The usually irenic Fr. Jim over at Dappled Things has clearly had enough of this sort of "liturgical fascism" (his term) whether of the liberal or conservative variety:
People have suffered all sorts of indignities at the hands of the clergy, and it amazes me how often the people have just silently borne them. I witnessed plenty of this kind of thing as a layman, I've heard clergy brag about how they forced the people to do such and such, and now as a priest I hear the collected tales of what nonsense other priests have forced upon honest laypeople within the context of Sacred Liturgy. "Forced" is a key word here. Priests who lecture old ladies and snatch their rosaries, who single out people sitting in the back and make them move shame-facedly to the front, who deny Communion to people who kneel, who ridicule receiving in the hand, who ridicule receiving on the tongue, who lecture people for not holding hands at the Our Father, who harass people who do hold hands at the Our Father, who make the people say responses over again if they're not "lively" enough the first time...
To do these things is to make Christ's Eucharist into an occasion of contention. It's pompous, arrogant, and abusive. Doubtless, to wield power and to force another person to submit to one's will gives some people a kind of high. Clerical abuse is not just about sex, even though that's what sells the most newspapers. In fact, most instances of clerical abuse (in this broader definition) have nothing to do with sex at all, but are still an unpriestly abuse of power and authority and are harmful to the Body of Christ. The perpetrators are on the right, and on the left, and in the mushy middle. They're orthodox, heterdox, gay, straight, and from every ethnicity under the sun. My own hunch is that the sex abuse has more to do with these other forms of abuse than we might at first be inclined to think.
JOHN ALLEN: Lots of good stuff from John Allen this week. He's posted some notes from an interview with Fr. Andrew R. Baker, the author of the article in this week's America that argued that homosexual men should not be ordained. Allen also tries to explain the conflicting news accounts over how the Vatican plans to respond to the U.S. Bishop's conference on sexual abuse.
God's love isn't a reward for being good, doing our duty, resisting temptation, bearing the heat of the day in fidelity, saying our prayers, remaining pure, or offering worship, good and important though these are. God loves us because God is love and God cannot not love, and cannot be discriminating in love. God's love, as Scripture says, shines on the good and bad alike.
That's nice to know when we need forgiveness and unmerited love, but it's hard to accept when that forgiveness and love is given to those whom we deem less worthy of it, to those who didn't seem to do their duty. It's not easy to accept that God's love does not discriminate, especially when God's blessings go out lavishly to those who don't seem to deserve them.
CONTRACEPTION AND THE NATURAL LAW:Greg Popack(of HMS Blog) and I are continuing a friendly and quite civil debate about Natural Family Planning and contraception. Yesterday, I posted a set of common arguments used to draw a distinction between artificial contraception and natural family planning and explained why I found these arguments to be inadequate. Greg posted a response where he agreed that some of the arguments for NFP were quite weak, but that others were, in fact, quite compelling.
I think Greg’s response has been quite helpful because he really focuses in on what he feels is the core distinction between NFP and artificial contraception. The former works “with nature,” which is believed to reflect God’s design. We should not “sterilize” that which God has made fertile.
Why is this so? We don’t argue, for example, that human beings infected with bacterial illness should not take antibiotics. We know that bacteria play a very important role in the biology of the natural world, and this presumably reflects God’s design as well. But the Church does not hold that the use of antibiotics is contrary to the divine plan.
One might argue, of course, that the conjugal act is different. It is the means by which human beings reproduce themselves. It is deserving of special respect. How could one disagree? But was it God’s intent that the act be inviolable, never to be interfered with? How do we know this?
The answer usually given is that interference in the conjugal act is a violation of the natural law. In the Catholic tradition, the “natural law” is the precepts of God’s eternal law that are discoverable through the use of human reason. Catholic theologians like Thomas Aquinas argued that since human beings are rational beings, it is morally appropriate that they behave in a way that conforms to their rational nature.
When theologians like Aquinas and Augustine were trying to apply the natural law to sexual questions, they wanted to determine whether coitus had a rational purpose. They understood that human beings were motivated by sexual drives, but believed that to act merely out of instinct or unreflective desire was irrational, and therefore contrary to the will of a Creator who endowed his creation with reason. Both theologians concluded that the rational purpose of coitus was procreation.
I don’t think either theologian would have held that contraception is a violation of the natural law simply because it interferes in a natural process, even a process as important as human reproduction. Rather, they held that it violated the natural law because it made coitus an irrational act. To act irrationally was contrary to the natural law.
But one wonders what Augustine and Aquinas would have concluded if they had had access to modern psychological and anthropological research about human sexuality. What if they had understood that the act of intercourse, while pleasurable, also promotes strong pair-bonding among human beings and that this pair-bonding is extremely important in forming the stable family units necessary to raise relatively helpless human infants to adulthood? Would they have concluded that non-procreative intercourse aimed at strengthening pair-bonding was irrational, and thus contrary to the natural law?
Over the past half-century or so, the Church has stressed the importance of the unitive dimension of the conjugal act, but has insisted that this can never be separated from the procreative dimension. But as we have seen, the reason that the Church originally concluded that the conjugal act must always have a procreative purpose is that it believed the conjugal act could have no other rational purpose. But the Church itself no longer takes that position and believes the unitive dimension of the act is equally important.
I think that it is precisely because the natural law supports for the teaching on contraception seem increasingly fragile that Pope John Paul II has tried to develop a new set of arguments to support the teaching. While not formally abandoning the old natural law arguments, the Pope has stressed the negative impact of contraception on the unitive function of the conjugal act. As popularizers of the Pope’s theology have put it, the use of contraception suggests that “I take you for better or worse except for the imagined worse of a child.”
What is odd about this is that it seems to be a subtle form of consequentialism. Artificial contraception is bad because of the impact it has on the couple’s marriage. But how do we know that there is such an impact? Even if social science research (assuming that one could control for all the relevant variables) were to suggest that couples practicing NFP had a lower marital dissolution rate than contracepting couples, this does not mean that this would be the result for any particular couple. In the past, the Church has stressed that contraception is intrinsically evil, apart from any consequences of the act itself. But as we have seen, that judgment depends on an understanding of natural law that may not adequately reflect developments in the human sciences.
Of course, one might argue—correctly—that just because the theological arguments that support the teaching are weak does not mean the teaching is wrong. We may trust that the Holy Spirit is guiding the Church even if we do not always understand why. But the Church has always believed that teachings derived from the natural law should be transparent to human reason. The fact that so many Catholics find the arguments for the teaching unconvincing should be cause for concern.
This will be my last post on this topic and I am happy to give Greg the last word. I enjoyed our exchange and I especially appreciate its tone. While we clearly have our disagreements, Greg has refrained from suggesting that I am part of the “aging culture of dissent” and I have refrained from suggesting that he is a restorationist whose views are “contrary to the spirit of Vatican II.” Would that all debates among those who follow Jesus Christ could be conducted in this fashion.
NFP REDUX:Greg Popack has posted a response to my response on the NFP issue at HMS Blog. JB the Kairos Guy has also weighed in. I will try to post another polite response to Greg later. Be sure to check back.
Let me begin with a couple of caveats. First, nothing I have previously written, and nothing that follows, should be taken as a denigration of the efforts of Catholic couples who practice NFP. I think such couples serve as a valuable eschatological witness, modeling a very deep trust in God’s providence to which we all must strive. That doesn’t mean I accept the arguments that they generally use to support their actions, but I still think those actions are meritorious on other grounds.
Second, nothing I have written and nothing that follows should be taken as advice to couples who are wrestling with whether to practice NFP or not. You should discuss the matter with your confessor or a competent spiritual director. HMS Blog has some links to NFP resources for those who wish to learn more.
Since Greg has modeled his post as sort of an FAQ on the subject of NFP, I will do the same. I’m going to try to respond directly to some statements that Greg and some other posters and letter writers have raised.
Couples who practice NFP are more open to life than couples who practice artificial contraception.
Well how do we know this? Have we been given, like Saint John Vianney, the gift of seeing into men’s hearts and discerning their subjective intentions? We may think that a couple who practices NFP is more willing to accept a new child lovingly from God, but I don’t see how we can know this for certain.
Greg concedes that NFP can be practiced with a contraceptive mentality. But here’s another question: can artificial contraception be practiced with a life-giving mentality?
Imagine a couple who wants to have children, even a large number of children. But they wish to space their children, partly in response to medical evidence that such spacing is good for both mother and child. They decide to use artificial contraception, but agree beforehand that if it fails, they will of course accept the child lovingly from God.
I see no reason why such a couple could not engage in the same kind of discernment process that Greg describes, i.e. prayerfully reflecting each month on whether to continue to contracept or seek to add a new member to their “community of love” as Greg puts it. In such a case, I don’t see why the subjective attitude of such a couple would be significantly different from a couple practicing NFP.
It may be that artificial contraception presents some unique spiritual dangers, giving the couple an exaggerated sense of control and reducing their willingness to depend on God’s providence. But there are other things in life that present such dangers, such as wealth, a topic on which the scriptures are quite explicit (they are relatively silent on the matter of contraception). But the Church does not condemn the pursuit and possession of wealth as “intrinsically evil.” The Church warns the faithful of these dangers and suggests spiritual disciplines to counteract the risk.
NFP is not primarily about avoiding conception. It is about strengthening marriage. I have seen this in my own married life.
I do not doubt the truth of this statement. But just because NFP is “good” does not necessarily make artificial contraception “bad.” I have known couples who use artificial contraception who are active in Marriage Encounter, and whose marriages seem—to my eyes at least—to be extremely strong. Does the use of artificial contraception make a strong marriage impossible? I know a fair number of Catholic couples who would disagree.
NFP is an “art” rather than a “science,” and is therefore more open to life
Then why do we keep trying to use science to improve it? When recourse to the sterile period was first approved by the Church in 1951, the only method available then was the Ogino-Knaus method (a.k.a. rhythm). Practitioners of modern NFP analyze basal body temperature, cervical mucus, even saliva. NFP advocates constantly stress that NFP is not the old “rhythm method” and often offer—as Greg does today—advice on how to improve the accuracy of the method.
Artificial contraceptives do not eliminate the risk of pregnancy. In fact, if practiced correctly, Natural Family Planning has a “failure rate” that is better than many popular forms of artificial contraception (click here to see some rates). Whether using NFP or artificial contraception, the couple must accept some risk that pregnancy will occur despite their best efforts to avoid it.
NFP is the only Godly method of family planning.
If so, the Lord was a little late letting us know about it. Recourse to the sterile period was only approved by the Church in 1951. Prior to that time, the Church had generally held that any actions taken to avoid conception were sinful. This included recourse to the sterile period, which had been specifically condemned by Saint Augustine. Augustine had been locked in theological combat with the Manicheans, a sect that believed that procreation was sinful because it imprisoned souls in degenerate flesh. They practiced various forms of contraception, including coitus interruptus and resort to the sterile period. Augustine’s condemnation of contraception was part of a broader defense of the goodness of procreation and children.
In 1930s and 40s, as the rhythm method was first being rolled out, a number of Bishops and theologians raised questions about it. Chief among these was Jesuit moral theologian Arther Vermeersch who had played a key role in the drafting of Pius XI’s encyclical on marriage Casti connubii. Vermeersch argued that the widespread use of the method would reduce the population and be contrary to the common good. He recommended that confessors should only recommend it to “obstinate onanists” as a lesser evil.
My point is not that Vermeersch was correct, but rather that the idea that NFP is morally licit is a rather recent addition to the Catholic tradition and is, in some sense, a significant departure from several centuries of Catholic teaching on the subject. Looking back over the centuries, one can certainly discern the train of theological thinking that led to this decision, but to claim that such a recent teaching admits of no further development is, in my view, mistaken.
NFP works with nature and not against it.
First of all, why is working with nature so much better than working against it? We work against nature all the time. We build dams to store water. We farm, as opposed to hunting and gathering. We use medical technology to extend life and stave off the natural process of aging and death. If what is natural to human beings reflects God’s design, then our ability to interfere with nature is clearly part of that design. Why should the process of human reproduction be immune from that interference?
But even on its own terms, the argument is suspect. In Casti connubii, Pius XI stated that the conjugal act is naturally oriented toward procreation and those who “deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.”
NFP allows couples to identify times when intercourse is extremely unlikely to result in procreation and to only have intercourse during those times. Couples are therefore able to obtain the unitive benefits of the act with a very low risk of conception. Whatever the subjective intentions of the couple, it is hard not to see the sustained use of NFP as a systematic effort to frustrate the “natural power and purpose” of the conjugal act.
The difference between NFP and artificial contraception is the difference between abortion and miscarriage.
Arguments from analogy are always suspect, and this one is no better. Intent clearly plays a role in abortion, as it does not in miscarriage. In miscarriage, a couple has taken no action whatsoever to bring about the loss of a pregnancy and the loss of pregnancy is not in any way intended.
I don’t think couples practicing NFP can make these claims. These couples are clearly taking a number of actions: charting menstrual cycles, measuring basal body temperature, checking cervical mucus, testing saliva and timing intercourse. They are doing so for the express purpose of reducing their risk of conceiving a child. If preventing conception were a crime, these actions would probably be sufficient to warrant a conspiracy charge.
By way of conclusion, I want to make clear again that my objective here is not to trash NFP or the couples who use it. I simply believe—for the reasons stated—that the Herculean efforts to draw a bright line between NFP and other non-abortifacent forms of contraception are ultimately unconvincing. You can certainly make a number of good prudential arguments in favor of NFP, but you can also make a few that run the other way. But if the Church is going to allow NFP, I see no compelling reason not to allow non-abortifacent forms of artificial contraception. Let the debate continue.
WHO YA CALLING ‘IMMATURE’ BUD? In an America review of the Lit Press’s book The First Five Years of Priesthood, the ever-combative Fr. Andrew Greeley takes issue with those who think the priesthood is filled with men who are “psychosexually immature:”
The “crisis” in the priesthood is what it has always been: men who are not happy in the work will likely fall in love and leave. It is terribly unfair of some of them to say that if other priests were as honest as they are, they would leave too. It is also terribly unfair of various priest organizations, including the National Federation of Priests Councils (NFPC), to seem to support that ideology.
Thus inactive priests with social degrees of one sort or another write widely read and oft-quoted books about the “psychosexual immaturity” of those of us who remain; and the N.F.P.C., so committed is it to the ideology of optional celibacy, never speaks up. Who the heck is “mature”? Is it really mature for those who have left the active ministry to write self-serving attacks on those who decline to follow them?
Greeley’s broadside is almost certainly aimed at Eugene Kennedy, a former priest who has written a number of articles and books taking the very position that Greeley criticizes.
I think part of the problem with NFP is that the attempts to draw a bright ethical line between "artificial" contraception and "natural" family planning are unconvincing to a large number of Catholics, many of whom actively practice their faith. In both cases, the couple clearly intends to avoid conception. Biologically, the idea that an act of intercourse undertaken when conception is biologically impossible is "open to procreation" is just nonsense.
For most of its history, the Church taught that for an act of intercourse to be morally licit, the couple had to have an affirmative intent to procreate. Augustine believed that without such an intent, intercourse was an occasion of the sin of lust. But through the centuries, that position was gradually softened and when the Church approved recourse to the sterile period, it was decisively abandoned.
But that change knocked a few legs out from under the teaching against artificial contraception. Since practitioners of NFP also lack an affirmative intent to procreate, those who would condemn artificial methods needed to fall back on a "natural law" argument that the structure of the act of coitus could not be licitly interfered with. But given that interference in nature is more or less "natural" for human beings, it was hard to see why any and all interference in the structure of coitus was intrinsically evil. Even many of those who supported Paul VI’s Humane Vitae conceded that the natural law arguments for the teaching were weak.
Perhaps realizing this, Pope John Paul II has taken a slightly different approach. In Familiaris Consortio he argues that the practice of artificial contraception undermines the unitive dimension of the conjugal act. Essentially, he argues that artificial contraception says "I take you for better or worse, except for the imagined worse of a child."
But this argument is highly subjective. It presumes to know the motivations of the couple and it predicts an impact on the marriage, an impact that may not result. It is essentially a sociological and psychological argument. One also might wonder whether the regular practice of NFP also, in some sense, sends the same message. The practice of NFP requires a reasonably complicated daily ritual aimed at preventing conception. Who is to say that, over time, it might not have the same impact on the marital bond?
As a Catholic, I am convinced that the sacrament of marriage is meant to be generative and life-giving, "welcoming the stranger" in the form of children. But I also believe that it is reasonable for couples to limit the size of their families to what they really feel they can handle. And once the second premise is accepted--and the Church accepted it explicitly at Vatican II--the idea that there is a significant moral distinction (in principle) between "natural" and "artificial" methods of family planning is one that I find very difficult to accept.
But those who believe the present teaching requires further “development”—and there are many—have to answer some hard questions too. Are they willing to concede the negative consequences of the radical separation of marriage and procreation that contraception allows? What is the meaning of the fact that many of the nations of Western Europe are failing to reproduce their populations? Are there any moral limits on the extent to which human beings can interfere with the processes of human reproduction?
My own suspicion is that there will be further development in the teaching and the Church will eventually conclude that a distinction—in principle—between artificial and natural forms of family planning cannot be sustained. But I also suspect that a century or two from now, people will look back at Paul VI and conclude that he gave the Church the necessary breathing space to consider the full impact of “reproductive technology” on the human person.
Even a cursory reading of the text should have set off some alarm bells for me. Shakespeare tended to write in iambic pentameter (da-duh, da-duh, da-duh, da-duh, da-duh) and even if he often added a beat here and there, you can discern the rhythm in most of his major soliloquies. It's not present here.
There are also some obvious anachronisms. The word "patriotism" was not in general use until at least a century after Shakespeare's death. It's also unlikely that Shakespeare, the subject of a monarchy, would have talked about citizens having rights.
Well, let that be a lesson to me. And to all the rest of you too.
Walzer has a new essay in The New Republic that is worth reading. In it, he argues that a preventive strike aimed at “regime change” in Baghdad would fail to satisfy most of the traditional tests for a “just war.” But he also suggests that the vigorous pursuit of inspections could well create the conditions under which a resort to force could be considered “just.” While critical of the Bush Administration, Walzer is equally critical of the Europeans, whose failure to support the containment of Saddam in the 1990s has led to a situation where the use of force may be the only option remaining:
The right thing to do, right now, is to re-create the conditions that existed in the mid-'90s for fighting a just war. And we must do this precisely to avoid the war that many in the Bush administration want to launch. The Europeans could have reestablished these conditions by themselves months ago if they really wanted to challenge American unilateralism. No government in Baghdad could have resisted a European ultimatum--admit the inspectors by a certain date or else!--so long as the states behind the ultimatum included France and Russia, who have been Iraq's protectors, and so long as the "or else!" involved both economic and military action. Why didn't the Europeans do this? Bush spoke about a "difficult and defining moment" for the U.N., but it is really the Europeans who are being tested at this moment. So far, their conduct suggests that they have lost all sense of themselves as independent and responsible actors in international society.
