One huge quibble with this is that I don't see the Catholic Church's desire to turn women into walking baby incubators any better than society's desire to see us as sex objects. Watch a few episodes of the Handmaid's Tale and get back to me about why the Catholic obsession with turning women into objects - broodmares specifically is any better than secular society.

Mhm, my thoughts too. Contraception at least gives women some control over our own lives and we are seen as more than incubators or potential mothers waiting to fulfill our potential.

Also, reading the comments here, I cannot imagine going back to a world in which sex was seen as primarily for conception. It sounds utterly exhausting.

Artificial Birth control is always in and of itself intrinsically evil. However I don't see why we cannot use science to improve on predicting women's fertility so we can us NFP more effectively?

It might be permissible to use drugs to regulate a woman's fertility cycle so she ovulates and whatnot more consistently. Using drugs to trick a woman's body into thinking(I am speaking metaphorically here) it's pregnant so as not to ovulate is wrong. But I don't think it's wrong to use drugs to regulate her cycle and practice abstinence during the fertile periods and whatnot for NFP.

Hi Melinda,
Not sure you'll read this, lost in an ocean of comments...
I'm sorry you feel angry about NFP. Maybe "angry" is not the right word. Anyway.
I wonder in what sort of catholic environment you are now, and have been in the past, because my perception is that the teaching on contraception has already been "allowed to fall in obscurity". I'm in France, if you remember me, a craddle-catholic from a liberal-mainstream family and education. Contraception was never presented to me as evil, or even wrong, and I am no exception in my generation (born 80s). Most catholic couples of child-bearing age use contraception, and usually don't scruple that much over it - if at all. Most are not even aware it's a problem. Among those (the minority) who attempt NFP, they do it of their own accord, with no sort of pressure from the institution or from peers. Even when they strongly believe it's the right thing to do, they don't fret too much over the occasional straying (condom). Confessors usually want to hug you for only bringing up the subject, when they don't laugh and tell you plainly to drop it.
So I don't know, different worlds ?

The Catholic Church never changed their prohibition on usury, but they became far less legalistic about what usury is. After years of unsuccessfully trying to calculate formulas and create rules, the modern Church is far more "fuzzy" about what is and is not usury. This is because while usury is always wrong, whether an individual loan is usurious is highly situational. A 25% per year interest rate would likely be usurious in ordinary circumstances, but not necessarily so in a time of high inflation to someone who is a significant credit risk.

Humanae Vitae retains a rather bizarre and highly technical focus on individual acts, which is why theologians rightly criticize it. (I honestly think Pope Paul VI believed that highly reliable natural methods were just around the corner and the problem would solve itself in a few years.) Supporters of HV are not so much interested in the morality of contraception or the theological reasoning behind it as they are afraid that if the Church deviates one centimeter from this highly technical focus, then they will be giving up all of Catholic sexual ethics and the idea that children are a blessing and they might as well start blessing abortion clinics.

Unfortunately, unlike in the 1700s, the Church can't "quietly" do anything anymore. People on the internet are insisting that the Pope is a heretic based on the Google Translate of a second hand account of the Italian words of a native Spanish speaker in an informal conversation. We have access to more information than the most learned theologians of even 1968 (much less 1768), but do not have the education and formation to use it properly.

"Supporters of HV are not so much interested in the morality of
contraception or the theological reasoning behind it as they are afraid
that if the Church deviates one centimeter from this highly technical
focus, then they will be giving up all of Catholic sexual ethics and the
idea that children are a blessing and they might as well start blessing
abortion clinics."

Is that the best strawman you can come up with? :D :D :D

never mind made mistake.

A bold and original argument. I wonder though if it is more accurate to say that we have a more complex idea of usury that goes along with our more complex monetary system. Charging interest is not immoral tout court, but only when it is practiced in an unfair or predatory kind of way. I think it better to say that the church will develop a more nuanced teaching on contraception that fits better with modern realities.

The essay is interesting and outside the box. St. JPII was in the papacy for over twenty years and he did not curtail the writings of two prominent dissenters,Frs. and Vatican II periti... Haring and Rahner, and he could have put limitations on their writing but didn't. What's more signficant is that he could have campaigned verbally monthly against contracepting couples receiving communion and he said nothing in a highly public way that Popes can do now with modern media. The things he did not do against dissent and disobedience...probably augmented both to the aggregate 96% figure given by the usccb several years ago. Both topics are complex.
Is doubling your money in buying and selling Micron stock last year....a form of usury or is it the excusing extrinsic titles? Is paying interest on a home mortgage an avoidable cooperation with usury? Was Onan, the only scripture involved, about coitus interruptus ( Augustine) or was it about the liverate obligation to procreate in a deceased brother's name ( Jerome ) or was it the unnoticed more macro idea that Onan risked the non appearance of Christ who was to come through the house of Judah...four imperfect men...Judah, Onan, Er, and Shelah. Mary gets credit for saying yes to Christ coming through her....Onan got death for saying..."not through me". And Tamar and the father Judah then both sin sexually and God does not kill them and they produce Pharez/Perez...the next ancestor of Christ in the gospel listing. Both topics are complex. Popes seem to hesitate in disciplinary acts because of these complexities that they don't admit to publically.

"Is doubling your money in buying and selling Micron stock last year....a form of usury or is it the excusing extrinsic titles?"
No. Buy and selling property is not a form of usury. Usury involves the seeking of profit against a particular sort of contract called a mutuum. Vix Prevenit acknowledges other contracts that may be a licit source of profit.

"Is paying interest on a home mortgage an avoidable cooperation with usury?"
Potentially depending on individual circumstances, but as Aquinas argues being the borrower in usury is not intrinsically evil, but it may be evil and thus to be avoided in particular circumstances.

"Both topics are complex."
The moral principles are very simple. The pastoral application is typically complicated.

I was reading a book by (Fr.) Ronald Rolheiser in which he recounts an interesting event that happened in seminary. The professor (a priest) that was teaching the course was lecturing on the moral teachings of the Church. One of the students raised his hand and asked the professor if he personally indulged in "self abuse". Rolheiser says that the priest looked infuriated, turned his back on the class and faced the blackboard. He eventually turned around and facing the students again, said something to the effect of: "Yes. But it doesn't make me a better person to give in. It makes me a better person to exist with a kind of spiritual tautness in my life."

Some people would say that all tension is bad, but I don't think that's true. If a couple is on the same page, and is like minded in spiritual belief and practice, sexual tension can be good for their relationship.

Problems arise when the couple is not on the same page. While a wife may be enabling a kind of bad behavior if her husband is exhibiting a lack of self control, (allowing him to resort to condom or withdrawal) her patience might also win the day eventually if she doesn't exhibit the polar opposite problem of --rigidity. A good spiritual director will discern that in this moment in their relationship it is better for the more Catholic spouse to "accompany" the less Catholic spouse --and to err on the side of recognizing the good in what is "unitive"--which is superior to a kind of "perfection" which is unfruitful and erects a wall between them. It is not that the one spouse is condoning the condom, --It is that he or she is placing more value on how their conscience informs them to love their spouse in the most effective way, in a given moment.

When Catholics become extreme about rule following it reminds me of the commander who excused his actions in the Vietnam war, by saying, "it was necessary to kill them in order to save them (from communism)."

Hello Anna Lisa, you are quite correct that engaging in unjust acts of war (such as choosing to kill civilians or choosing to kill disarmed prisoners of war) is mortally sinful. Many Catholics in the U.S. who correctly apply Catholic teaching in the sphere of sexual acts refuse to apply it in acts of war. U.S. conduct in the Vietnam War involved a great many unjust acts (If that sounds clinical, I'll add "horrifically unjust - mass murder"). That applies even if the war and its aims were just.

The parallel is this: acts of war in general and sexual acts in general may be moral. Unjust acts of war and contracepted sex, however, are intrinsically immoral.

As you say, killing innocents to "save [the rest of the population] from communism" is utilitarian thinking that is incompatible with Catholic ethics. Likewise, using contraception in order to have sex without a possible baby for [fill in your good reason] is also utilitarian thinking incompatible with Catholic thinking.

Just to clarify--I have been pregnant 18 times and have 8 living children. I believe in the teachings of the Church. But just as a man is not guilty if he steals a loaf of bread to feed his family--so is a man feeding ten children, not guilty (or minimally so) if in an act of desperation he has a vasectomy. I would say the same of a husband or wife of an AIDS victim. Perhaps their heroic love of their spouse is greater in the bigger scheme of things than their nominal guilt in using a condom, while demonstrating that love. Man was not made for laws, laws were made to function in the service of love.

Your endurance in debates is now thoroughly understandable. Love reading you. St. Alphonsus noted that natural law has a more complex level that the saints disagreed about throughout history. Slavery, torture, usury very much...were not issues of crystal clear natural law to opposing saints. The Dominicans accused the Franciscans of usury for charging a fee in their pawn shops and the bad back and forth went on for some time until a Pope within a Council settled it in favor of the Franciscans. I would say that natural law forbids non starvation stealing...not stealing per se. Positive law (even religious) written by man can be circumvented by the virtue of epikeia but natural law cannot be circumvented but...but...is one sure of what the natural law is as in the stealing case? By the way, Proverbs 6:30-31 allows the hungry man to steal but requires he pay back sevenfold. But that must be seen in context of the Sinai Covenant which promised affluence to the Jews if they obeyed the hundreds of laws they were given.
That obedience also promised them no miscarriages. We in the new covenant are not promised those things even for obedience. We get the cross which continues the work of Christ in us for sinners.

Stealing in the case of extreme need is not exception to the absolute prohibition against theft. Theft involves the violation of someone's authority over his own property. However, like all human authority it is not unlimited. As Aquinas teaches, the property belongs to the man in extreme need in virtue not of an exception to theft but of the natural law. Once one understands the essence of the object of usury, theft, contraception, nuclear bombing, etc. the principle is clear and simple. Fringe cases typically involve either a qualification or an attempt to obscure the principle.

I think you're embarassed and have vanished. I checked Aquinas on that section. You understandably as a youngish man followed an overconfident great man into an error that contradicts Scripture....and what did Christ say about the scriptures...."and the scriptures cannot be broken". The Summa T. is the second most important set of books on earth after the Bible. And Aquinas made errors when he put his Aristotalian sing song confidence first before scripture...a sing song confidence you imitate. He sensed he made errors when he was nearing death and called his writings straw. He was incorrect. It was far from straw but he was wrong on asking for the marriage debt being venial sin when you didn't will children....which he copied verbatim from Augustine, a reformed over sexed human being. Aquinas was wrong on killing heretics according to St. JPII's " Splendor of the Truth "....and according to Vatican II.
So when you make errors, remember...Aquinas made worse. You didn't help get 5000 people killed. He did. You didn't tell centuries of married people that they were venially sinning as they asked for the debt hoping not to have the fifteenth child...a marriage debt scripture told them to ask for. Aquinas with his sing song confidence did that. Be yourself....not a great man follower to the point of uncritical imitation.

Since your interpretation of Scripture is not infallible, perhaps you would do well to take your own medicine.

Then why did God have the man pay back sevenfold in Proverbs 6:31 if it belonged to him in virtue of extreme need? If it belonged to him, there should be no restitution let alone sevenfold restitution. I read the entire Summa Theologica and think it very excellent but not infallible...if in fact you are representing it accurately.

"Then why did God have the man pay back sevenfold in Proverbs 6:31 if it belonged to him in virtue of extreme need?"
You would probably be better asking an exegete, however, actually reading the passage and prior verses it seems that it is comparing the evil of adultery and theft when he say that "the fault is not so great" in Proverb 6:30 where the frequent motive for theft is hunger or desire, at least this is the interpretation taken by Haydock in his commentary. From this perspective it appears absurd to be comparing the fault of adultery with the very specific fault of stealing from need. In any case, the English translation is not unambiguous and requires more detailed exegesis . It seems clear that it is presupposing an act of theft and not addressing the problem of whether stealing from grave need is theft.
Regardless, the Catechism (2408) teaches that in the case of grave need, stealing is not an act of theft which is absolutely forbidden and Aquinas is consistent with the Catechism in recognizing the destination of all goods and that property is limited by right reason in accord with that destination, and therefore that the authority of property does not extend over others in grave need.
However, if Aquinas is wrong, it is due to his premises, which require being address in a rational way.

What is perfectly likely is that the CDF Cardinal assigned to write on theft and thus write ccc 2408 followed Aquinas in the Summa while like Aquinas....not knowing Proverbs 6:31 by heart.

Thank you. I appreciate the kind words and your reflections. It's difficult to leave a world where everything is black and white. In a black and white world, you think you know where you stand at all times--and where your neighbor stands. I wouldn't have had the courage to venture out of that world if good priests hadn't helped me along. I don't like ambiguity, but in the process of learning to see the world and people differently, I find a new reverence for human beings that I didn't have in the past. Pain has a way of forcing things open too. I hope you have a blessed Good Friday.

Usury and Contraception are totally different. There is no logical comparison. Contraception is intrinsically evil and leads to abortion, immorality etc. the breakdown of the family continues with its use.

And usury likewise leads to the breakdown of families. Think of people burdened with student loans who don't find the job they were qualified for after graduation. Many live with parents and are trapped in dead-end jobs.

Do such people have the time and circumstances for finding lifelong marriage partners, or will they resort to one-night stands after drinking parties?

If they do somehow end up marrying (or forming a long-term relationship), are these debt-slaves more likely to welcome the prospect of children, or more likely to contracept and abort?

Are they more likely to live stable lives under ever-growing un-repayable debt, or more likely to turn to drugs, either as dealers or despairing users?

I haven't made a single point that could be termed "religious" so far. The natural law in not a bunch of arbitrary rules. Acting against the natural law is acting against our intrinsic purposes as individuals and societies. Usury and contraception both cause hideous damage - if anything, it's easier to argue the case against usury with a non-Catholic audience.

Usury is intrinsically evil and involves the breakdown of economics and friendship. Contraception is incomparable in the sense that it involves both parties committing a grave intrinsic evil, whereas the borrower in usury may not be committing an evil if he borrows from extreme need.

Some women tolerate contraception in order to keep the family intact. She understands that having a father around for her children is better than a man who seeks greener pastures. This kind of situation can be looked upon as "extreme need".

Anna Lisa, if you're thinking of a woman who does not use contraceptives herself, has explained to her husband that she does not want him to contracept, but he insists on doing so, then you are right. Continuing to have sexual relations would be a form of licit "co-operation with evil". Catholic moral teaching, after all, recognises that we live in a world of sinners, and cannot cut ourselves off from them.

Change any of the three circumstances, and the answer is "no".

Some women [actively participate] in the murder of their children in order to, etc.

Intrinsic evil cannot be chosen for any reason.

Loving your spouse (albeit "imperfectly") is so far from aborting a baby, I can't believe you'd even make the comparison.

"[The evil I like] is so far from [the evil I dislike], I can't believe you'd even make the comparison"

Are you married? Older than 26?

Do you know the name of the rhetorical tricks you are employing? Are you aware that you are employing them?

Many, many people (as in ALL of the men except my husband, at a birthday party I attended some months ago) have vasectomies. Do you understand what the Church teaches about that? Do you understand that the Church doesn't require that Catholics cease to have sex with their spouses? Nor does it require that they reverse it after confession. If you were correct, than this would mean that the Church sometimes allows people to engage in "intrinsically" immoral acts.
(And no, I'm not condoning vasectomies either--I have a friend who dearly wanted another child, but her husband had the vasectomy anyway--it's a permanent wound in her soul. But I'm not condemning people either. Nobody needs the book of Deuteronomy as a friend. We simply can't know what secret agonies people suffer from.)

Suppose a man commits adultery and has a child with another woman. The Sacrament of Confession restore unity with God and absolves him of the guilt of his sin. It does not remove the responsibility to his child. There are moral obligations he has to live with even in light of the receiving reconciliation.
A man having received a vasectomy cannot but intend contraceptive sex. His vasectomy imposes moral obligations upon him even in light of his confession.

"A man having received a vasectomy cannot but intend contraceptive sex. His vasectomy imposes moral obligations upon him even in light of his confession."

If you mean that maybe he should go volunteer at a shelter or become a YMCA big brother, you might be on to something, --but the Church leaves that up to his own discretion, and does not place any limitations on sex with his wife. Look it up.

Good to know you believe that a father can abandon his child and substitute being a big brother if that's what he pleases.

That made absolutely zero sense.

Did you stop beating up your girlfriend?

(and did you look up the fact that post-vasectomy sex is permissible?) I know. I know. You think it's not fair. But I didn't make the rule, and you have to admit that it sheds a great deal of light on the value the Church places on "unitive" love even when fertility is not in the picture...God is not a task master.

Since, according to you, moral obligations are at the discretion of penitent after his confession then the adulterer can ignore the moral obligation of his child just as the sterilized man can ignore his moral obligations of his sterilization.

I've seen a lot of speculation from a number of different people about what is required. Generally people think that reversing the mutilation is not obligatory as part of confession and most believe believe having contraceptive sex is permissible, because there is an analogy between a naturally infertile couple an a willfully infertile man.

Reading magisterial documents like Veritatis Splendor by Pope St. John Paul II, contradict such positions, because contraceptive sex is impermissible in virtue of the act itself, regardless if it is confessed. That a self-sterilized man must live with this moral consequences of his act is similar to the adulterer mentioned above, hence the analogy.

Semiotic--I was actually surprised when a (conservative) Catholic priest with a degree in moral theology told me that post vasectomy sex was licit. He even went so far as to say that a spouse has no right to compel a spouse that has had one, to reverse it! He has told me on several occasions, considering other moral dilemmas that: "the enemy of the good is the perfect". I tend to be scrupulous. Scrupulosity turns people into legalistic little freaks.

So there you have it. Maybe ponder the implications for a while...

I'd personally not do it, but what other people do is not my business. I'm relieved that Church thought on marital love does not have an iron fist behind it. I'm also relieved that my husband and I believe in the *love* behind what the Church teaches or we'd never have had the courage to have so many children. No way.

"Scrupulosity turns people into legalistic little freaks."
It also tends to make people deny moral principles and the reality of sin to soothe their anxiety.
We are talking at different levels. I am concerned with moral principles, which are being denied but are inescapable obligations, and you are concerned with living up to those moral principles, which is difficult and I admit.
If and when you fall, go to confession with sincere contrition and a firm purpose of ammendment, embrace the loving mercy of God and go and sin no more. This is the beauty of a God who offers his murderers and betrayers eternal glory and familial intimacy with him. But for the love of the Mercy of God don't act like you didn't sin!

You know what life has taught me? (I guess I'm over the hill now)--That most people--the vast, vast, majority of them--want to be good. They want good things that are healthy for themselves and their families. And they are good. The Natural Law is written upon our hearts.

What has alarmed me more and more recently are "Faithful Catholics". I'm not saying that to annoy you, I'm saying it because their behavior (especially as of late?) is. right. out. of. the. gospels.

Human beings have this obsession with besting each other--whether it's a sister-in-law who eats all organic, a Trump and a Biden, Elon Musk and Zuckerberg--the power Moms at school--the guys in their gleaming sports cars--the Lulu Lemon Pilates extraordinaires--the feminist feministas--the mantilla-bells-and-smells-babes that glare at other women--the neurotic Traditional men who loathe the women who don't know their place...Some of the angry priests that love to hate Francis over at the Catholic Register...They all have the same thing in common--they crave to be *better* than their neighbor.

It's natural to want to expect more from a Catholic. -- You want to see them as more like Jesus. It seems like the regular, down-to-earth Catholics that trudge into Mass with some regularity more closely resemble Jesus. They aren't trying to save the Church, or save marriage, or are eyeing the length of skirts. They're just trying to be good by giving a neighbor a helping hand here and there, getting their kids to and from school and a couple of lessons, cooking a healthy meal, inviting some friends somewhere to share some wine from time-to-time. Uber Catholics don't resemble the average Joe on the street. Perhaps it's because they have this secret fantasy of being more loved by God--like they are his favorites. That everybody else is pretty much riff raff.

I understand wanting to know what the general rules are. Rules have their place. Order is good. But living your life obsessively in fear of not being the best, or crossing that line or forgetting that rule --to the point of even going against your own common sense to fit a square peg into a round hole because someone ordered you to do it?
-- Even when your conscience tells you that you are not acting in the service of charity--? That's twisted. The Uber Catholics will try to drown out the noise of another Catholic's conscience. They will tell you who is kosher and who is not. They want to decide who can approach the Eucharist and who is too dirty.

That must be why Jesus chose down-to-earth, practical fishermen instead of the temple priests. The temple priests were nosy, sanctimonious jerks with a superiority complex.

Mea culpa for all of the times that I've ever thought I was better than the next guy. I know I've done it, mea culpa.

I bet the superstars of the Last Judgement will surprise us (blow our minds!), and the grinding teeth will come from some surprising quarters too.

I've seen some stuff straight out of the Gospel as well. "Isn't it better that a couple contracept then the whole family be destroyed" (John 11:50) or the obsessive casuistry "What about the husband with AIDS", "What about taxes to Caesar", "What about a vasectomy", "What about the woman married seven times", etc. So, you will pardon me if I skip over the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the "Trying-Hard Catholics."
My argument has been very simple. There exists binding moral principles, which are being denied and undermined, whether usury, the use of nuclear weapons, contraception, adultery or whatever other intrinsic evil. This is what one of the superstars of the Last Judgement, Pope John Paul II taught.

How's the weather up there in that ivory tower?

You should study the demeanor of your Lord and Savior so you won't be tempted to vilify the human beings who commit sins that you are too pure to commit. Good Grief. I already told you why I didn't commit those sins. --I was raised by exceptional Catholic parents with a bit 'o money to throw my way. It took me years to realize that what they tempted me with was the deadliest of sins.

Pride.

I have the model Catholic family, (most of them look like they could be models too.) But I have never met a more judgmental collection of human beings. So what's your excuse?

I don't think I've violated those binding principles you speak of--I'm more worried about what I HAVEN'T done.

I'm more worried about how I haven't served the poor marginalized that didn't have my upbringing. And I'm guilty of thinking "I'm not like these". If it hadn't been for the priest from a poor African country that I confessed to on Monday, I'd be tormented by it. He set my conscience at ease, thanks be to God.

"You should study the demeanor of your Lord and Savior so you won't be tempted to vilify the human beings who commit sins that you are too pure to commit."
Since you are content imitating Uber Catholics by vilifying them and me, let me say: Physician, heal thyself.

Isn't it true that a woman is free to use a condom in self defense if her husband has the AIDS virus?

No. Self defense does not justify intrinsic evil. It is not licit to contracept, commit fornication, lie, or murder in self defense. This holds for all intrinsic evils.

It is legitimate to kill in self defense. Unfortunate, tragic--yes, but licit to kill in self defense or defense of a loved one. It is also legitimate for a mother to undergo a therapy that has a side effect which kills her unborn child. She does not sin if the child dies. Some saints have given up their lives by not undergoing treatment, so their child would live. We honor it, but don't require it. My friend's Mom did that. She refused chemo to save her child and died shortly after his birth.

You will notice that I specifically used the term murder. I didn’t say it was illicit to kill in self defense, I said it was illicit to murder in self defense.

Never mind. (Ed: I deleted my comments because I thought the discussion was getting off into the weeds enough as it was, before I realized that the person I was talking to had thoughtfully replied to it.)

If lethal force was proportionate in the situation, and there existed no other reasonable means of defending oneself, then I don't think it would be morally illicit. A person does not have to know that they are engaging in attacking behaviors in order to be considered an aggressor (and therefore not innocent in the pertinent sense). At least that is my understanding.

I had a feeling you might be going that route, but it proves a point. Intent is everything.