Posted on 11/20/2010 12:59:42 PM PST by Pyro7480
Concering this report from the AP regarding remarks from Pope Benedict XVI on condom use, everyone is expecting clarifications. We can be pretty certain of that, but in the meantime, I’ll offer one.
The key phrase that explains everything that will go right over the vast majority of people’s heads? ”Re-develop the understanding”.
From the AFP [emphasis mine]:
Benedict offered the example of a male prostitute using a condom.
“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,” Benedict was quoted as saying.
The scenario offered is of someone in a state of complete ignorance about Catholic teaching. A prostitute doesn’t understand much at all about morality. Perhaps the only morality he can muster is that he shouldn’t do something intentionally that could kill another person. The fact that the Pope used a prostitute as an example shows he’s referring to that type of person. Someone who actively, and as a profession, engages in sex outside of marriage has no inkling of what the Christian moral teaching is on human sexuality. Most of the rest of us have more culpability on the matter than a prostitute. Because most of the rest of us are not prostitutes, we have more “responsibility” than that “first bit of responsibility” a prostitute can muster.
As long as you have an ounce of moral responsibility in you, there is hope that you can “re-develop your understanding”. “Re-developing” your understanding means coming to a more Christian perspective on things. Common sense should tell you that someone who is HIV-positive who goes around intentionally infecting others with HIV is more evil than someone who would say no to that. The Pope was using the extreme example of a prostitute to explain just such a difference.
Does this mean that the Pope is going to approve of the use of condom distribution to prevent AIDS? Nope. His very next statement shows where he is on that.
“But it is not the proper way to deal with the horror of HIV infection.”
The Catholic track record in Africa on this issue is better than the non-Catholic track record.
From the Times-Online:
The head of a Harvard-based AIDs prevention centre says the Pope is “correct” to claim that condom distribution risks aggravating the transmission of HIV.
Last week Benedict XVI incurred the wrath of AIDs campaigners and criticism from the Governments of France and Germany for saying, en route to Africa, that AIDS could not “be overcome by the distribution of condoms.” In comments condemned as “scary” and “alienating” by members of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Benedict XVI lauded monogamy as a way to combat the spread of AIDs. He said that condom distribution risked exaggerating the spread of the virus.
Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Center at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies said this week: “The best evidence we have supports the Pope’s comments.”
So, there you have it. Condom distribution exacerbates the AIDS crisis. In Catholic areas of Africa, where condoms are not distributed and it is taught that sex is forbidden outside of marriage, there is greater success.
Claims that the Pope has ‘softened’ or ‘shifted’ on the issue of condoms are false. Condoms are still off limits. The Pope was using an extreme example of a prostitute to demonstrate a point about “intention”.
“In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality.”
God judges based on the intentions of the heart.
Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.
The protistute in the Pope’s scenario is an example given because he would be one who would have no “knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law.” Those of us who want to practice “feigned ignorance and hardness of heart” on the Church’s teaching on condoms actually “increase the voluntary character of the sin”. This means that we put ourselves in even deeper sin if we harden ourselves willfully against the Church’s teaching on condom use.
Hat-tip, Elizabeth Scalia
I absolutely loved Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. You can still see him on youtube. Such common sense and logical thinking. How I miss people who have such an extensive education with such an amazing understanding of philosophy. The Pope is a profound thinker also..... He is amazing. God bless him.
Love it!
St. Thomas, in the Prima Secundae (the first part of the second part) of the Summa Theologica notes in question seven that circumstances (that is secondary factors) are a component part of all moral actions:
That circumstances must be considered, at least so far as St. Thomas and those who follow his lead go, is clearly established in the respondeo of the second article of this question:
Circumstances come under the consideration of the theologian, for a threefold reason. First, because the theologian considers human acts, inasmuch as man is thereby directed to Happiness. Now, everything that is directed to an end should be proportionate to that end. But acts are made proportionate to an end by means of a certain commensurateness, which results from the due circumstances. Hence the theologian has to consider the circumstances. Secondly, because the theologian considers human acts according as they are found to be good or evil, better or worse: and this diversity depends on circumstances, as we shall see further on (18, A10,11; 73, 7). Thirdly, because the theologian considers human acts under the aspect of merit and demerit, which is proper to human acts; and for this it is requisite that they be voluntary. Now a human act is deemed to be voluntary or involuntary, according to knowledge or ignorance of circumstances, as stated above (Question 6, Article 8). Therefore the theologian has to consider circumstances.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2007.htm
While it may be stated that Thomas does not hold that a circumstance as a circumstance never makes an argument good or bad, his reason is not because secondary things are not considered. Rather, things that are intrinsically disordered do not fall under circumstances, though a person might mistakenly think that they are only a circumstance, but rather become the object. They relevant analysis is eleven questions later, in question 18, article 10, in the ad secunda:
A circumstance, so long as it is but a circumstance, does not specify an action, since thus it is a mere accident: but when it becomes a principal condition of the object, then it does specify the action.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2018.htm#article10
The moral sophistry that is attributed to Thomistic ethics in the above post cannot be derived from Thomas. Those who wish to criticize Thomas on these grounds know not what they do. (If one wants to criticize Thomas, one might begin by quoting him).
I have a video and audio cassetes of Bishop Sheen. His insights were remarkable!
To apply the relevant Thomistic analysis to the situation:
The act is off because it falls under the species of sodomy, which is intrinsically disordered. This is not the ordered use of the relevant human body parts. Nothing is going to alter the disordered nature of the act. The use of the condom here does not further disorder the act by making it a contraceptive act (zero chance of conception here), and may prevent the act from also being an act of manslaughter, though one is still chancing manslaughter.
An analogous situation: A man, while drunk, decides to play Russian Roullette rather than shooting himself in the head with a fully loaded revolver. The situation is an improvement, but still disordered on two counts.
I am jealous! He was such a clear thinker and is exactly what we need in today’s world. He had so much personality also!
In my video, Bishop Sheen said this (paraphrasing):
“..they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,..”
Our Founding Fathers knew our Creator gave us unalienable rights, not the government.
I like the way Bishop Sheen connected our Founders’ words with God’s will.
This raises the question: is condomized intercourse wrong only because it is contraceptive in intent? I think it can be argued that it is wrong also because it is not normal marital intercourse.
An analogy. Let's say a man anally copulates with his wife. This is his preferred and completed act of intercourse. The evil here is not just that it is sterile intercourse (maybe that point does not even apply because she's already past the age of fertility) but that it is not a normal completed act of marital intecourse. The mere fact that they are married does not make ejaculation into her rectum marital intercourse. This is not the act that consummates or signifies marriage.
(Sorry to bring up such repellent images.)
The same may be true of condomized intercourse in marriage. The act itself is wrong because it has been altered to negate its natural procreative and unitive significance.
It's a little complicated, but do you see what I'm getting at>
Incodientally, I once read a comment by a feminist lesbian thast she occasionally had sex with men, ut she always did it with a condom because it signified to her that she wasn't really aiming for or signifying union with this man: she was maintaining her "separatism." Honest to God, that's what she said.
I was born and raised a Catholic..educated in Catholic schools through college, The problem is I do know what the catholic church teaches and I know what God teaches and they are often very different things
Anyone who has the power of reason -— whether or not they went to a Catholic school!-— can understand the difference between a temptation and an act of internal assent.
If you are quite confident, maybe you should run for Pope, but you seem over-qualified—infallibility is merely a negative gift of keeping one’s mouth shut when one doesn’t know what God thinks, you seem to have something beyond this.
St. Augustine deals with the hypothetical instance of some one who justifiably has this level of confidence in the beginning of his On Christian Doctrine. A good read. His conclusion is that such people, to be intellectually consistent, should keep their mouths shut because if God privately reveals something to random individuals, speaking up to others would interfere with God speaking.
I don't think that you are disagreeing with anything that I actually said, merely going into explanation of aspects that I did not raise.
In fact, Thomistic ethics, in a comprehensive analysis, always considers secondary factors (circumstances), it is just that usually the circumstances are only aggravating or mitigating, which are of lesser importance than the nature of the act itself.
One can sufficiently demonstrate that the anti-Thomists on this thread do not know Thomas without wandering into the issues surrounding double effect, or raising the point that mortal sins may differ in degree while remaining the same in kind, and prefer to keep things simple.
While Thomas does lay down the basic principles regarding double effect in II-II q. 64 art. 7, and I happily side with Thomas, some people lift Thomas’ term but not all of reasoning, and the area is a swamp into which I prefer to stay out and do not want to discuss at length. I will happily agree with the people who think that they are disagreeing with Thomas that there are some people who claim to teach Catholic Moral theology who are wrong-—Fr. Curran for example—and they bandy the term about incorectly, muddying the waters. I would think that such people would be better off if they had had dates with millstones earlier in their lives.
I am a theologian but really do not care for modern moral theology, and would rather watch paint dry than participate in many discussions of moral theology. With that said, I think that your analysis of Double Effect is sound. If I remember correctly, contraceptive intercourse does not consummate, as it excludes one of the ends of marriage, which indicates that it is not normal intercourse per se. That said, the condom does seem to add an additional level of weirdness, as the condomized action, on further examination, involves two people simultaneously masturbating while employing the same sex toy in their actions. It shares most of the accidents of true marital relations, but is corrupt at its core.
Correction.
Anti Catholicism = entrenched willfull malicious ignorance.
One’s mind does boggle.
“If you are quite confident, maybe you should run for Pope, but you seem over-qualified—infallibility is merely a negative gift of keeping one’s mouth shut when one doesn’t know what God thinks, you seem to have something beyond this.”
Post of the day!!!.
She will have to get in line with many of the other anti Catholics here.
I'm an Abscombe fan, myself. My hero. If you'll personal-message me your actual e-mail address, I'd be glad to send you a manuscript of a talk I just gave about her. (Don't worry, no spamming.)
Your comments make it clear that despite your background, you do not have much knowledge at all about the actual doctrines of the Church.
That is sad.
Catholic schools and people trying to serve God as Catholics are flawed (just as all institutions and men are), but the Church itself if protected from doctrinal error.
You are ignorant of Church doctrine, which a shame, because that ignorance leads to your rejection of what you seek.
“I was born and raised a Catholic..educated in Catholic schools through college”
That kind of crap really makes my hillary tired.
You have demonstrated time and time again that everything you “know” is wrong. The things you say about Catholic teachings make inevitable the conclusion that you did not attend Catholic schools or a Catholic college.
I charge that you make that claim in an attempt to steal credibility. A person who had spent even one hour receiving Catholic instruction would know more than you do.
Some years back there was a clown on here by the name of “Sinkspur” who claimed to be a Catholic deacon and who was supported without question by the moderators in every dispute—the cause of these disputes being his nonsensical claims about Catholic teachings.
After some months, well over a year, someone investigated and discovered that he was not, and never had been, a Catholic deacon. Shortly after that, he disappeared from FR—or at least that screen name did.
People make all kinds of claims to try and steal credibility. Usually one can see through them.
I agree with you. The statements made by RnMomof7 about the Catholic Church do not reveal someone raised in and educated by the Church.
I have wondered for some time now if RnMomof7 is a troll.
Yours is a more elegant way to say what I said in post 8.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2630575/posts?page=8#8
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