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Post by homeschooldad on Feb 1, 2022 22:38:03 GMT
I got into a discussion the other day with someone, a quite scholarly ex-seminarian, totally orthodox in the Faith, and he maintained that if a woman is forced to use an anovulant for therapeutic reasons (to address endometriosis, to regulate a wildly erratic cycle, etc.) that has the unintended and unwanted side effect of suppressing her fertility, she must totally abstain from conjugal relations with her husband, as long as she is taking this medication. It has always been my understanding, that a woman in such circumstances is not obliged to abstain from conjugal relations, in that she does not wish, desire, seek, or intend the contraceptive effect of that medication. In short, she is in the same position, albeit temporarily and not permanently, as a woman who has had her ovaries and/or uterus removed for medical reasons (cancer, etc.) rather than with contraceptive intent, or for that matter, a woman who has completed menopause and will be infertile the rest of her life. (The same principle would, of course, also come to bear, if a man had to have his gonads removed due to cancer or similar grave threat to health.) I want to keep the scenario as streamlined as possible, and to make the following assumptions: - Neither the woman, nor her husband, taking delight or relief, as a voluntary emotion, in not being able to get pregnant, but rather, wishing she could be fertile during this time, even though it's not possible, and regretting the fact that their marital acts cannot be open to life.
- The anovulant is 100% effective, and even the remote possibility of an abortifacient effect does not exist.
- There is no other reasonable remedy.
- It may be only temporary, though possibly without a foreseen time frame.
The man with whom I've been talking, merely makes the assertion that conjugal relations in this case are sinful, without any relevant magisterial teaching, or citation from an orthodox Catholic moral theology text. Can anyone here, not merely making the opposite assertion in turn, or having to say "that's what I've always understood" (i.e., that involuntarily sterile coitus is permitted where conception is made impossible due to therapeutic use of BC pills), supply me with citations to refute what, unless I've been missing something for five decades, I've never had reason to believe otherwise? I don't foresee a debate on the merits of Humanae vitae, nor admonitions to be more concerned with other things (the plight of the poor and downtrodden, climate change, social justice, etc.), I'm just looking for sources. Thanking all in advance.
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Post by pianistclare on Feb 2, 2022 15:29:09 GMT
If this is medically prescribed, and she has no intention of a voiding pregnancy I don't see how their relations can be sinful. I have no sources except the teaching that marital relations are holy by virtue of the vows the couple takes and the blessing of the church. Indeed, intimacy may be needed more than ever in such a difficult scenario, given that they are open to life and desire children. You may have stumbled upon the reason why this person is a former seminarian. No compassionate priest would tell a couple that their conjugal relations are "sinful" becuase she has a medical condition.
Just my 2 cents. Be well!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2022 16:12:43 GMT
So according to the ex-seminarian's logic, if the wife had a hysterectomy or other surgery prohibiting her from getting pregnant, the couple must abstain from sex as well ?
Procreation although the primary function of sexual intercourse between a husband and wife, it's not the only function. Expression of love and unity is also part of it.
Like my former confessor told me once, this is when the Church needs to stay out of the marital bedroom.
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Post by homeschooldad on Feb 2, 2022 16:20:52 GMT
So according to the ex-seminarian's logic, if the wife had a hysterectomy or other surgery prohibiting her from getting pregnant, the couple must abstain from sex as well ? Procreation although the primary function of sexual intercourse between a husband and wife, it's not the only function. Expression of love and unity is also part of it. Like my former confessor told me once, this is when the Church needs to stay out of the marital bedroom. No, he draws a distinction between temporary, medically-induced, involuntary sterility, and permanent, surgically-induced sterility. He admits the moral liciety of marital relations in the latter case, but not the former. Don't ask me why. WRT your other comment, it is not the Church, it is Almighty God, who is "in the marital bedroom". The faithful Catholic married couple does not build a "shining barrier" around the marital bed and say "God can be everywhere but here". He made this wonderful faculty, primarily for begetting children, and only secondarily for reasons of love and unity. Look at it this way --- there are many ways to show love for someone, and to be united to them. There is only one way (morally licit, that is) to beget children. I do concede that a sex act merely for begetting children, with no love or intended intimacy behind it, would be kind of freakish. That's how they breed livestock. Again, my question didn't involve getting into the merits of the Church's teaching. I just want to stick to the knitting here, and find something authoritative, that can refute the claim this man is making. McHugh and Callan don't address it, and Jone does not either. (Anovulants didn't exist when Jone wrote Moral Theology.)
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Post by homeschooldad on Feb 2, 2022 16:23:50 GMT
If this is medically prescribed, and she has no intention of a voiding pregnancy I don't see how their relations can be sinful. I have no sources except the teaching that marital relations are holy by virtue of the vows the couple takes and the blessing of the church. Indeed, intimacy may be needed more than ever in such a difficult scenario, given that they are open to life and desire children. You may have stumbled upon the reason why this person is a former seminarian. No compassionate priest would tell a couple that their conjugal relations are "sinful" becuase she has a medical condition. Just my 2 cents. Be well! I don't know why he didn't go into the priesthood. He went to the same seminary that I was contemplating, but I couldn't go through with it. In my senior year of undergraduate (I was actually a "senior" for about 2 1/2 years, I changed majors, LOL) I had even quit buying new civilian clothes, as I figured it would be basic black from then on out. I think he really believes this, and it has nothing to do with "compassion". He's drawn a conclusion from paragraph 15 of Humanae vitae that is different from what is usually drawn.
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Post by pianistclare on Feb 2, 2022 17:53:48 GMT
It has everything to do with compassion. And rigidity. God bless you.
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Post by homeschooldad on Feb 2, 2022 18:44:18 GMT
It has everything to do with compassion. And rigidity. God bless you. No, he thinks this is the teaching of the Church, in a case that does not admit of exceptions, in the same way that a priest, if a couple came to him and said "we can't make NFP work, can you make an exception for us, and let us use a contraceptive?", would have to tell them "no, that I cannot do, I cannot give you permission to commit a mortal sin". Not being able to do something like that is not being uncompassionate, nor is it "rigid". The priest has no choice. He has to tell them the truth, even if following it will be difficult, even if it will require heroism in the pursuit of sanctity.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2022 19:24:43 GMT
I have never heard that a married couple must refrain from having sex if the wife is using hormone therapy i.e. birth control pills for medical reasons.
Fact is, often a doctor will put a woman on the pill to help her to get pregnant after having a miscarriage. How is she going to get pregnant by not having sex with her husband ?
Again, procreation isn't the only reason for sexual relations between a man and woman.
Yes, God is in the bedroom in that he blesses the relationship between a wife and her husband.
As a Discalced Carmelite OCDS, one of the promises made is the promise of chastity according to the state we live in. In marriage, there are certain acts that are immoral such as anal copulation. Chastity mandates we not commit acts prohibited by the Church.
Again, I never heard the Church teaching that the use of ABC for medical reasons prohibits a couple from having a sexual relationship.
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Post by homeschooldad on Feb 2, 2022 19:37:56 GMT
I have never heard that a married couple must refrain from having sex if the wife is using hormone therapy i.e. birth control pills for medical reasons. Fact is, often a doctor will put a woman on the pill to help her to get pregnant after having a miscarriage. How is she going to get pregnant by not having sex with her husband ? Again, procreation isn't the only reason for sexual relations between a man and woman. Yes, God is in the bedroom in that he blesses the relationship between a wife and her husband. As a Discalced Carmelite OCDS, one of the promises made is the promise of chastity according to the state we live in. In marriage, there are certain acts that are immoral such as anal copulation. Chastity mandates we not commit acts prohibited by the Church. Again, I never heard the Church teaching that the use of ABC for medical reasons prohibits a couple from having a sexual relationship.
I never heard that either, the ex-seminarian's comments came as news to me too. As I said, he appears to be taking HV 15 and drawing a conclusion based upon the false premise "if a woman is taking a BC medication solely for medical purposes, nonetheless, to have relations during the time she is taking the medication is the same thing as contraception". That's not true, and I know that, and you know that, but he doesn't know that, and can't be persuaded otherwise.
HV 15, for reference purposes:
Lawful Therapeutic Means
15. On the other hand, 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. (19)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2022 19:54:42 GMT
The ex-seminarian is most likely wrong.
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Post by homeschooldad on Feb 2, 2022 20:07:29 GMT
The ex-seminarian is most likely wrong. I think he is, he has to be, otherwise you've got a situation where this one guy is right, and everybody else is wrong. (You want to talk about "gnostic", now that would be "gnostic"!)
I just don't have a black-letter, chapter-and-verse, unimpeachable way to prove, with something either authoritative from the magisterium, or something from a competent, orthodox expert, that this is acceptable moral theology. Just thinking logically, and drawing analogies with other cases where a person is involuntarily sterilized, the affirmative is the only thing that makes sense. But he's convinced of the negative.
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Post by tisbearself on Feb 4, 2022 9:01:47 GMT
I'd just tell him he's wrong and needs to go talk to an actual priest. Thank heaven he's an "ex-seminarian" because he sounds like he has some strange, overly scrupulous ideas. I hope he's not married either.
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Post by homeschooldad on Feb 4, 2022 15:16:17 GMT
I'd just tell him he's wrong and needs to go talk to an actual priest. Thank heaven he's an "ex-seminarian" because he sounds like he has some strange, overly scrupulous ideas. I hope he's not married either. I just know him from online. I don't think he's married. He is a former RCIA instructor (!). I don't think he's being "scrupulous", he is just starting from a false premise, viz. that availing oneself of the marital act while temporarily sterilized by an external agent (an anovulant pill) is contraception. For some reason he thinks there is a difference between having been sterilized permanently against one's will, and being sterilized temporarily against one's will. He just baselessly says it is "the teaching of the Church". For some reason, my comments trying to persuade him otherwise, have been removed from the forum on which he and I were discussing this (I think he is a sub-moderator or something). Being a Catholic and a lifelong student of the Faith, as are both this commentator and myself, entails knowing and constantly learning a lot of information, and people being fallible, sometimes one is going to "get it wrong". I went for 45 years thinking that Our Lord Jesus Christ had been man as well as God from all eternity, just waiting until the Annunciation to become incarnate, then no less a source than the Baltimore Catechism informed me that this was incorrect. So I had been a material heretic for four decades. Who knew? Nobody can know everything. I was well up in age, my forties IIRC, before I realized that a staple remover was meant to remove the staple from above, rather than below. I'd been spending four decades using staple removers to pry open the two little "hooks" on the bottom side of the staple, then flipping the paper over and pulling the staple out. Learn something new every day.
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Post by pianistclare on Feb 4, 2022 15:20:16 GMT
I'd just tell him he's wrong and needs to go talk to an actual priest. Thank heaven he's an "ex-seminarian" because he sounds like he has some strange, overly scrupulous ideas. I hope he's not married either. Exactly. That is what I meant when I said to HD "you might have stumbled upon the reason why he's no longer a seminarian." Not everyone that enters is willing amend their personal thoughts and go with what the church teaches. That's why so many leave formation...people think it's only becuase they decide to get married. Often, it's just not the right vocation. peace
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Post by homeschooldad on Feb 4, 2022 16:32:53 GMT
I'd just tell him he's wrong and needs to go talk to an actual priest. Thank heaven he's an "ex-seminarian" because he sounds like he has some strange, overly scrupulous ideas. I hope he's not married either. Exactly. That is what I meant when I said to HD "you might have stumbled upon the reason why he's no longer a seminarian." Not everyone that enters is willing amend their personal thoughts and go with what the church teaches. That's why so many leave formation...people think it's only becuase they decide to get married. Often, it's just not the right vocation. peace I don't think it's a question of "not being willing to amend his personal thoughts". He thinks this is what the Church teaches. Evidently he is reading HV in such a way as to interpret it "yes, a woman may use an anovulant if she has to, to address a medical condition, but it is still a contraceptive, and thus she must abstain from relations while she is taking it". He made the assertion, I challenged it, and he responded by saying "it is the teaching of the Church". He's not refusing to hear the Church, he is just misinterpreting what he hears the Church saying. I asked him for a citation on this, he said he did not have one, and, again, he replied that it is the teaching of the Church. An error of severity is just as much of an error, as an error of laxity.
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