If it were a closed question, the Holy Father wouldn’t have had it studied. If the analysis and conclusions were black and white, the study would have made this clear and there would be no reason to delay a clarification.

One problem with referring to HV is that it didn’t address this case, which requires further precisions. A major problem with referring to Aquinas is that his rationale for the inviolabity of semination traces to Aristotle’s embryology, which was mistaken. A problem with relying on the authority of canon law is that canon law needs to be driven by moral philosophy, and this case brings up philosophical questions that were not addressed in the formulation on the canon for the consumation of marriage.

I have reason to believe that the basic message of the story in this link is correct. http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=27944603-3048-741E-6720211751000482

My point: the Holy Father has lots of experience in judging when the argumentation on a disputed question has reached maturity, and he will see that it is clarified at the appropriate time.

It does no service to the Church to give the impression that one’s particular view is dogma if the question has been left opened by the Pope!!!

FWIW, it seems to me that the key point under dispute is not whether the Church should recommend condoms to anyone (obviously not), but whether it is always evil to use them in marriage (i.e., even for sterile couples who can’t contracept) to prevent transmission of disease.

With best wishes in Christ to those who may read this,

Friend of Thomas

Thanks for your comment, I never noticed this before. I would definitely agree with your conclusion. Certainly, the marital act is properly that one by which the spouses become “one flesh.” And I think that this is fulfilled, as you say, by the passage of the male’s generative substance into the due vessel. The Church’s jurisprudence seems to think so too, since the application of canon 1061.1 (“…a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring… by which the spouses become one flesh”) judges sex with a condom as non-consummating, though sex with anovulants as illicit, but yet consummating. Indeed, the whole idea of “one flesh” implies a sharing of substance, potentially in another human supposit. And that is indeed an “arctissimo vinculo,” one that mere friendship does not effect.

Early last year I was reflecting on the condom/HIV debate and had reason to peruse HV again. It suddenly dawned on me that Para. 12 might be read as stipulating a two-limb test for the marital act which condomistic intercourse fails on both counts.

HV 12:
“…
The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life …”

So, an act shares the fundamental nature (intima rationis) of the marital act if it

1) unites husband and wife in the “closest intimacy” (the superlative is in the latin: “artissimo sociat vinculo”) and

2) renders them, so united, capable of generating new life.

An act that fails to exhibit one or both of these properties fails to share in the fundamental nature of the marital act. That is to say, it cannot be a marital act.

But condomistic intercourse clearly fails both limbs of the test in H.V. 12:

1.) Condomistic intercourse fails to unite husband and wife in the closest intimacy. For we can posit a closer intimacy than that of intercourse with a condom; namely, intercourse without a condom, in which the generative fluid expressed by the man comes into direct contact with the body of the womam in the due vessel.

2.) In the act of condomistic intercourse, qua condomistic, a couple are rendered INcapable of generating new life.

Thus condomistic intercourse can never be a marital act – the only completed sexual act which morally permissible.

***

I’ve not seen this argument from HV 12 made anywhere, but my reading on the matter is by no means exhaustive. Comments especially as to its validity/invalidity, but also its originality or lack thereof, are welcome.

Thanks for the reply. I was suggesting we should acknowledge that aspects of the question are still under study. It sounds like you are saying the questions are basically settled consistent with an age old position or norm re contraception, and that the CDF / Church hasn’t spoken on the recent debate due only to “political” considerations.

W/o getting into the details, I think one can also make a good case that HV advances the doctrine re contraception, that there remains work to be done to clarify how Thomas’s teaching on the vice against nature relates to his broader moral theory, and that the Church is leaving some questions open because there is work yet to be done, and the Pope has a lot of experience in judging when disputed questions have reached resolution.

Anyway, I hope you will see this as a legitimate position to take.

Best wishes!

You are, of course, correct, in that the CDF was asked by Pope Benedict to discuss the question of married couples where one of the spouses has AIDS.

However, the fact that it is still under study is really only a guess. As the article above relates, Cardinal Barragan said that “it is not certain when– if at all– a Vatican statement on the topic will be released.” Also, Rocco’s recent post, which you mention, links to the CNS article about the Pope’s recent comments
The last words in that article are the following:

The hope was that, after additional study, the doctrinal congregation or even Pope Benedict might make a pronouncement on the complex questions.
But sources told CNS in mid-March that the doctrinal congregation’s action on the report has been quietly put on hold, at least for the moment.
‘You could say officially that it remains under study,’ one source said.
Another source said that after looking more closely at the question, the church experts decided it was premature for the Vatican to make a comprehensive statement on the theological and pastoral aspects of condom use, in part because there was not unanimity of opinion, and in part because many believed that discussion of the theological nuances would only invite confusion in the media and among Catholics.

Personally, I have been very interested in this Vatican study, as the question of condom use for serodiscordant married couples was the topic of my License Thesis. And my guess is that the last sentence of the CNS story is more likely true. I know some people who have been involved tangentially with the CDF study, and, while they could not tell me everything, that is certainly the impression I got. Of course, I could be wrong. But the lack of any statement in two years, followed by only reiterations of the “bottom-line” teaching (cf. for instance http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/58722?eng=y) also would seem to support such a view.

My own post was manifesting the reason for the Church’s age-old position on what we now call contraception. Our norms are very old; they did not just appear with Humanae Vitae or John Paul II. If any Pope or Vatican office were to change the “bottom-line” teaching, they have far more to wrestle with than the discussions on contraception that have come out in the past 40 years. Having researched both the traditional arguments against contraception and the arguments for the use of the condom in some cases (particularly those put forth by Fr. Martin Rhonheimer of the University Santa Croce in Rome, who was involved in the Vatican study), I can quite readily see that the CDF would have seen the argumentation supporting some lee-way on condoms, realized that it had to be rejected, but then decided not to issue a statement because, honestly, today’s world is not going to take lightly an account that says we can’t say yes to condoms because, aside from their contraceptive intent, they entail the sin against nature.

As you mention, however, there are other questions, for instance, cases regarding rape. I have some thoughts about that as well, which I may post at a later date.

Bravo on the bilingual Summa!

On the condoms question, there are some legitimate questions your post doesn’t address, which is why rocco at whispers mentions recently that CDF authorities still consider aspects of the question under study. It is really too complex to resolve in the context of a a blog because key issues have to be analyzed carefully in the scholarly press, under the watchful eye of the CDF. So I think it is important to not give a false impression regarding the state of the question, or better questions.