from the Pope and the Magisterium on moral issues like these, folks are still asking for more definitive clarity from the Magisterium. I hope that the Magisterium does not withhold the requested clarity on these moral doctrines and practices.
November 22nd, 2010 | 3:33 pm | #23
@TUAD,
Actually, I believe the pope was clear enough. I would only need further clarification if he intended to mean something akin to what Mr. Pierce suggests he could have meant. I simply don’t believe he intended to go as far as Mr. Pierce suggests he might and see nothing in his remarks that would warrant such a supposition.
However, I agree with you that added clarity is always welcomed.
November 22nd, 2010 | 4:38 pm | #24
@Gregory K. Laughlin,
You say: “In cases in which the use of a condom would be potentially contraceptive, that use would be immoral according to the teaching of the Catholic Church and, therefore, would never be justifiable, licit or moral.”
I do not believe this is correct. Note this news story from 2006:
The Vatican is not in the habit of commissioning studies about questions they already have definitive answers to. The study was shelved, but the question as to whether it is permissible for a married couple to use condoms — without contraceptive intent — to prevent HIV transmission from an infected spouse to an uninfected spouse remains without an official answer.
It is explicitly stated in Humanae Vitae that “the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever.” There is no reason that I can see that would necessarily rule out prevention of disease. And of course the pill is used licitly by Catholic women for noncontraceptive purposes (although some who are very conservative might be troubled by this). In any case, it is definitely not a teaching of the Church that something is forbidden if it might be contraceptive in its effect. Deliberately willed contraception is prohibited, but contraception as an unintended side effect is clearly permitted, otherwise women would not be permitted to breast feed!
November 22nd, 2010 | 5:25 pm | #25
@David Nickol,
You may be correct and we will see in time, I suppose. However, I do not see how such a teaching would be consistent with para. 2370 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If the Church ultimately does what you suggest, then I would hope that it would make an effort to show how such an approach will be consistent with para. 2370. (I’m not taking a position on whether or not such an approach would be doctrinally sound — I’m not a Catholic, much less a part of the magisterium) –, but merely whether it would be consistent with the existing teaching of the Catholic Church.)
Your statement regarding breast feeding is, if I may say, an act of sophistry. Mother’s breast feeding is a natural act which has the unintended, but NATURAL consequence of delaying a return to fertility. It is not, however, a contraceptive act in any manner and certainly not an artificial one. It does nothing to interfere with the NATURAL fertility or infertility of the married couple. The infertility that results is NATURAL. And, in fact, fertility can and does return while mothers continue to breast feed. I have first hand proof of this. Each of my sons (our second child and fourth child) were conceived while my wife was nursing their older sisters (our first child and third child). Naturally, our relations were in accord with para. 2370 or else our sons would not have been conceived. Any use of a condom while performing coitus would not be in accord with para. 2370 as I read and as seems plain by its wording.
November 22nd, 2010 | 5:27 pm | #26
“@TUAD,
Actually, I believe the pope was clear enough.”
Hi Gregory Laughlin,
Do you know if past popes or the present pope has been clear enough on the Church’s teaching regarding what these two cardinals have discussed:
“The following year, the Pope’s own theologian, Cardinal Georges Cottier signalled doubts within the papal household and argued that the Roman Catholic “theology of life” could be used to justify a lifting of the ban. “The virus is transmitted during a sexual act; so at the same time as [bringing] life there is also a risk of transmitting death,” he said. “And that is where the commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’ is valid.”
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a former archbishop of Milan who was considered a candidate for the papacy, said earlier this year that a married person with HIV was “obliged” to protect his or her partner from the disease.”“
November 22nd, 2010 | 8:33 pm | #27
This is the best and most accurate comments concerning the Pope’s statements.
But second only to Fr. Lombardi’s article on statements on Zenit
.http://www.zenit.org/article-31024?l=english
For other secondary obligations demanding exceptions on use of contraception, please read these:
http://catholicposition.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-is-contraception-necessary-outside.html
http://catholicposition.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-p-noy-should-go-on-with-his.html
November 22nd, 2010 | 8:49 pm | #28
Craig (#8): I don’t care which is more likely. When it comes to slandering someone’s character, I don’t assume the interpretation that’s worse for them when the alternative is merely less likely. When I asked if it’s safe to assume that, I acknowledged that I have no idea which is more likely. The likelihood isn’t the issue. The possibility is. I don’t assume the less charitable alternative when I’m aware of a possible interpretation that’s more charitable, and I indeed consider such assumptions to be immoral.
November 22nd, 2010 | 9:41 pm | #29
Gregory (#14), Steve Hays emailed me the link to this story, which TUAD quoted above, and that does suggest that those within the Catholic hierarchy would see it as a revision of their policy if they allowed condoms for non-contraceptive purposes. But, as TUAD points out, it also shows that this is no sudden change if indeed it is a change.
I don’t think the passage you cited actually shows what you think it shows (a claim you reiterate in #25). It deals specifically with intentions and purposes, not with consequences of acts committed with other purposes in mind. The passage you quoted doesn’t even give an argument against a couple in their 80s using a condom to prevent making a mess of their sheets. If their goal is not contraception, that particular prohibition that you quoted is silent on it. It’s compatible with further prohibitions on such acts, but it doesn’t itself prohibit them.
What is specifically says is that it’s wrong to act in a way that proposes to prevent conception, either as an end or a means. If the end is simply contraception, it’s immoral. If the contraception is a means to a further end (even a good one, such as being responsible in parental obligations one already has) then it’s still immoral. But if contraception is neither the end nor the means, then this prohibition says nothing about the act.
I will say that I have not yet seen an argument clearly delivered by the Roman Catholic hierarchy (as opposed to, say, popular-level expositions of it) that prohibits all condom use on Catholic principles when the purpose of such use is not contraception. But I’m not well-read in the relevant texts that I’d need to know to make an informed claim on the matter. It just strikes me that what I do know might (and certainly should) allow for the case Sullivan presents.
David Nickol (#24) has quoted the section of Humanae Vitae that I was remembering but had forgotten the exact details of. Since that’s clear, and your interpretation of paragraph 2370 does not follow from the text, I’ll go with Humanae Vitae as indicative of Catholic teaching.
November 22nd, 2010 | 9:41 pm | #30
Andrew (#18) and Gregory (#22): I strongly take issue with your claim that this would be consequentialism (or the equivalent claim that this would involve the ends justifying the means).
If you only allow for two views, Kantian absolutism and consequentialism, then it certainly means that rejecting Kantian absolutism leaves you with consequentialism. But those aren’t the only ethical theories. Kantian absolutism isn’t even the only deontological theory. W.D. Ross famously developed a moderated deontology that accepts prima facie principles that might be preempted by moral principles that take priority in certain cases. Thomas Aquinas had a deontological natural law theory that involve a virtue-ethical component, which involves a number of non-consequentialist but also non-absolutist principles.
Aquinas approvingly cites Plato’s example of the immorality of returning weapons to someone who is in a dangerous mental state, even though it’s immoral normally not to return what you borrow. That’s not consequentialism. It’s recognizing that one moral principle might take precedence over another, something Jesus himself insisted on. Kant never allowed for moral principles that conflict with each other. If it’s ever wrong, it’s always wrong. But you need not be a consequentialist to think that there are some moral principles that take precedence over other moral principles.
What matters in this case is that the principle not to cause someone’s death is more important than the natural law principles that ground the prohibition on contraception. Both are commandments the Roman Catholic hierarchy would insist are from God. But they conflict in this case. All it takes is to think the command not to cause the death of a relative innocent is more fundamental a moral command than the prohibition on contraception, and you can hold such a view without adopting consequentialism. There’s nothing in this argument that relies on the slightest change in consequences being enough to shift the moral status of an action.
As for the “most people haven’t picked up” comment, I’m not sure if you’re questioning my claim that most people haven’t picked it up or if you’re just honestly wondering why they didn’t pick up on such an obvious thing. If it’s the former, go ahead and read the articles I linked to. They really don’t seem sensitive to that distinction. If it’s the latter, I have a pretty easy explanation. They’re not Catholic, and they have not a bit of natural law sympathy. They don’t think the distinction matters, and they thus wouldn’t imagine someone else thinking so unless it’s pointed out to them. Sullivan, as an unfaithful but pretending-to-be-faithful Catholic, is well aware of the distinction, given how it affects his own behavior.
November 22nd, 2010 | 9:42 pm | #31
David (#19): I think that’s a pretty good counterexample to the position Sullivan is critiquing (regardless of whether it’s the actual Catholic position). But perhaps here’s something someone holding that position could say:
1. There’s the obligation not to rape. That obligation is not met.
2. There’s the obligation not to engage in sex with condoms. That obligation is not met.
3. There’s the obligation not to risk spread of STDs. That obligaiton is met.
Where you and I would disagree with the Catholic position is on #2. But the thing that most strikes me as immoral about the position you’re critiquing is that it sounds as if it’s not recognizing 3. It seems to me that it could recognize 3 and then say that it both compounds the sin because of 2 while meeting an obligation that the rape could have failed to meet without the condom because of 3. There’s no inconsistency in such a position.
Andrew (#20): I think you misunderstood the example. It’s not about whether someone being raped should want to use a condom. It’s whether the evil rapist uses a condom. Does that make the act less evil, does it make it more evil, or does it do each in different ways? I think the last should be what someone holding this position should say.
November 22nd, 2010 | 11:59 pm | #32
Independent of the important issue at hand, I think the idea of secondary moral obligations is a really useful one. Sometimes we try to simplify the world into one where you should always do what is right and you should never do what is wrong. I agree that that is the ideal, but sometimes due to a wrong choice and sometimes due to external forces, we end up in a situation where what is right in the ideal world may not be what will set us back on to the path we should take.
I don’t want to take that idea too far though. If we do not make that determination prayerfully and thoughtfully, then taking secondary moral obligations into account can lead to self justification of sin.
November 23rd, 2010 | 6:09 am | #33
The idea of a sort of sliding scale between good and bad is, literally, nonsensical. Good and bad choices are no more equivalent than apprehension and misapprehension, truth and error, are equivalent species of the same genus; rather, bad choices are paralogisms.
The good choice, “This – being such – is to be done,” is intelligible, because intelligent (for acts of the understanding are specified by their object); the act of the bad will is a surd, ultimately unintelligible. True enough, we can often trace its causes to instinctive or dispositional factors, but it remains logically incoherent.
November 23rd, 2010 | 7:18 am | #34
If there’s a bisexual male prostitute is it his “Secondary Moral Obligation” to:
(A) Wear a condom when he’s having sex with a man.
(B) To not wear a condom when he’s having sex with a woman.
Does Catholic doctrine from the infallible Pope and/or the infallible Magisterium clearly address this?
November 23rd, 2010 | 7:22 am | #35
Well, here we go. He did not intend to restrict it to male-male acts but was just giving that as an example. So Sullivan’s speculative assumption that several people here have affirmed as true is simply false.
November 23rd, 2010 | 8:50 am | #36
“Craig (#8): I don’t care which is more likely. When it comes to slandering someone’s character, I don’t assume the interpretation that’s worse for them when the alternative is merely less likely. When I asked if it’s safe to assume that, I acknowledged that I have no idea which is more likely. The likelihood isn’t the issue. The possibility is. I don’t assume the less charitable alternative when I’m aware of a possible interpretation that’s more charitable, and I indeed consider such assumptions to be immoral.”
Dear Jeremy Pierce: When it comes to slandering “someone’s” character, I would agree with you. In any particular instance, I would have no idea as to the provenance of an infection. For example, I would not automatically assume someone with liver cirrhosis also has a drinking problem.
When dealing with populations, however, one deals with statistical likelihood. For example, liver cirrhosis has a high connection with heavy drinking. It isn’t immoral to note that fact.
November 23rd, 2010 | 9:48 am | #37
@Jeremy,
Your position is certainly strengthen by the article to which you link in which the pope applies the same principle to heterosexual intercourse and your reading of para. 2370 is certainly different than mine has been, but admittedly plausible. Again, however, while not a Catholic, I must say that if this is leading to the understanding your suggest and which may even be hinted at by the pope’s clarification, then I think it has to be seen as a liberalization of the prior teaching. I’m not condemning or praising the merits of such a change, only observing it. Obviously, you disagree.
November 23rd, 2010 | 10:34 am | #38
To be clear, what I’ve ended up with is not the view that this has been the teaching all along. It’s that the teaching all along has not been more than suggestive on this particular question, with room to go in either direction (and thus you’ve found bishops and cardinals on opposite sides). Thus some have assumed it to be one way, and thus they’d see this as a change. I’m not convinced on that from what I’ve seen, and there do seem to be signs that they’ve at least been open to this clarification and thus wouldn’t see it as a change but only a clarification. I think that’s how the pope himself is seeing it, judging by his choice of language.
November 23rd, 2010 | 10:36 am | #39
Craig, I certainly agree that it’s not as bad to make large-scale assumptions about statistical facts than it is to make them about individuals. But I still want to be careful and not assume something that may not be true when the people involved are still people, even though you’re dealing with them in the plural. It might be all right to observe that there probably is a certain number of them of which a certain thing is true. But I wouldn’t want to say it more strongly than that if it amounts to an accusation of a character issue.
November 23rd, 2010 | 11:48 am | #40
“Well, here we go. He did not intend to restrict it to male-male acts but was just giving that as an example.”
Wow, Jeremy! That link you provided was… illuminating. Here are excerpts that I thought was interesting:
o “But the latest interpretation of Benedict’s comments about condoms and HIV essentially means the Roman Catholic Church is acknowledging that its long-held, anti-birth control stance against condoms doesn’t justify putting someone’s life at risk.”
o “Once the pope has made a pronouncement, his priests will be in the forefront in advocating for their perceived use of condoms,” said the official, Dr. Brima Kargbo.
o “By acknowledging that condoms help prevent spread of HIV between people in sexual relationships, the pope has completely changed the Catholic discussion on condoms,” Martin said.
“We’re not just talking about an encounter between two men, which has little to do with procreation. We’re now introducing relationships that could lead to childbirth,” he said.
o “”This pope gave this interview. He was not foolish. It was intentional. He thought that this was a way of bringing up many questions. Why? Because it’s true that the church sometimes has not been too clear,” Suaudeau said.
——-
#1. I applaud Pope Benedict XVI’s decision on this matter.
#2. In keeping with the theme/topic of this post is there a “Secondary Moral Obligation” for the Pope and the Magisterium to be CLEAR on moral doctrines and practices when teaching the doctrines and practices of the Church?
November 23rd, 2010 | 2:48 pm | #41
Today’s statement that the Pope’s comments applied to female prostitutes as well as male certainly does make the conversation more interesting and complex because now the choice to use a condom is a contraceptive act, whereas with a male prostitute it is not.
The disagreement in interpreting Humanae Vitae between Jeremy and Gregory reflects the main divide among orthodox Catholic moral theologians on the issue of using condoms to prevent AIDS more generally.
One school of thought, exemplified by Martin Rhonheimer, argues that there is a parallel between this case and the medical uses of birth control pills permitted by Humanae Vitae, using the principle of double effect. The health effect is the intent of the action, not contracepting, and the health effect is not caused by the contracepting, but rather occurs as a parallel effect of the action. The same logic applies to condom use to prevent AIDS.
The second school of thought, represented by Janet Smith, argues that the use of a condom is significantly different from taking a birth control pill because it changes the nature of the sexual act. She argues that the act is more akin to a masturbatory act because the man’s semen does not enter the woman’s vagina (to be blunt!). Therefore the act itself is morally unethical, regardless of whatever positive effects it might have.
I find the first school of thought’s approach more persuasive because the latter defines the action too much in terms of biological happenings rather than human purposes. Now knowing that Pope Benedict meant his statement to apply to at least some heterosexual acts, one might come away thinking that he was also endorsing the first school of thought, but I think the statement leaves the question unsettled.
First, to use Jeremy’s phrase, it is entirely possible that a “secondary moral obligation” might itself be an immoral act, although this raises a lot of complications already mentioned in the article.
Second, we need to consider the context of prostitution. According to Catholic teaching, in a case of rape it is permissible to use an emergency contraceptive (although attempting to avoid its abortifacient properties) to prevent conception because the act was not a truly conjugal act. Could the same logic apply to prostitution? Here we also do not have a truly conjugal act,although unlike rape it is uncoerced (although the prostitute is likely in that condition for reasons not entirely voluntary). I don’t know if there is any Catholic reflection on that question. But still, the pope’s statement should not be extended to apply to cases of a married couple using a condom to prevent AIDS; that question appears to still be open.
November 23rd, 2010 | 4:41 pm | #42
I think legalism is destroying the intention of the prohibition against contraception. The prohibition against contraception flows from the fundamental concept that one’s body is not incidental to one’s existence. One’s body is part and parcel of one’s existence. Humans have the ability to pro-create. That act is often pleasurable. The pleasure, however, is not incidental. It is a gift from God. The prohibition against contraception, then, exists to protect the dignity of sex by teaching that sexual intercourse should not be used as simply a means to pleasure without regard for its natural end, which of course is conception. Lewis rightly analogizes with the example of eating. Eating is often pleasurable, but chewing food for the taste and then spitting out the food is a violation of the dignity of eating.
Arguing back and forth about whether or not prostitutes should or should not use condoms seems extrinsic to the conversation since the instance of sexual intercourse in such relations is diametrically opposed to Christian teaching. I wonder how far we take the concept of secondary obligations. If I murder in cold blood, should I use a clean knife for my stabbing. After all, the victim might survive the stabbing, but might die later of an infection caused by a dirty knife.
Then again, I agree with the Pope that one ought to act as morally as possible, and in the instances he cites, it’s hard to argue with him. The biggest problem for me is the legalism surrounding the issue.
November 23rd, 2010 | 8:52 pm | #43
“But still, the pope’s statement should not be extended to apply to cases of a married couple using a condom to prevent AIDS; that question appears to still be open.”
The question’s being examined. Look at this article from 4 years ago:
“A forthcoming Vatican document is set to state that use of condoms by a married couple, where one partner is infected with HIV/AIDS and the other is not, can be acceptable to prevent the transmission of the disease.
Sources say the document will insist that this position does not mark a break with the church’s traditional ban on birth control, expressed in Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae. What would be approved is not contraception, they say, but disease prevention.
The document caps a wide public discussion among senior church officials on condoms and AIDS. Among those who have publicly spoken in favor of condoms where one partner in a marriage is HIV-positive include Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the former archbishop of Milan; Swiss Cardinal George Cottier, theologian of the papal household under John Paul II; Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium; Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster, England; and Bishop Kevin Dowling of South Africa.
In an October 2004 interview with NCR, Lozano Barragàn himself took the same view.
“If an infected husband wants to have sex with his wife who isn’t infected, then she must defend herself by whatever means necessary,” he said then. This position, he said, is consistent with the tenets of traditional Catholic moral theology, which teaches that acts of self-defense can extend to killing in order to not be killed.
“If a wife can defend herself from having sex by whatever means necessary, why not with a condom?” he said.
Moral theologians caution that until the precise reasoning in the document is known, how sweeping a statement it represents cannot be assessed.
One way of phrasing the key moral question is this: In the context of a married couple where one partner is HIV-positive is use of a condom merely a “lesser evil” that can be tolerated or is it a good that can be recommended?
If the document simply asserts that a condom is a “lesser evil,” experts say it would do little more than ratify what is already a broad consensus among Catholic moral theologians.
Traditionally, confessors and pastors have long been permitted to counsel a “lesser evil” to prevent greater harm. For example, if a mob boss tells a priest he intends to kill an enemy, and if the mob boss can’t be persuaded to change his mind, the priest could advise him to beat up the enemy instead. Under those circumstances, the priest is not approving the beating, merely tolerating it to avoid an even worse outcome.
As applied to condoms, the “lesser evil” argument works in a similar fashion. If there’s a danger of HIV infection, it runs, a married couple should abstain from sex altogether. If they can’t be persuaded to do so, however, it’s better that they use the condom rather than endangering life. The same reasoning, in fact, applies to sex outside marriage. The condom is still immoral, it’s just better than the alternative.
Phrased that way, most theologians say few would dispute the conclusion. The question is one of communications and pastoral judgment. Some doubt if it’s wise for church leaders to speak openly about condoms as a “lesser evil,” since the world may hear it as a blanket authorization for irresponsible sexual activity.
If, however, the new Vatican document goes further, saying that condoms can be morally licit in the context of married couples with HIV/AIDS because, in those circumstances, the act is no longer contraception, it would represent a victory for one side in a burgeoning theological debate over whether it’s the physical nature of an act or the intent with which it’s performed which should be most decisive in moral analysis.
Broadly speaking, some Catholic moralists argue that because the only licit form of sexuality takes place within marriage and must be open to life, intercourse using condoms is, by the physical character of the act, immoral. They point to Paul VI’s insistence in Humanae Vitae that sexual activity must be “apt in itself” for the generation of children.”
Read it all at Vatican draft document would approve condoms for married couples with AIDS
November 24th, 2010 | 7:23 am | #44
Craig (#35): I agree with you that it’s worse to make assumptions about individuals than to make judgments of statistical likelihoods about a large group of people. Nonetheless, I still want to be careful, because large groups are composed of individual people, and general statements can be too easily interpreted in a comprehensive way about every person in the group.
TUAD (#37): “In keeping with the theme/topic of this post is there a “Secondary Moral Obligation” for the Pope and the Magisterium to be CLEAR on moral doctrines and practices when teaching the doctrines and practices of the Church?”
Obviously there’s a moral obligation to be clear. I don’t think it depends on whether the original belief is correct. If their teaching is immoral, is there an obligation that follows that they should be clear? I hesitate, because making an immoral teaching clear may actually be worse. If the teaching is not immoral, then obviously they should be clear. But that’s not a secondary obligation. It’s a primary obligation. It’s not dependent on an immoral act.
Matthew (#38): “Second, we need to consider the context of prostitution. According to Catholic teaching, in a case of rape it is permissible to use an emergency contraceptive (although attempting to avoid its abortifacient properties) to prevent conception because the act was not a truly conjugal act.”
Hold on a minute. Where are you getting this from? That would be entirely different from the cases we’re talking about. That’s preventing conception for the sake of preventing conception, whereas the cases we were talking about would have the effect of preventing conception but for the purpose of preventing the spread of a fatal virus. I’d be truly shocked if Benedict even had to stop and think about your case. He’s flatly deny it without a thought. What he’s said here has in no way allowed for that sort of thing.
On a more healthy (in my view) attitude toward contraception, I would say that your case is a very good example of a secondary obligation, except that it’s not depending on one’s own immoral act but on someone else’s (the rapist’s). In that sense it’s analogous to war. War is usually immoral, but when there’s a just cause and the other just war criteria are met, you have an obligation to go to war and to conduct it according to the strictures of just war theory. That can only happen given someone else’s immoral act.
The prostitution case, however, is more like the cases we’ve been talking about. Someone with a healthier view of contraception (in my view) would consider that a case where the act is immoral, but it creates a secondary moral obligation to use a condom, not just for the purpose of preventing disease spread but also for the purpose of contraception, because it would be immoral in such a situation (given one’s own immorality) not to take steps to prevent the creation of a life who will almost certainly be abandoned by one parent (among potentially other reasons, depending on the circumstances). But Catholics will never go for such reasoning.
November 24th, 2010 | 7:24 am | #45
Orthodoxdj (#39): You’re actually not getting the view right if you’re characterizing it as holding Thomas Aquinas’ position that conception is the only purpose of sex or that it’s mere pleasure that drives a married couple to have contracepted sex. Roman Catholicism has consistently affirmed the unitive purpose in marriage as equally important for quite some time now (at least since Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae), and the pleasure is a means to achieving that end, and this is certainly a biblical view.
On the eating example from Lewis, consider gum-chewing. Would Lewis insist that gum-chewing without swallowing is immoral? It seems to be just for the taste but not for nutritive value, and we’re always told to spit it out and not swallow it. But it turns out that gum-chewing has other purposes. It can help smokers quit smoking. Surely it’s better to become dependent on gum-chewing than to remain addicted to tobacco. It can help autistic people get sensory input that they crave without giving in to their urges to put inappropriate objects in their mouths. There are less extreme versions of both of these among people without tobacco addictions or autism.
I don’t have all that much patience for the view that we should always have every natural purpose for an action or an organ with a natural purpose or else it’s immoral. I don’t really have a problem using my tongue to lick a stamp. I don’t see anything wrong with using your tongue in kissing, without biting off the other person’s tongue and swallowing it, even though the most obvious natural purpose for the tongue is for tasting food that you intend to eat. You need a lot more to supplement natural law principles to get the wrongness of contraception than what’s actually available in the arguments I’ve seen.
Arguing back and forth about whether or not prostitutes should or should not use condoms seems extrinsic to the conversation since the instance of sexual intercourse in such relations is diametrically opposed to Christian teaching. I wonder how far we take the concept of secondary obligations. If I murder in cold blood, should I use a clean knife for my stabbing. After all, the victim might survive the stabbing, but might die later of an infection caused by a dirty knife.
The reason your example sounds silly is because you’ve chosen a secondary element that frustrates the original intention entirely. That’s not so with the examples we’ve been discussing. But nevertheless, I would say that there’s an obligation that such a person meets when using a clean knife that is not met when using a dirty knife.
November 24th, 2010 | 8:48 am | #46
Jeremy Pierce
“I don’t have all that much patience for the view that we should always have every natural purpose for an action or an organ with a natural purpose or else it’s immoral. I don’t really have a problem using my tongue to lick a stamp.”
I’m not so sure about that, Jeremy. Stamp-licking strikes me as a paradigm-case of morally disordered behavior. At the very least, stamp-lickers are on the slippery slope to mortal sin.
Perhaps stamp-licking is licit if certain mitigating circumstances are in play, like the double-effect principle. I guess it all depends on whether stamp-licking is the primary intention of the stamp-licker, or an unintended side-effect of his real goal (i.e. communication via snail mail). I do hope a Vatican spokesman will step forward to clarity this thorny moral conundrum before you cross the line of no return in your philatelic activities.
November 24th, 2010 | 9:15 am | #47
Jeremy Pierce
“I don’t have all that much patience for the view that we should always have every natural purpose for an action or an organ with a natural purpose or else it’s immoral. I don’t really have a problem using my tongue to lick a stamp.”
But Jeremy, that overlooks the morally crucial distinction between philatelic intent per se, and philatelic intent per accidens!
November 24th, 2010 | 10:31 am | #48
Monsignor Jacques Suaudeau, an expert on the Vatican’s bioethics advisory board: ”This pope gave this interview. He was not foolish. It was intentional. He thought that this was a way of bringing up many questions. Why? Because it’s true that the church sometimes has not been too clear,” Suaudeau said.
Me: “In keeping with the theme/topic of this post is there a “Secondary Moral Obligation” for the Pope and the Magisterium to be CLEAR on moral doctrines and practices when teaching the doctrines and practices of the Church?”
Jeremy Pierce: “Obviously there’s a moral obligation to be clear. I don’t think it depends on whether the original belief is correct. If their teaching is immoral, is there an obligation that follows that they should be clear? I hesitate, because making an immoral teaching clear may actually be worse. If the teaching is not immoral, then obviously they should be clear. But that’s not a secondary obligation. It’s a primary obligation. It’s not dependent on an immoral act.”
———
Well, this poses an interesting conundrum. It is proclaimed that the Pope and the Magisterium is Infallible. And you state that it is a Primary Moral Obligation to be clear when teaching on moral doctrines and practices. And yet an expert on the Vatican’s bioethics advisory board confesses: “Because it’s true that the church sometimes has not been too clear.”
Therefore, one can reasonably conclude that the Infallible Pope and Magisterium has sometimes not been too good at keeping their Primary Moral Obligation.
November 24th, 2010 | 12:21 pm | #49
“Therefore, one can reasonably conclude that the Infallible Pope and Magisterium has sometimes not been too good at keeping their Primary Moral Obligation.”
First, if this was supposed to prove that the Pope is human, you could have just asked him.
Second, perhaps a bit of boning up on what Papal Infallibility actually is and entails is in order?
Third, there are degrees of clarity in any communication. Saying something clearly is not immoral, even if there may exist an even more clear way of saying it.
November 24th, 2010 | 2:32 pm | #50
Jeremy,
There’s a lot to be said in response to what you said in response to me earlier, but I’ll try to cut to the chase. Before I do that, let me defend Lewis. Your analogy is a false analogy because gum isn’t food. Food has a purpose. The Romans would gorge themselves, vomit, and gorge again. That is sinful. Licking a stamp is consistent with the nature and purpose of a stamp. Obsessing over food is sinful. Also, the argument Lewis makes really works as a lesser to greater argument. Essentially what he is saying is, “See how ridiculous that seems, to merely chew food and never eat it. If that seems strange and wrong with food, imagine the high and holy act of sexual intercourse. The pleasure is great, but the pleasure ought not be divorced from its proper end.”
Perhaps your problem with much of this, though, is exactly what i have said: legalism. There are some things that are simply ontologically vague, but because not everything is clear does not mean everything is murky. Some issues have clarity, but many issues simply require wisdom. I am not Catholic, but I think the teachings of “theology of the body” make sense because they rightly order our participation in life relative to our nature, not simply sex but i every way that includes our bodies. I have not argued here that sex for pleasure is wrong. What I have argued is that sex without regard to the end of pro-creation is a bad sexual ethic. If pro-creation becomes extrinsic to sex, then the understanding of the meaning and gift of sex is lost. A world that lives out the ethic I advocate is a much better world than one that simply seeks after pleasure.
Incidentally, it is because I take telos arguments seriously that I question eucharistic adoration. It seems to me to be the natural end of the Holy Eucharist to be consumed.
November 24th, 2010 | 2:57 pm | #51
Craig Payne: “Second, perhaps a bit of boning up on what Papal Infallibility actually is and entails is in order?”
Would you say that Papal Infallibility Yields Certainty?
“God gave us an infallible authority on Earth so we can know the truth, and that authority is the pope, who is always right. Except when he’s not. And you can tell which he is because a later pope or church council informs you of which he was. Unless an even later church council says that particular church council is wrong, usually after an even later pope says the previous later pope erred. And we know the later-later pope is actually correct because there isn’t yet a later-later-later pope than this current-later pope who corrected the later pope that verified/refuted the original pope. And there is no later-later-later council to dispute either current-pope or current-council, since the later-later-council hasn’t been formed yet either.
How could anyone get more certainty than from this process?”
November 24th, 2010 | 3:32 pm | #52
Orthodoxdj
“There’s a lot to be said in response to what you said in response to me earlier, but I’ll try to cut to the chase. Before I do that, let me defend Lewis. Your analogy is a false analogy because gum isn’t food. Food has a purpose. The Romans would gorge themselves, vomit, and gorge again. That is sinful. Licking a stamp is consistent with the nature and purpose of a stamp. Obsessing over food is sinful.”
And it gets even worse. Just consider cut flowers. What an abomination! Image buying your sweetheart a bouquet of roses just to make her happy? How decadent! How hedonistic! Flower shops should be outlawed as a crime against natural law.
And let’s not even get started on chocolate ice cream.
November 24th, 2010 | 4:18 pm | #53
Dear TUAD: I do not want to sidetrack this thread, so I will leave it at my previous comment: You need to find out what Papal Infallibility means, and when it is actually used. Popes make mistakes, like all of us. That doesn’t derail the actual teaching of P. Infal.
November 24th, 2010 | 5:18 pm | #54
Hi Craig,
Do you have a complete list of RC doctrines that have the imprimatur of being Papally Infallible?
November 24th, 2010 | 6:47 pm | #55
Better yet, where can we find the infallible list of infallible teachings.
November 24th, 2010 | 7:41 pm | #56
“Do you have a complete list of RC doctrines that have the imprimatur of being Papally Infallible?”
Dear TUAD: Not at my fingertips; the only two I know of (over the last couple of hundred years) are Mary’s Assumption and Immaculate Conception.
“Better yet, where can we find the infallible list of infallible teachings.”
Dear Steve Hays: Same place we find the infallible list of biblical books. :)
November 24th, 2010 | 7:42 pm | #57
But I said I wasn’t going to sidetrack this thread, and I MEAN IT.
November 24th, 2010 | 9:17 pm | #58
“Dear TUAD: Not at my fingertips; the only two I know of (over the last couple of hundred years) are Mary’s Assumption and Immaculate Conception.”
That’s it???
Out of all the possible doctrines that could have the imprimatur of being Papally Infallible, the popes over the last couple of hundred years could only speak infallibly about two doctrines about Mary?
What was going on about Mary that it was so crucially important to garner the merit of being Papally Infallible?
Anyways, if a doctrine isn’t Papally Infallible, then it seems that the previous linked analysis holds:
“God gave us an infallible authority on Earth so we can know the truth, and that authority is the pope, who is always right. Except when he’s not. And you can tell which he is because a later pope or church council informs you of which he was. Unless an even later church council says that particular church council is wrong, usually after an even later pope says the previous later pope erred. And we know the later-later pope is actually correct because there isn’t yet a later-later-later pope than this current-later pope who corrected the later pope that verified/refuted the original pope. And there is no later-later-later council to dispute either current-pope or current-council, since the later-later-council hasn’t been formed yet either.”
Anyways, I understand that you don’t want to derail the thread.
But still, the Catholic objections to Sola Scriptura ring really hollow, REALLY HOLLOW, when examining this specific issue of condoms and contraception, and the attending ripples that it causes.
November 24th, 2010 | 11:01 pm | #59
Over on the “First Thoughts” blog, Kevin Staley-Joyce has just offered a couple more interesting examples of these “secondary moral obligations” of which Jeremy Pierce is writing, such as a bank robber using a gun (as a threat) but a gun with no bullets (to limit potential harm from the outset).
The act is immoral, but the robber has moved in the secondary decision (not to use bullets) in a moral direction.
November 24th, 2010 | 11:53 pm | #60
“In keeping with the theme/topic of this post is there a “Secondary Moral Obligation” for the Pope and the Magisterium to be CLEAR on moral doctrines and practices when teaching the doctrines and practices of the Church?”
Jeremy Pierce: “Obviously there’s a [primary] moral obligation to be clear.”
Thanks Jeremy. Here’s a post that speaks to what you’re saying:
The Moral Clarity of Rome.
November 26th, 2010 | 4:02 am | #61
GL #23: “However, I agree with you that added clarity is always welcomed.”
Thanks for the agreement, GL. It seems that for moral issues “interpretive authority” is intertwined with clarity.
From Here:
“Without the papacy, we sadly lack the “interpretive authority” to rightly interpret Scripture.
Of course, that’s an old chestnut, and Protestant apologists have hammered it mercilessly by making the elementary observation that it only pushes the question back a step. By what “interpretive authority” does one interpret the “authoritative interpretations” of the pope?
Now Called to Communion [a blog] has done us the unwitting service of illustrating that very conundrum. Benedict XVI was recently quoted as making some controversial remarks about the use of condoms.
Tim Troutman did a post in which he offered the first clarification of the pope really meant:
“Dr. Janet Smith has written an excellent rebuttal to the irresponsible treatment of this story by the media.”
But her clarification was insufficiently clarificatory, for we find, on comment #4, that “Academic Editor” Bryan Cross offers the second clarification of what the pope really really meant:
“In addition to Janet Smith’s article, Jimmy Akin has posted a helpful clarification here.”
Yet this additional clarification was insufficiently clarificatory, for that’s actually the first of five different clarifications (and counting) which Akin has issued: …
Then on comment #26, “Blog Editor” Sean Patrick offers the third clarification (not counting Akin’s five clarifications) of what the pope really really really meant: …
Yet this “official clarification” doesn’t clarify the pope’s comment to the satisfaction of mateo, Johannes, K. Doran, Ray Stamper, Tim Troutman, and Nathan B., who continue to present conflicting interpretations of what the pope really and truly meant until Michael Liccione pipes in on comment #37. …
So we have a scene of musical popery, where various interpreters continually vie with each other to gloss the true blue meaning of the pope’s statement.
It’s comforting to know that in a world hopelessly lost in moral confusion, the papacy is a beacon in the darkness.”
November 26th, 2010 | 4:20 am | #62
Steve Hays,
Your sarcasm is lost on me. I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove, but should I conclude that you believe that sex without regard for the potential of new life is a good thing?
Consider two things: one) the consistent moral teaching of Christian tradition going back many years. It’s clear that the Church has had a high view of sex; hence, it’s insistence on treating sex as more than simply a means to gratification. Two) couples who engage in sexual activity by obeying the teachings of the Catholic church are happier.
November 26th, 2010 | 8:51 am | #63
Orthodoxdj
“Your sarcasm is lost on me. I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove, but should I conclude that you believe that sex without regard for the potential of new life is a good thing?”
So in a marriage involving either male or female infertility (e.g. an older couple), it’s a bad thing for the couple to make love.
“Consider two things: one) the consistent moral teaching of Christian tradition going back many years. It’s clear that the Church has had a high view of sex…”
i) What you’re pleased to call “the Church” is just a euphemism for a tiny subset of the church, consisting of some bishops or theologians.
ii) Mere tradition enjoys no presumption of verity. Consider the Pharisees.
iii) It’s not at all clear that “the Church” has traditionally held a high view of sex. To the contrary, it traditionally treated marriage as a second best option compared to monasticism.
“…hence, it’s insistence on treating sex as more than simply a means to gratification. Two) couples who engage in sexual activity by obeying the teachings of the Catholic church are happier.”
I prefer obedience to God’s word.
November 26th, 2010 | 10:06 am | #64
“So in a marriage involving either male or female infertility (e.g. an older couple), it’s a bad thing for the couple to make love.”
Dear Steve Hays: No, because it wasn’t their decision to be infertile, and because they are open to the possibility of life should it arise.
“‘Two) couples who engage in sexual activity by obeying the teachings of the Catholic church are happier.’
I prefer obedience to God’s word.”
I know that you know that this is a false dichotomy, and hence not really a good response. “Obeying the teachings of the Catholic church” is not opposed to “obedience to God’s word.” In fact, the Catechism is filled with hundreds of validating references to the Bible. You might disagree with the use of some of those references, but that does not make their use disobedience to God’s Word as found in the Bible.
November 26th, 2010 | 10:08 am | #65
P.S. I know this is a day late, but I forgot earlier, so: Happy Thanksgiving to all. The fact that we take that day to worship our Lord trumps by far the disagreements we continue to have. God bless and keep us all, and may He bless our nation.
November 26th, 2010 | 10:44 am | #66
Craig Payne
“Dear Steve Hays: No, because it wasn’t their decision to be infertile…”
That introduces a caveat which Orthodoxdj didn’t mention. You’re welcome to improve on his argument. But I was responding to his actual argument, and not your retrofitted version.
“…and because they are open to the possibility of life should it arise.
What makes you think couples who use birth control can’t be open to the possibility of life should it arise? It’s not a choice between childless couples and having 20 children. There are couples who simply wish to space their children, or limit the number of children.
And, of course, Roman Catholics do the same thing when they practice “natural family planning.”
If, however, the contraceptive measures fail, many couples still go through with the pregnancy (as they should).
“In fact, the Catechism is filled with hundreds of validating references to the Bible. You might disagree with the use of some of those references, but that does not make their use disobedience to God’s Word as found in the Bible.”
Filled with token verses to rubberstamp preexisting dogma.
November 26th, 2010 | 11:18 pm | #67
Steve,
It would be more fruitful to dialogue with you if you were more respectful. I could be a total jerk, too, which is something my flesh calls me to be, but I’m trying to be civil. Straw men and ad homs don’t make your arguments compelling and winsome and they only make you out to be less than Christian in character.
November 27th, 2010 | 8:01 am | #68
to TUAD (#45): It is proclaimed that the Pope and the Magisterium is Infallible. And you state that it is a Primary Moral Obligation to be clear when teaching on moral doctrines and practices. And yet an expert on the Vatican’s bioethics advisory board confesses: “Because it’s true that the church sometimes has not been too clear.”
Therefore, one can reasonably conclude that the Infallible Pope and Magisterium has sometimes not been too good at keeping their Primary Moral Obligation.
I have two problems with this. One is that infallibility does not entail comprehensiveness or clarity. It just means never being wrong. You can be infallible without positively stating anything. You can be infallible while stating five things that you got right and nothing else. You can be infallible and unclearly state something that you still truly state. What you can’t do is be infallible and get it wrong.
Second, the pope is not claimed to be infallible except when speaking ex cathedra. To my knowledge (and Craig has already pointed this out), that has happened exactly twice in history, both in the early 20th century. One was about the immaculate conception of Mary (i.e. the doctrine that Mary, contrary to scripture, was conceived without original sin). The other was about the assumption of Mary to heaven ala Enoch or the risen Christ (which is not supportable by scripture, but at least it doesn’t contradict it, as the immaculate conception does).
November 27th, 2010 | 8:07 am | #69
Orthodoxdj (#47): I think part of the difference I would have is not that Catholics are completely wrong about the theology of the body but that they are absolutists about it. Perhaps that’s what you mean by calling it legalism.
I do insist that when there are multiple purposes, it’s ok to go with one rather than both. Thus I don’t think you can give a purely natural law argument against homosexuality; you need a divine command that isn’t based purely on nature; the wrongness of same-sex sexual relations has to do with perverting the divinely-mandated role of sex as part of marriage, which illustrates the relationship between Father and Son in the Trinity. I don’t think you can show that with extra-biblical arguments.
I have no problem with using food for silly children’s games, provided it isn’t wasting too much food. I have no problem with sex intended not to conceive (and neither do Catholics when they allow NFP), provided you don’t violate moral considerations that remain in place after other moral considerations are factored in. I do think there are strong moral reasons (ones that are sometimes outweighed by more important moral reasons) to resist contraception in many circumstances. But the absolutism of the Catholic view (and the view of many non-Catholics) on this issue strikes me as insensitive to the nature of moral principles as often running in opposite directions. I think it’s a moral obligation for some couples to engage in sexual relations for the sake of marital unity, but they may also have obligations to seek not to have any more children (e.g. they may already be unable to care for the ones they have, and it isn’t just about how many but about the particulars of their situation, including how high-need the kids are). There are circumstances where applying the Catholic view is just morally irresponsible, and that’s compatible with saying Catholic considerations do apply to most marriages.
If it’s about intention, as Pope Paul VI insisted and as Benedict now reaffirms, then NFP intended to avoid conception is immoral. Yet Catholics allow it. If it’s not about intention but about mere possibility of conception, then condoms intended to avoid conception are just fine, because they do allow for the mere possibility of conception (they’re not 100% effective). Either way, it’s hard to get an absolutist prohibition.
November 27th, 2010 | 10:19 am | #70
Hi Jeremy, #65,
Your response invites several counter-responses or observations. Let me just provide two, for the time being.
(1st) You wrote: “What you can’t do is be infallible and get it wrong. … One [infallible papal pronouncement] was about the immaculate conception of Mary (i.e. the doctrine that Mary, contrary to scripture, was conceived without original sin). … [A]t least it doesn’t contradict it [Scripture], as the immaculate conception does).”
A contradiction is like when one party, let’s say the Bible, says that 3 + 4 = 7. And another party, let’s say the RCC, says that 3 + 4 = -96. The two answers are mutually exclusive and contradict each other.
So Jeremy, when you say that the “Immaculate Conception” of Mary contradicts Scripture you are telling me that either the Bible is wrong or that the RCC Pope is wrong. (Let’s assume that one of them is absolutely correct.)
For discussion sake, let’s assume that you believe that Scripture is correct and that Mary was conceived with Original Sin. Then what you are flatly saying is that the Pope in his purportedly infallible ex cathedra pronouncement is WRONG about the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
And he is WRONG on one of the few times that papal infallibility was used. And being wrong, this flatly contradicts the doctrine of papal infallibility.
(2nd) You wrote: “You can be infallible and unclearly state something that you still truly state.”
So based on your primary comments above, you are stating that One can still be infallible without fulfilling the Primary Moral Obligation (#41) to be clear on teaching moral doctrines and practices.
Do you agree that this is your position?
November 27th, 2010 | 10:39 am | #71
Jeremy Pierce, #65: Second, the pope is not claimed to be infallible except when speaking ex cathedra. To my knowledge (and Craig has already pointed this out), that has happened exactly twice in history, both in the early 20th century.
Yes, we know those two things with certainty, beyond a shadow of a doubt. But really, what good are these two things?
For the rest of life, the Protestant paradigm of church authority applies.
November 27th, 2010 | 10:59 am | #72
Gregory Laughlin, Do you agree with Jeremy when he wrote the following:
“If it’s about intention, as Pope Paul VI insisted and as Benedict now reaffirms, then NFP intended to avoid conception is immoral. Yet Catholics allow it. If it’s not about intention but about mere possibility of conception, then condoms intended to avoid conception are just fine, because they do allow for the mere possibility of conception (they’re not 100% effective). Either way, it’s hard to get an absolutist prohibition.”
——
Also, I made several typos in #67 above. It should read:
“So based on your earlier comments above, you are stating that One can still be infallible without fulfilling a Primary Moral Obligation (#41) to be clear on teaching moral doctrines and practices.
November 27th, 2010 | 12:26 pm | #73
Orthodoxdj
“It would be more fruitful to dialogue with you if you were more respectful. I could be a total jerk, too, which is something my flesh calls me to be, but I’m trying to be civil. Straw men and ad homs don’t make your arguments compelling and winsome and they only make you out to be less than Christian in character.”
You’re trying to be “civil” while, in the very same sentence, you call your interlocuter a “total jerk.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think that’s “disrespectful” and “ad hominem,” but you’re above that sort of thing, right?
November 28th, 2010 | 8:22 pm | #74
TUAD (#67.69): So Jeremy, when you say that the “Immaculate Conception” of Mary contradicts Scripture you are telling me that either the Bible is wrong or that the RCC Pope is wrong. (Let’s assume that one of them is absolutely correct.)
I’m not sure why you’re going on about this. I didn’t say the doctrine of papal infallibility is correct or that either of its two pronouncements was a good idea. Both the assumption and the immaculate conception are, frankly, quite dumb ideas that any reasonable consideration of the evidence in scripture would lead us to reject as extremely unlikely and clearly false, respectively. But we shouldn’t confuse the Catholic view of papal infallibility with their view that the current teaching of the magisterium is correct. They don’t think the current catechism is infallible or that ordinary pronouncements of the pope on things such as condoms are infallible, and I was merely pointing that out.
So based on your earlier comments above, you are stating that One can still be infallible without fulfilling a Primary Moral Obligation (#41) to be clear on teaching moral doctrines and practices.
Do you agree that this is your position?
Yes. Infallibility is compatible with failing at an obligation to be clear. You can be quite obtuse without saying anything false, and all infallibility requires is being unable to say anything false.
Of course, we shouldn’t place too high a requirement for clarity. There are plenty of biblical passages that aren’t all that clear on what they mean. For example, how much agreement is there on what it means to be saved through childbearing in I Tim 2? I wouldn’t call that utterly clear. That’s compatible with scripture being infallible and with its providing everything necessary for life and godliness. But a proper doctrine of scripture is not compatible with Paul or God failing at a moral obligation in producing I Timothy the way it is. So unclarity as an obligation has its limits, as evidenced by infallible scripture itself having unclarities. So I’m not sure how high a standard we should hold the pope to on this issue, as much as we’d like him to be clearer. We do have to be consistent in our evaluation of unclear things, at least.
John Bugay (#68): That argument isn’t very strong. I agree with the conclusion that the Protestant doctrine of church authority is correct, but I don’t think abandoning papal infallibility necessarily requires abandoning the rest of Catholic doctrine on this issue. There still is the elevated position of tradition and the authority of the magisterium. While they don’t see those as infallibly, they do place them very high. So being forced to reject papal infallibility because of the contradiction between scripture (which they do take to be inerrant and infallible) and one of the two papal ex cathedra statements will necessarily lead them to reject papal infallibility if they follow the argument all the way, but it doesn’t entail a thing about the magisterium as a reliable office for formulating correct theology or tradition as an elevated almost-canon. But perhaps you weren’t seriously making the argument that it does.
(On #70): I won’t get into who is and who is not being a jerk. I would like to point out that it’s not necessarily an ad hominem to call someone a jerk. If the argument is that the content of the claim is false or that we shouldn’t listen to someone because the person is a jerk, that’s an ad hominem. If it’s that I shouldn’t want to continue a conversation with someone who isn’t treating me well, that’s not an ad hominem. It’s simply a psychological explanation for why I might not want to continue to discuss that issue with that person.
November 28th, 2010 | 11:13 pm | #75
Jeremy Pierce: you seem to be manifesting real disrespect toward Catholics, with your breathtakingly condescending statement, that two Catholic doctrines, accepted by brilliant people (for example, the current Pope) are “quite dumb” “extremely unlikely” and “clearly false”.
Disagree all you wish, but your disrespectful and arrogant claims have no place in this debate.
November 29th, 2010 | 12:16 am | #76
Jeremy Pierce
“I would like to point out that it’s not necessarily an ad hominem to call someone a jerk.”
That’s a lovely example of special pleading. You should be a lawyer instead of a philosopher.
November 29th, 2010 | 2:33 am | #77
“Both the assumption and the immaculate conception are, frankly, quite dumb ideas that any reasonable consideration of the evidence in scripture would lead us to reject as extremely unlikely and clearly false, respectively.”
Jeremy, thanks for your response and the clarity of your response. I understand what you are arguing.
Pax.
November 29th, 2010 | 3:44 pm | #78
TUAD: Actually, Jeremy Pierce was not not making an argument. He was making an assertion. That’s an important distinction.
December 2nd, 2010 | 9:54 pm | #79
Bret, I have a lot of respect for a lot of Catholics, but that’s compatible for thinking they also hold to some stupid ideas. David Lewis was one of the most brilliant and respected philosophers of the 20th century, but he held a few pretty silly ideas, not least the view that we can know of the existence of every possible world merely because such existence makes the theoretical apparatus much simpler for things in the actual world. Nonetheless, I think respect is owed him by any phikosopher who came after him.
Augustine is one of philosophical heroes. Yet he had the dumb idea that Adam would have had to be in complete control of his sexual member with no involuntary responses, if Adam was initially without sin.
As for your last comment, that’s incorrect. I was indeed making an argument. My argument was against TUAD’s claims against the Catholic view of papal infallibility. My respect for Catholicism that you’re pretending not to exist was driving me to defend the doctrine against arguments that get the facts wrong. I was arguing that TUAD’s arguments are not legitimate. When TUAD then misunderstood my view, taking me to hold the Catholic doctrine itself, I clarified what my position actually is. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t making an argument. I was, and it’s perfectly legitimate for someone resisting what I was saying to come to understand it and then say that my argument makes sense.
December 2nd, 2010 | 9:55 pm | #80
Steve, special pleading is a fallacy. It can only occur when a conclusion is being argued for, and someone makes a false or unwarranted exception to a rule for no good reason. I was neither making an exception to a rule nor arguing for a conclusion. All I did was point to a claim and, without commenting on the general argument, pointed out as problem in how one term was being used.
December 2nd, 2010 | 10:50 pm | #81
Jeremy, thanks for your response and for clarifying your views.
I stand by my assertion, that you were making an assertion, and not an argument. Why? Because, I was refering to your claims about the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary. You claimed that these two notions were “quite dumb”, “extremely unlikely” and “clearly false”. You made no argument or argument for these assertions, and TUAD in 74 said you did. You claimed that these assertions are based on scripture, but you provided no specific scripture, and why the latter refutes the two Marian doctrines, so your claims are merely assertions. You cite your claims about Papal Infallibility, and that you provided arguments for the latter; I agree, but as is evident from my comment, I wasn’t talking about that.
Using, perhaps not in your case, but my experience shows that when name calling in used, it’s because of the paucity of arguments on one’s side.
If you wish to call ideas, advanced by brilliant philosophers “stupid”, that’s your right, I would prefer to point out where, and how their premises or conclusions are false. But there’s likely a reason for their acceptance of seemingly counterintuitive ideas, that are likely not to be “stupid”, after all, they did become brilliant philosophers for a reason.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact